Fix the colonial nation names please

[CaptRobau]

The game is very much coming together, but one of the features that has only been implemented haphazardly has been the names of the colonial names. My issues with the system:

1. Not all major colonizing nations have a specific name attached to each region, even if they colonized it historically. If Portugal colonizes Brazil, its default name is not Brazil but Portuguese Brazil. Where's the logic in that? It really makes the post-16th century game look absolutely ridiculous.
2. Some names have logical flair. If France has an alliance with or controls Scotland for example, it might call Canada Nouvelle Ecosse (French translation of Nova Scotia/New Scotland). Scotland can also name Canada, Nouvelle Ecosse but there are no limitations here. So you can have an AI Scotland that hates France and still honors the country by calling its colony Nouvelle Ecosse. That's immersion breaking and since it could easily be solved by adding a simple trigger, it stings even more. So much care was put into things like DHE to give the game an 'ahistorical but logical' feeling, but here it just falters.
3. Limit English Brazil/Portuguese Brazil/Spanish Brazil as much as possible. In 90% of all games you know what the colonizers will be, so make sure they have at least one unique name for each area. It's okay to have it when Granada colonizes the New World, but when it happens every game and the colonizers are just Spain/England/Portugal it just pulls you out of it.
4. If you have to do 'Adjective' Brazil, etc. switch it to the country adjective instead of the currently used cultural name. French Venezuela makes much more sense than Cosmopolitaine Venezuela. It would also eliminate problems with two colonizers from the same culture group colonizing the same reason. If you have Orleans colonizing Mexico and France is as well, that will prevent there from being two Cosmopolitaine Mexicos.

 

[grommile]

1. Not all major colonizing nations have a specific name attached to each region, even if they colonized it historically. If Portugal colonizes Brazil, its default name is not Brazil but Portuguese Brazil. Where's the logic in that? It really makes the post-16th century game look absolutely ridiculous.

The name "Brazil" is taken by the tag BRZ that a successfully-independent Brazilian CN can adopt for itself (and which, in pre-CoP games, was used for the colonial revolter state in that part of the world).

 

[nalfz]

Agree so much on 4
'Cosmopolitaine' anything just irritates the hell out of me. Makes absolutely no sense
Why would they have done that when there are perfectly good, already defined adjectives for each country? Is the naming thing different in swedish? That's about the only reason this would be forgiveable lol

 

[CaptRobau]

The name "Brazil" is taken by the tag BRZ that a successfully-independent Brazilian CN can adopt for itself (and which, in pre-CoP games, was used for the colonial revolter state in that part of the world).

Ok. There's still a lot of potential real names to be used then, instead of Portuguese Brazil. Any of the Brazilian states would still be better: Maranhao, Bahia, etc.

 

[Contiguous]

How about Goverate-General of Brazil, or the Portuguese (Seeing as though Spanish West Indies is 'Hispaniola' - though curiously Spanish Mexico is not Nueva España) Governo-Geral do Brasil. Or the intial name given to it by the Portuguese, when they thought Brazil was a large island - the Island of the True Cross.

 

[DC123456789]

I don't really care for any of the other ones but point 4 is very, very, very desperately needed.

 

[Incompetent]

Agree so much on 4
'Cosmopolitaine' anything just irritates the hell out of me. Makes absolutely no sense
Why would they have done that when there are perfectly good, already defined adjectives for each country? Is the naming thing different in swedish? That's about the only reason this would be forgiveable lol

+1, it irritates me too. The only pseudo-justification I can think of is that it might be confusing if the founding country's name changes, e.g. you have 'English Brazil' next to 'British Guyana'. But then the same thing could happen if a country shifts culture. Also, what if two countries with the same culture start colonising, e.g. Genoa and Venice? You could have two different countries called 'Lombard Brazil', and you'd have to look at the flags/colours to work out which of them belongs to which country.

 

[blackchoas]

I might suggest for every "reasonable" colonizing nation and maybe some random hidden choices have a list of 3-5 unique names that will be given to various colonies regardless of the area they settle and only after they unique names are used up should the "culture" "region" names be used

I suggest this partly because its unclear to me why Spain wouldn't consider Brazil to be New Spain if pretty much all their colonial resources went into it and only a bare minimum of colonization had happened in Mexico years after the Brazil was established

 

[richelieu1628]

I might suggest for every "reasonable" colonizing nation and maybe some random hidden choices have a list of 3-5 unique names that will be given to various colonies regardless of the area they settle and only after they unique names are used up should the "culture" "region" names be used

I suggest this partly because its unclear to me why Spain wouldn't consider Brazil to be New Spain if pretty much all their colonial resources went into it and only a bare minimum of colonization had happened in Mexico years after the Brazil was established

This. The point is not that Portugal wouldn't call Brazil Brazil - which is derived from Portuguese after all (something about "brasa" and brazilwood). It's that France and Spain wouldn't have called it that. So it would make sense for the big colonials to have a few non-generic names (say, Estado do Brazil, Canada, Thirteen Colonies) plus some generic ones like New Spain, New Granada etc.

