Expanded egyptian names

[Sute]{h]

I was getting annoyed with the very small number of egyptian names in the game, which caused me to have several characters with identical names. So in order to avoid this somewhat I expanded the possible names with a list of names from Steve Jackson Games GURPS Egypt. While they might not be 100% historical accurate, they are close enough for my taste.

So here is the link to the modified cultures.txt in case anyone else is annoyed that the egyptians have to few (and mainly greek) names.

EDIT: The list now includes expanded Dacian names as well. Thanks to Cortiso.

 

[unmerged(97178)]

I have the same problem with dacian names and also some of them are very strange. How can be changed or expand list ?

 

[Sute]{h]

Open cultures.txt in notepad find the correct culture group and simply add the names to the list. It should be pretty obvious when you open the file. If you have a somewhat historical source of names feel free to post them here, and I'll add them to my file and upload it.

 

[unmerged(97178)]

The red coloured dacian names should be added in cultures.txt
thracia = {
male_names = {
Adaeus Adeos Adon Amadokos Charnabon Coson Cotiso Dapyx Decebalus Diagil Dicomes Dromichaetes Duras Kotys Manes Moskon Odroes
Oroles Pieporus Rhemaxos Rholes Roimitalkes Rubobostes Sadalas Seuthes Sitalkes Tires Zalmodegikos Zalmoxis Zoltes Zyraxes Vezina Scorillo Bicilis Deceneu Diurpaneus
}
female_names = {
Tania Tomyris Gebila Tisa Geta Brindusa Doina
}
family = {
Adonid Durasid Manid Mosonid Odroid Orolid Tirid Zoltid Zyraxid Mugur Codru Zimbru Brustur Bucur Brad Balan Aldea Coman Barbu Ciobanu Musat
}
culture = {
thracian
dacian
phrygian
pisidian
}

Also, I changed the flag with a more realistic one

; download DAC.tga from here

 

[Sute]{h]

What is your source for the names you added?

 

[Cheexsta]

I was getting annoyed with the very small number of egyptian names in the game, which caused me to have several characters with identical names. So in order to avoid this somewhat I expanded the possible names with a list of names from Steve Jackson Games GURPS Egypt. While they might not be 100% historical accurate, they are close enough for my taste.

So here is the link to the modified cultures.txt in case anyone else is annoyed that the egyptians have to few (and mainly greek) names: cultures.txt

What's wrong with mainly Greek names? Egypt was ruled by the (Macedonian) Ptolemaic dynasty at this time, which greatly favoured using Greeks in their courts over Egyptians. Hell, the only Ptolemy to learn Egyptian was Cleopatra VII, whom we all know and love for seducing Caesar and Mark Antony...

If you could tie names into a character's culture, then it would probably work better.

 

[Sute]{h]

What's wrong with mainly Greek names? Egypt was ruled by the (Macedonian) Ptolemaic dynasty at this time, which greatly favoured using Greeks in their courts over Egyptians. Hell, the only Ptolemy to learn Egyptian was Cleopatra VII, whom we all know and love for seducing Caesar and Mark Antony...

If you could tie names into a character's culture, then it would probably work better.

My problem is the simple fact that Egyptian culture should be Egyptian. I am toying with the idea of making Egypts state culture Greek though. It does make a lot more sense than Egyptian state culture. Perhaps including an event for going Egyptian if they ever get a ruler with Egyptian culture. As it is the Greek provinces under Egyptian control turns Egyptian, when it should properly be the other way around. My main concern is a balancing issue since making Egypts state culture Greek will weaken them more than they already are compared to the Seluecids.

I actually think that names are tied to character culture and not country culture. I could be wrong though. But the Greeks in my country does seem to have different names that the Egyptians.

 

[unmerged(97178)]

Dacian names refference

Scorilo - from a well known inscirption "Deceballus per Scorilo" (Deceballus son of Scorilo)
Vezina Was the high priest of Deceballus
Diurpaneus = Deceballus
Deceneu - high priest
Bicilis - Xiphilin says that, with the help of Bicilis, the confidant of Deceballus, the Romans discovered Dacian treasure hoarded by Decebal under the Sargetia riverbed (after the war from 105-106 AD).

List of dacian kings

Geta, Brandusa, Doina, Tisa, Mugur, Codru, Zimbru, Brustur, Bucur, Brad, Balan Aldea, Coman, Barbu, Ciobanu, Musat are dacian words (animals, plants, rivers) still used today in Romania as names ref or ref2

Historical ref
Vasile Parvan - Getica (1926),
Vasile Parvan - Dacia. Civilizaţiile antice din regiunile carpato-danubiene (1928)

 

[Sute]{h]

I wonder if adding a lot of family names wont have a gameplay impact. Having more families will reduce the importance of the families as they get smaller. Do you have any feedback on this Cotiso?

 

[unmerged(97178)]

I'm not sure I understand the question about feedback. Anyway, I very happy now and families' importance is not my concern.

Today I will include egyptian names in my file even if dacians never met egyptians, but who knows?

P.S. I home someone will collect all good data from modders and create a real good, impressive, outstanding Rome mod

 

[Sute]{h]

The Dacian names you posted here is already included in the culture.txt attached to the first post in this thread. Hopefully we can expand on the name lists for every culture.

