What do you think about the voice acting in Civ 6?

[MooFreaky]

Cleopatra: (Middle Egyptian)
Maybe I have heard too much Arabic egyptian. I find her accent doesn't sound very egyptian and she didn't speak too fluently (some unnaturally pause in her lines). Cleo should have a more charming voice.

I don't need to know Middle Egyptian to know that random pauses mid-word do not constitute a natural speech cadence.

I doubt it is intended this way, but I always write it off as Cleopatra not being fluent in Egyptian. She was the first of the Ptolemys to learn the language, and while she was clearly gifted with languages, I take her Civ6 style of speech as it not being native so it doesn't quite roll of her tongue. Much like how even people with fluent ESL will have slightly different (and oft unnatural to our ears) gaps or whatnot. We don't know how she spoke it, but I like the story behind this logic. Just as I like De Medici speaking French with an Italian accent, because it's a little extra detail that most will miss.

 

[Zaarin]

I doubt it is intended this way, but I always write it off as Cleopatra not being fluent in Egyptian. She was the first of the Ptolemys to learn the language, and while she was clearly gifted with languages, I take her Civ6 style of speech as it not being native so it doesn't quite roll of her tongue. Much like how even people with fluent ESL will have slightly different (and oft unnatural to our ears) gaps or whatnot. We don't know how she spoke it, but I like the story behind this logic. Just as I like De Medici speaking French with an Italian accent, because it's a little extra detail that most will miss.

As you say, the real Cleopatra obviously had a knack for languages, but I agree that this is a fair interpretation. We can also excuse Gilgamesh's bad Akkadian this way, since no one in Sumer was speaking Akkadian in 2650 BC. Now how do we excuse Cyrus's bad Persian, since it was his native language... I guess there are (very poorly supported) theories that Cyrus was either a Mede or an Elamite...

 

[Guandao]

As you say, the real Cleopatra obviously had a knack for languages, but I agree that this is a fair interpretation. We can also excuse Gilgamesh's bad Akkadian this way, since no one in Sumer was speaking Akkadian in 2650 BC. Now how do we excuse Cyrus's bad Persian, since it was his native language... I guess there are (very poorly supported) theories that Cyrus was either a Mede or an Elamite...

At least Cyrus is speaking some weird cross between Old and Sassanid Persian....
If he was a Mede, perhaps modern Kurdish would suffice....
And if he was an Elamite, maybe a modern Dravidian language should do

 

[halfhalfharp]

I doubt it is intended this way, but I always write it off as Cleopatra not being fluent in Egyptian. She was the first of the Ptolemys to learn the language, and while she was clearly gifted with languages, I take her Civ6 style of speech as it not being native so it doesn't quite roll of her tongue. Much like how even people with fluent ESL will have slightly different (and oft unnatural to our ears) gaps or whatnot. We don't know how she spoke it, but I like the story behind this logic. Just as I like De Medici speaking French with an Italian accent, because it's a little extra detail that most will miss.

Certainly Cleo may have accents. But firstly she doesnt sound greek (look at Gorgo and Pericles).
And secondly accent is different from in-fluency. Just like I am speaking english fluently but with accents for certain. Cleo currently gives me the impression of in-fluency.

It becomes really obvious in her prep talk.
It sounds like, take the above sentence as example:
It be-comes-rea-ly-ob-vi-ous-in- her prep talk.

Of course I am not minding the pronunciation accuracy. But at least i guess she can speak them in a more natural way. Anyway just some minor complains

 

[Guandao]

Certainly Cleo may have accents. But firstly she doesnt sound greek (look at Gorgo and Pericles).
And secondly accent is different from in-fluency. Just like I am speaking english fluently but with accents for certain. Cleo currently gives me the impression of in-fluency.

It becomes really obvious in her prep talk.
It sounds like, take the above sentence as example:
It be-comes-rea-ly-ob-vi-ous-in- her prep talk.

