I was scanning the wires at work earlier tonight and came upon a brief on the World wire about how India is changing the name of some of its major cities. In order to keep authenticity, perhaps some of you would like to change the appropriate city names in your Civ II support folder.

Apparently this is an effort by parties in India to reassert the old names of these cities, rather than the ones used under colonialism. The cities in question include:

1. Calcutta = Kolkata
2. Madras = Chennai
3. Bombay = Mumbai (many Indians still refer to the city by "Bombay" though)

The following is the full text of the article in question:

quote: NEW DELHI, India (AP) — Calcutta reverted to its indigenous name of "Kolkata" on Saturday, joining a growing number of Indian cities trying to shrug off their colonial legacy by bringing back their old monikers. The capital of India's West Bengal state will now be known by the Bengali version of its name, the federal government announced in a statement. "The government of India, after careful consideration, accepted the proposal of the State Government of West Bengal to change the name of the city of Calcutta to Kolkata," the statement read. New Delhi deliberated on the request for a year and a half before agreeing to the change. All government departments and agencies will have to change their names to comply with the directive, made after more than 50 years of independence from Great Britain. Bombay, India's financial capital, was renamed Mumbai more than four years ago by the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena government. Most Indians, though, still call it Bombay. Many other cities followed its example. Madras in southern India was renamed Chennai, and Trivandrum was changed to Thiruvananthapuram. For Calcutta, the change may not be so noticeable. Bengali speakers have always called it Kolkata, preferring the local pronunciation.

Some tribes are just strange. Like having the "Americans" build D.C. in 4000 BC. The Americans are of course a product of European colonization, and as such shouldn't even exist until at least after 1600 AD.

"The Vikings" are another strange "tribe", as "vikings" is a name for the Scandianavians that was only used for about 200 years. And "Trondheim" should not be their capital. There are lots of towns that are older and more important than Trondheim.

To be correct, modern "French", "Spanish" and "English" are all mixes of various tribes that settled their lands. For France they were Gauls (Celts), Romans and germanic Franks. For Spain they were Iberians, Celts, Basques, Romans, Goths and Moors. And for Britain Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

But then again, Normans were simply a mixture between French and Vikings, and the Viking culture was closely related to the Anglo-Saxon one.

A perfect simulation of history would be interesting, but hardly fun to play.

When I play Civ, I can get quite involved in the game, and my Civ kinda gets a life of its own. (Well, at least if my Civ is winning, and I can rest on my laurels, If I'm strugglling to survive it's a whole different picture). So I usually rename all of my cities to something I like. And since I'm a history-buff, it's usually a historic name.

To me, it doesn't make sence to found "New York" around 1500BC, when there's no (old) "York". New York was of course named by the English after York, and as such the name "New York" would only be given by the Civ that already has "York" in my thinking.

It is perfectly legal to get involved in the game, and discuss trivial issues. Just because you don't care what you name your cities doesn't mean noone is allowed to care.

quote: Originally posted by Smokey tha nuke man on 01-06-2001 04:28 PM 2. i think the tribes should have differences, like have roman legions 5/2/2 and chinese musketeers come earlier, and americans get first nukes, and germans get 13 attack tanks, if someone could do stuff like this with brth of the federation (very smiliar ti civ, only nicer combat) then they can doit with civ. anyone agree?

Well, I get what you mean. Like "Legions" is something unique to the Romans, and "Phalanx" unique to the Greeks. But in a standard Civ2 game all civs are supposed to be equal from the start, and therefor limiting phalanxes to the Greeks would limit the other Civs. So I don't think it should be like that. However, in a scenario it would be totally ok. The same goes with Roman Legions being stronger than Persian Legions.

As for nukes, Americans should NOT automatically get them first. In reality there was a race, because the US feared that the Germans were developing nukes. Civ can model a race to develop nukes, and that is pretty realistic, as it really was a race between Germany, U.S. and the Soviet.

When would the Germans get their 13 tanks? 4000BC? When they discover automobile? When they switch Governament to something like Despotism or Fundamentalism? I don't think that would work, other than as an event in a WWII scenario.

It's always funny to read Washington founded in 4000BC and Zulus discover Nuclear Power or Greeks arrive in Alpha Centauri (although this can happen with the European Space Agency. emm, maybe not

On the other hand, CIV is really the best «game of the world». I mean which other game encompasses so much of humanity's struggles throughout history, its achievements and cruelties, its aspirations and inherent faults(I am rambling here, somebody stop me). That goes to say that Civ is always a good motive to make references to historical milestones and facts or the ways of the modern world.

You can't do that playing Pac man.