Why "states"?

[Rebel1776]

Well the reason why the United States doesn't use Province, aside from the name, is due to the Individual Sovereignty of said States under one Central Republic, also referred to as the "State". The 10th Amendment, or any literature of the time, used to actually mean something back then, and be enforced.

My personal opinion aside, if you wish to explain how Paradox should differentiate the independent AI actions of the Provence of Quebec and those of the State of Virginia, I'm willing to listen. However what will it gain us in terms of Gameplay Mechanics? Either keep the Terminology Uniform, or use mods to fix the simple pet peeves you seem to have about how they opted to name land zones.

Also, if Paradox Releases the game with the "Provence of Virginia", instead of the State of Virginia, there will be a Riot on this forum; it wont just be from me either..

 

[Rubidium]

Also, if Paradox Releases the game with the "Provence of Virginia", instead of the State of Virginia, there will be a Riot on this forum; it wont just be from me either..

Clearly they should just use "Commonwealth of Virginia" instead.

But as noted, there are no neutral terms for province/state/region/county/oblast/whatever.

"State" is used by multiple countries (including, incidentally, the US, Australia, and India, so the home countries of a super-majority of "native" English speakers however you want to define "native", although that shouldn't necessarily be dispositive). It's what Paradox already uses in several other titles (including previous Victoria iterations). And it's generally perfectly understandable in context (I can't imagine many people are going to be confused in conversation about whether you mean country or subnational unit when you say "state" in a realistic sentence, although I recognize it may cause problems for translators).

 

[Zhetone]

any suggestion to use different terms for each country is bad to me because it would just get confusing. the game should use the same term for the same thing universally if it isn't otherwise negative to do so and I don't really see how much value is added by having "localized" terms for subdivisions

 

[ImperatorLJ]

I think the term "state" is fine.

Also, if a person hears the word state, and therefore assumes everything is like the States of the United States, then that person needs to be introduced to more history and political knowledge than what Vic 3 provides anyway.

 

[VineFynn]

I vote for arrondissements. Or alternatively Region -> Subregion -> Subsubregion.

 

[Grim Deadman]

I vote for arrondissements. Or alternatively Region -> Subregion -> Subsubregion.

Spotted the Parisian

 

[Lord Canterbury]

Clearly they should just use "Commonwealth of Virginia" instead.

Oooooh. Can we get this. Pleeeeease. I never knew I could needed to see an internet reaction this badly.

 

[kviiri]

Federal countries should use the term "State", and unitary countries should use another term: area, region, territory, province, whatever.

I would not favor this. "State" is a game-mechanical term describing a certain subdivision of land with certain properties: having multiple names for game mechanical concepts is seldom a good idea and can detract from the game's clarity.

 

[Woifee]

States still could have names that add flavour to them. Like Commonwealth, like Kindom, like Republic...

But for the interface and game mechanic the game should only use one term. State as such works fine.

 

[VineFynn]

Spotted the Parisian

I'm from Australia lmao

 

[Danon010921]

I'm pretty sure state is good enough

 

[Red Death]

Personally I dislike the use of the word "state" for these administrative units since I'd prefer to use this word to refer to the different tags (sometimes the word "country" doesn't really fit a tag well). Also, from my own background, the word normally refers to sovereign governments, so it can be a bit confusing to see it used this way.

However, it's not like I can think of a perfect alternative. Eu4 uses "area", which is fairly neutral but also doesn't really sound like an administrative division.

In any case, the most important thing is that terms are clear and used consistently, so using different terms in different tags is definitely unwise.

 

[wtrmute]

Dioecesis? Satrapy? Suyu? Thema? Han?

Yeah, it's difficult to get a name that can be used without going for the super-clumsy administrative division, which is what it is.

 

[CocoBZ]

Old games used "areas" and "regions" to refer to conglomerates of provinces and areas respectively.