Romanticized depictions of Cleo has heavily influenced her Civ 6 design...plus they tried to make her look native Egyptian. The real life Cleo had tons of inbreeding within her lineage and was renowned for her big nose

 

[God of Kings]

I wonder if they shared a common ancester or proto language?

Vietnamese and Thai, languages heavily influenced by Khmer always sound funny ( to a degree that is laughable) to chinese speakers due to the mismatch of the tones.

Imagine Qin greeting us with his intensive tongue rolling and vietnamese tone.

It's very hard to believe that all modern varieties of Chinese no longer have a trilled "r".

 

[MooFreaky]

Now how do we excuse Cyrus's bad Persian, since it was his native language... I guess there are (very poorly supported) theories that Cyrus was either a Mede or an Elamite...

Maybe he was just thick? Or poorly spoken? I have friends who have grown up here in Australia and are incredibly intelligent, high achieving individuals but can barely string a sentence together for one reason or another. If you didn't know better you'd think they mustn't be native English speakers. So perhaps he just failed at speech?
Or maybe he's just not feeling well. He could be covering up a big fever and having one of those days where he can't even.

Certainly Cleo may have accents. But firstly she doesnt sound greek (look at Gorgo and Pericles).
And secondly accent is different from in-fluency. Just like I am speaking english fluently but with accents for certain. Cleo currently gives me the impression of in-fluency.

I wonder how the Ptolemaic accent would have sounded compared to the rest of Greece? I mean even Greece had differences of accent, but would the successor states been even more? With hundreds of years of separation I wonder just how many differences to accent and local dialect crept in. I wish we could know.
Look at Australia and Britain, we can understand each other but sometimes I'll say something that my relatives are just like "what now?". I think Zaarin should invent time travel so we can go and see, but apparently he's too slack.

 

[halfhalfharp]

I wonder how the Ptolemaic accent would have sounded compared to the rest of Greece? I mean even Greece had differences of accent, but would the successor states been even more? With hundreds of years of separation I wonder just how many differences to accent and local dialect crept in. I wish we could know.
Look at Australia and Britain, we can understand each other but sometimes I'll say something that my relatives are just like "what now?". I think Zaarin should invent time travel so we can go and see, but apparently he's too slack.

Possibly. Thats why I also tend to have a let go on this matter.

It's very hard to believe that all modern varieties of Chinese no longer have a trilled "r".

French also drop the trilled rrrr although its a roman language. The regional difference was considerable in ancient times. Some ancient dialects did not roll the rrr and eventually they might just drop it.

It is also possible that the rrrrr does not imply a trilling and has other phonetical value. Reconstructions of ancient chinese pronunciation often derived from Sankhrit Buddhist translations (Chinese translated the buddhist text transliterally, keeping most of their phonetic values), as we know better how Sankhrit sounded like. And Sankhrit trilled the rrrr.

Personally I don't think that ancient chinese was that odd in pronunciation. It should possibly be more fluent and flowing, unlike that shown in the video. Its about how they render the consonants.

As an example, in Cantonese, the word "yat" does not involve the hard "t" sound, instead it sounds like a "ya" followed immediately by the tongue tipping the upper palate.

But the guys reconstructing ancient chinese seem to pronounce all words as hard consonants, making the whole thing auditorily super weird, literally a pause in every word.

 

[Zaarin]

At least Cyrus is speaking some weird cross between Old and Sassanid Persian....
If he was a Mede, perhaps modern Kurdish would suffice....
And if he was an Elamite, maybe a modern Dravidian language should do

The philological history of Kurdish is obscure and made worse by the fact that half the linguists working on it are Kurdish nationalists, but I'm pretty certain it broke off too recently for it to actually be descended from Medean. I also don't buy Elamite-Dravidian; the evidence is just too sparse.

Romanticized depictions of Cleo has heavily influenced her Civ 6 design...plus they tried to make her look native Egyptian. The real life Cleo had tons of inbreeding within her lineage and was renowned for her big nose

I disagree. She looks more Greek than Egyptian to me; like I mentioned in another thread she actually reminds me a bit of Marina Sirtis. But yeah, Firaxis seems to have missed the memo that Cleo was supposed to be charming but not beautiful.