I was just concerned about if adding more families ment reducing the importance of families in the game. Hence the need for feedback. For instance Civil Wars might become less of an issue if few people join the revoltning general. And since more families means less people in each family the general will perhaps have fewer people joining him. If families means anything for the purpose of Civil Wars that is.

 

[unmerged(97178)]

Civil war never happened to me, so I don't know. Only time can say.

If you have time to waste you should play in parallel a game with a huge list of family names and a game with only 2 names; see what happens.

But, I say this to all: Remember it is just a game.

 

[TheLand]

I like the Dacian names. I am less sure of the Egyptian ones. Did the Egyptian nobility of this period really have names with an ancient-Egyptian feel?

But then I can't really talk, as my personal cultures.txt has a lot of Asterix-inspired names for Gauls. ;-)

I suspect that adding a lot of family names will subtly change gameplay so additions should be kept relatively few.

What I would really like are family names which don't always end in -id !!

 

[Sute]{h]

I can understand the reluctance against the ancient Egyptian names. But a better solution than have a Egyptian culture with Greek names would IMHO be to change Egypts state culture from Egyptian to Greek. That would cause Egyptian culture to be in decline while Greek culture would slowly take over. Think I'll test out the effects of changing the culture one of these days.

 

[TheLand]

I can understand the reluctance against the ancient Egyptian names. But a better solution than have a Egyptian culture with Greek names would IMHO be to change Egypts state culture from Egyptian to Greek. That would cause Egyptian culture to be in decline while Greek culture would slowly take over. Think I'll test out the effects of changing the culture one of these days.

This might be exploitable for the Seleucids.

As someone pointed out, the Ptolemaics are already in quite a precarious position. If the Seleucids didn't have to culture-convert then they might find conquering Egypt had too big a payoff.

 

[Sute]{h]

Perhaps the solution to that issue lies with weakening the Seleucids? They should have far more internal strife than they do at the moment. But yes I'm concerned that changing Egypt to greek culture will weaken it to much. At least if something isn't done to strenghten the country at the same time. Also I am kind of wondering why Egyptian religion is in the hellenistic group, since it doesn't have a hellenistic origin. Shifting Egyptian to its own religious group might discourage the Seleucids.

EDIT: Another small detail is that the Egyptian government doesn't have a religious slot. That seems wierd to me given the fact that AFAIK Ptolomy claimed to be Pharaoh and thus was deitified as per the national idea.

 

[TheLand]

Perhaps the solution to that issue lies with weakening the Seleucids? They should have far more internal strife than they do at the moment. But yes I'm concerned that changing Egypt to greek culture will weaken it to much. At least if something isn't done to strenghten the country at the same time. Also I am kind of wondering why Egyptian religion is in the hellenistic group, since it doesn't have a hellenistic origin. Shifting Egyptian to its own religious group might discourage the Seleucids.

EDIT: Another small detail is that the Egyptian government doesn't have a religious slot. That seems wierd to me given the fact that AFAIK Ptolomy claimed to be Pharaoh and thus was deitified as per the national idea.

I've just had a look at the Wikipedia article on Ptolemaic Egypt and it is fascinating just how confused everyone seems to have been.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Egypt

Basically it appears the Greeks population worshipped the Greek gods and lived in a Greek way, while the Egyptian population continued with their own religion and culture. Though the Greeks twisted the Egyptian religion to their own ends, and adopted some Egyptian customs, like the Pharaoh being married to his sister.

What all of that means in game terms, I don't know - but it does give some justification (I think) for Egyptian religion being in the Hellenistic group...

 

[Sute]{h]

I know that the Greeks equated the Egyptian and Greek gods. And this might justify them sharing the same religious group, but didn't they view the Phoenician/Carthagian pantheon in the same manner? A lot of parallels seems to be drawn between them on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Carthage
As I see it the Egyptian religious tradition and clergy was significantly different from the Greek. In Egypt the clergy was basically the national bureaucracy. The Greeks didn't have anywhere near that amount of organized religion. They actually had a very individualistic and flexible approach to religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_religion

On the other hand I'm starting to wonder about the Greek-Egyptian culture issue, since the Ptolomic rulers seems to have actually tried to prevent Greek city state culture from spreading, while at the same time used mainly Greeks as advisors and officials.

EDIT: Also Despotic Monarchy is fine. After reading up a bit it seems that the deification of the Pharaoh usually didn't happen until after his death. At least not within this timeframe.

 

[Lyzra]

I have played Egypt and with ordinary setups it works just fine.

Rulers are of course prefering greek culture, yet egyptian religion which is sensible.

The thing is more about the naming as said before, naming of your staff. I mean many of them ARE egyptian by culture and religion, so I would go so far to say they are not greek.

As for changing Egypt to be greek culture? No, that dosnt make any sense or follow history. I mean greek cultures impact even nowdays Egypt is thinner than other cultures. The goverment might of been strongly affected by greek ideals and systems, but the dominant culture within egyptian provinces were not greek... ever.

I personally liked the fact that egyptians do have they own culture, it also restricts them and that is fine. By history and background egyptians never ventured very far to hold control of surrounding lands/empires. There were many reasons for this, religious and view of others beyond egyptian border being inferior and not as tied to they gods as lands of Egypt. Also werent most countries bordering Egypt in war with them one way or another over the ages, different culture would represent the deepseeted history backed side they were not all THAT intrested in seeing egyptian overlords running they own country.