And a big yes to the adjectives being derived from the country name, not the culture name. Why would the Hansa call their colony Hanoverian Canada, not Hanseatic Canada? The location files have those defined, right?

 

[balmung60]

The only one I care about is the adjectives. "Cosmopolitaine Brazil", "Mashriqi La Plata", "Kannada Australia", "Han California", "Rheinlander West Indies", "Austrian Australia", "Prussian Alaska", and "Old Prussian Mexico" are all examples of horribly unhelpful and badly descriptive names for varying reasons, when "French Brazil", "Iraqi La Plata", "Vijayanagari Australia", "Ming California", "Swiss West Indies", "Tirolean Australia", "Livonian Alaska", and "Oh Dear God Why Are They Using Cultural Adjectives, Especially Ones That Are Modified By Adverbs When National Adjectives Are Already Coded, Are Way More Helpful, And Look Way Better... Mexico" are all much more helpful names because they actually connect the colonial subject to their overlord instead of to a culture that may not match their overlord's national adjective, may match another country's adjective, or not only doesn't match their overlord's national adjective, but also could apply to several countries, none of whom it matches directly.

 

[billclintonmask]

The problem is that some of those sound way better than others. Han California has a much better ring to it than Ming California for instance, while French Mexico obviously sounds better than Cosmopolitaine Mexico.

 

[Squirrelloid]

"Oh Dear God Why Are They Using Cultural Adjectives, Especially Ones That Are Modified By Adverbs When National Adjectives Are Already Coded, Are Way More Helpful, And Look Way Better... Mexico"

Note to self: use this name for a CN

 

[balmung60]

Note to self: use this name for a CN

Alas, I'm pretty sure the game would cut you off before the first comma.

 

[ahyangyi]

The problem is that some of those sound way better than others. Han California has a much better ring to it than Ming California for instance, while French Mexico obviously sounds better than Cosmopolitaine Mexico.

They should just fix "Han" to "Mandarin" (since Han should really be the cultural group name anyways, Cantonese is as Han as Northern Chinese). Since Mandarin California sounds every more terrible, Ming California becomes the only viable choice

 

[ahyangyi]

I'm playing Arawak right now, and I often wonder what the "Lokono Mexico" is....

 

[Incompetent]

They should just fix "Han" to "Mandarin" (since Han should really be the cultural group name anyways, Cantonese is as Han as Northern Chinese). Since Mandarin California sounds every more terrible, Ming California becomes the only viable choice

'Ming' isn't a proper country name anyway. This isn't some random collection of territories amassed by the ruling dynasty (see e.g. Ottoman Empire or Habsburg Empire), it's a mostly unified country with an ancient history of nationhood. The standard English name for this country is 'China'.

The only time we should see a country called 'Ming' on the map is when the Ming dynasty has lost the Mandate of Heaven and been replaced by someone else as the dominant power, but is clinging onto some southern enclaves. Anyone who has Chinese primary culture and rules over China should be called China.

 

[ahyangyi]

'Ming' isn't a proper country name anyway. This isn't some random collection of territories amassed by the ruling dynasty (see e.g. Ottoman Empire or Habsburg Empire), it's a mostly unified country with an ancient history of nationhood. The standard English name for this country is 'China'.

The only time we should see a country called 'Ming' on the map is when the Ming dynasty has lost the Mandate of Heaven and been replaced by someone else as the dominant power, but is clinging onto some southern enclaves. Anyone who has Chinese primary culture and rules over China should be called China.

Agreed.

Since I absolutely hate the names Shun, Xi and Zhou (because they are just arbitrary country names named by their respective rulers), anything that cause them to be called China when they grow up is welcomed.

 

[Shimohi]

Trade companies need fixing too, because of the same issue als colonial nations.

 

[TheBoozehammer]

Agreed, I would also like to see the flags changed to a smaller version in the top-left corner instead of the current half flag.

 

[Kansai-kun]

Agreed, I would also like to see the flags changed to a smaller version in the top-left corner instead of the current half flag.

Oh yes, that so much. The current system looks only good for CoAs that are already halved or quartered, like Kurland or Gelre - but for most CoAs it just looks ugly.