French also drop the trilled rrrr although its a roman language. The regional difference was considerable in ancient times. Some ancient dialects did not roll the rrr and eventually they might just drop it.

Depends on the variety of French. Parisian French has the famous uvular R that has also spread to prestige dialects of German, Danish, and some other Central European languages, but some dialects of French, especially in the south, still have the trilled R, a very strident trill, in fact.

 

[King Rad]

I turn off all music, sound, leader animations, etc. [except battle animations - I still watch those]. I'm usually watching a sport [or Olympics] or other TV show while playing the game. So the quality of voice acting or civ music is irrelevant to me. Of course, sometimes that means it takes a couple of hours just to get through 2-3 turns because of the show. Most shows really don't require 'watching' them the whole time, since a lot of the 'action' is covered by one person talking to another - or in the case of football, for example, simply looking up for 10 seconds or so every minute while the game is actually being played as opposed to the team getting back to the line of scrimmage or the huddle; whatever.

 

[Guandao]

The philological history of Kurdish is obscure and made worse by the fact that half the linguists working on it are Kurdish nationalists, but I'm pretty certain it broke off too recently for it to actually be descended from Medean. I also don't buy Elamite-Dravidian; the evidence is just too sparse.


I disagree. She looks more Greek than Egyptian to me; like I mentioned in another thread she actually reminds me a bit of Marina Sirtis. But yeah, Firaxis seems to have missed the memo that Cleo was supposed to be charming but not beautiful.

Ok maybe Cleopatra does look like a 21st century Greek woman (I've had a Greek American classmate with blonde hair and blue eyes before though....others with dark eyes and brown hair). But she has anachronistic headgear, and New Kingdom clothes. At least she doesn't resemble Nefertiti, Tiya, Ankhenasamun, Hatshepsut or the Faiyum portraits....

Kurdish is an interesting Iranian language, and Kurdistan is a probably future country..... Elamite is also a fascinating language and many 21st Persian people are unaware of its former existence. Elam transformed into Khuzestan....

 

[Zaarin]

Ok maybe Cleopatra does look like a 21st century Greek woman (I've had a Greek American classmate with blonde hair and blue eyes before though....others with dark eyes and brown hair).

Yeah, they're a pretty diverse group, ranging from blond to Mediterranean in appearance. Don't forget that Alexander was famous for his golden hair, that most of the gods were blond, and that Aphrodite was a redhead.

But she has anachronistic headgear, and New Kingdom clothes. At least she doesn't resemble Nefertiti, Tiya, Ankhenasamun, Hatshepsut or the Faiyum portraits....

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking with her clothes. Her hair and wig don't look like anything any Egyptian wore ever (honestly it looks more like a football helmet), the clothing looks like they took an Old Kingdom tunic and replaced the straps with breast pads (presumably for the ratings...I don't think they were prepared to show her bare-breasted ), and then smeared gaudy 80s Egyptian fantasy makeup on her that bears little resemblance to Egyptian makeup. Her clothing should have looked like the illustration on the right:



And while Ancient Egyptian makeup was bold, Cleo's overdoing it. (And it should be green, not purple.) And she probably wore her hair in a Greek style, but if they were going to go for the Egyptian style headdress they could at least have gotten it right--though even the Elizabeth Taylor wig would have been an improvement.

Really, because they chose Cleopatra, Firaxis had three choices: 1) portray her as she probably actually looked, as a Hellenistic noblewoman (which would have drawn a lot of complaints from the casual fans, who expect the Egyptian leader to look Egyptian, even if she is not in fact Egyptian); 2) portray her as a Hellene in Ancient Egyptian clothing (this probably would have satisfied most people insofar as the more serious history buffs, like you and me, would have preferred an actual Egyptian leader in the first place); and 3) portray her as a Hellene in Egyptian fantasy clothes. For reasons inscrutable, Firaxis chose the third option.

Kurdish is an interesting Iranian language, and Kurdistan is a probably future country..... Elamite is also a fascinating language and many 21st Persian people are unaware of its former existence. Elam transformed into Khuzestan....

Elam was a fascinating period in history, and one that probably doesn't get the attention it deserves because it was contemporary with Babylon and succeeded by Persia. But Elamite is well-attested and had a pretty good run. I'd still love to see an Elam civ (but not at the expense of Babylon, you hear me, Firaxis? ).

 

[halfhalfharp]

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking with her clothes. Her hair and wig don't look like anything any Egyptian wore ever (honestly it looks more like a football helmet), the clothing looks like they took an Old Kingdom tunic and replaced the straps with breast pads (presumably for the ratings...I don't think they were prepared to show her bare-breasted ), and then smeared gaudy 80s Egyptian fantasy makeup on her that bears little resemblance to Egyptian makeup. Her clothing should have looked like the illustration on the right:



And while Ancient Egyptian makeup was bold, Cleo's overdoing it. (And it should be green, not purple.) And she probably wore her hair in a Greek style, but if they were going to go for the Egyptian style headdress they could at least have gotten it right--though even the Elizabeth Taylor wig would have been an improvement.

Really, because they chose Cleopatra, Firaxis had three choices: 1) portray her as she probably actually looked, as a Hellenistic noblewoman (which would have drawn a lot of complaints from the casual fans, who expect the Egyptian leader to look Egyptian, even if she is not in fact Egyptian); 2) portray her as a Hellene in Ancient Egyptian clothing (this probably would have satisfied most people insofar as the more serious history buffs, like you and me, would have preferred an actual Egyptian leader in the first place); and 3) portray her as a Hellene in Egyptian fantasy clothes. For reasons inscrutable, Firaxis chose the third option.


Elam was a fascinating period in history, and one that probably doesn't get the attention it deserves because it was contemporary with Babylon and succeeded by Persia. But Elamite is well-attested and had a pretty good run. I'd still love to see an Elam civ (but not at the expense of Babylon, you hear me, Firaxis? ).

I have little right in commenting her clothing, as I don't think that my impressions on egyptian clothing is that accurate...But I do agree that her headgear is pretty weird by what I observe from those murals and modern movie depictions. The bird like headgear looks like a metal plate on her head, rather than being a covering hemlet.

Spoiler Should it be sth like this? :

And for the hairstyle, I guess Cleo has short hair rather than a greek hairstyle in the game. (as there are some strips of hair leaking out at the edge of the headgear, hinting her hair is rather short.) But nothing can be sure until we can remove the headgear like this

Spoiler Bald Gilgamesh :

 

[God of Kings]

Spoiler Bald Gilgamesh :

View attachment 489786

Gilgabro would go well with Jayavarman VII.

 

[halfhalfharp]

Btw.... Is this guy the same as Peter's voice actor?

This

I can immediately think of Peter from this voice only trailer.

 

[Kimiimaro]

Btw.... Is this guy the same as Peter's voice actor?

This

I can immediately think of Peter from this voice only trailer.

I think this one is similar, but a little bit deeper.

 

[Guandao]

I think this one is similar, but a little bit deeper.

Well, he is a voice actor , so he could be making his voice deeper for the EU video. It sounds similar to Peter's voice actor.

 

[isau]

The voice acting is fine but some of the quotes drive me up the wall. That line about Mount Whatever Not Being Wi-Fi Enabled. Pointless, tired, unfunny, trying too hard--the civ equivalent of coffee shop poetry.

 

[thecrazyscot]

The only voice acting I can comment on is Sean Bean's, as I never play with leader animations on

He's...fine I guess. I do wish there was at least some variety in the quotes, as it is I just skip through everything he says now as well.

Is there a setting to turn off the tech quotes? I'd do that if I could, then I'd be even less qualified to comment on the voice acting.

 

[God of Kings]

I really wish for an option to disable all voice acting in Civ VI fully.

Even setting voice volume to zero doesn't get rid of Sean Bean's voice in the victory and defeat videos!

At least he isn't quoting something stupid in them.