CityNameManager+ Test Run

This is a 3000 BC game, but we've already been running for a while. China is up and running with five cities. I notice they always found these exact five cities - I'm guessing originally they were Chang'an, Luoyang, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing (or maybe Qingdao?), but this is a somewhat more accurate array. Sadly it does mean the largest city in the world is usually Jingzhou; not quite historically accurate, but there you go.

Panyu will later become Guangzhou, and Guangling Yangzhou, while the other two won't change. Luoyang would really be one tile N of Jingzhou, while Suzhou (which becomes Shanghai) would be one tile N of Hangzhou. And Nanjing would be one tile south of Guangling, as it can't really coexist with Suzhou (might be able to on the big map, can't remember rn).

Persia and Babylon in their array, and we can see a few changes right from the off - Babilu is indeed now Babilim, and Uru now becomes Meshan when captured by Persia.

Samarkand still spawns as Afrasiyab (I'm not sure how I feel about it), but will change to Samarqand even if captured by another independent faction, or barbarians.

A good look at Egypt's city list. No more Akhenaten for that awkward coastal city between the mountains! In general I've tried to use more idiomatic transliterations, with estimated vowels. Waset both looks better and seems to be used in more academic contexts than Niwt-Rst anyway.

Here you can see the Independent language in rapid action - Spahan was captured by barbarians who renamed it Esfahan (the default independent name) but when the Achaemenids retake the city it once again becomes Spahan. That's... not necessarily the peak of historical accuracy, leaping between ancient and medieval Persian like that. But as I said in my notes, I haven't really messed around with Persian too much yet as I'm yet to find a romanizer I'm happy with.

Here's a look at some of the Indian cities. I'm really pleased with India's city list, but while not as rigid as China we only tend to see a few very specific cities founded every time, which is a shame. Still, you can see the cities here have a much more historical flare to them. That one in the middle is Pravarapura, an important city in the Vakataka Dynasty. We've also got Shurparaka, which will eventually be shortened to Sopara, the Pallava city of Mahabalipuram (today Mamallapuram), and the Maurya regional capital Tosali. We'll see what becomes of them later.

There's not infinite rename data, of course - extinct languages don't tend to have exonyms for places outside their immediate vicinity. Thus Egypt don't have rename data for Ninua (Nineveh), so it keeps the name it had before.

I revised a lot of the city lists in Central Asia, which weren't great for any of the civs. Here Persia found the city of Amol.

Persia may have recaptured Ninua but Greek invaders capture Spahan, and the city becomes Gabai.

Celtic has always had its own language (it's what gave me the inspiration for the independent language), but I've expanded it to include much more of mainland Europe. Here a captured Vindobona is renamed Vedunia.

Indian cities 'shift' a lot, as they did historically. The Tamils take Odisha and establish a new power centre in Katak, which will probably remain the main centre of the region for the rest of history... well, a 21st century India might be tempted to move the capital to Bhubaneshwar, but we're some way off that, right?

Ooh, Rome's had a bit of a meltdown, and we can see a whole host of independent cities. The population of Epidaurum have retreated to a more defensible position at Raguxa (that particular render is the Venetian name). Miletus takes an alternate name, Anactoria. Can't quite remember what city became Kiliya, though - I know the Greeks founded it originally. All in all, I'm pretty hapy with how this looks - except maybe Crimea, we probably shouldn't have Turks there this early. I'll have to look into a way around that.

A quick pop into South India. We can see the Tamil Empire has the improbably named Madarasanpattinam, which is of course modern Madras/Chennai. More interesting is the Sri Lankan city, Gimhathitha, the ancient name for Galle (which as far as I can tell was populated in the ancient era, but had a quiet middle ages before being refounded around 1500). I've worked a lot on Sri Lanka to ensure a fair few important capitals can crop up on just two tiles.

China loses a few cities, including Shenyang (which becomes the Manchu Mukden) and Yangzhou, which takes its Wu name.

Egypt has collapsed, much to the delight of Rome, whose renaming should be pretty familiar. They razed Shashirit, which is a shame, because I love their name for it: Berenice Troglodytica.

They also grab Nalote, renaming it Hierosycaminus.

A brief look at the Mayans, who I didn't mess with too much. Well, I've been working on this mod so long I've forgotten some of the things I did mess with - is Kaminaljuyu in the original city list?

Roma delenda est and we get our first look at some regional European languages. Milanese Lombard Milan, Basque Iruna, and Gascon Occitan Bordeu. Apologies, my English keyboard makes diacritics too much of a hassle in these writeups. Then there's the more "boring" Geneve, Barcelona and Le Mans.

We can also see Braga and Cartagena in Spain and... hold on...

Ah, this is a problem! I've got some tags muddled up somewhere, evidently, and rather than becoming Faro, Ossonoba has defaulted to Poti, which is actually in Georgia. There's a fair few examples of rename tags being tangled in the normal City Name Manager - it's very easy to do accidentally. So by adding a whole new ton of rename data, there's inevitably going to be a whole host of new hiccups. But that's what testing is for, and luckily I can minimise the screen, edit the City Name Manager file and launch back in without any hassle.

More regional names abound in Wean (the Viennese name for Vienna) and Riggiu (the Reggino name for Reggio... I'm not kidding, it feels like every Italian city has their own regional language). Oh and then there's Roma, which can default to Roma... but can also become Civitas Vaticana when independent. In the future I want to adjust this so it's only possible when Rome is the holy city of Catholicism, but I'm not quite sure how at the moment. The holy city is Vienna in this game anyway.

Down in Africa we get some lovely Berber names. We'll see the more familiar versions of these when the Moors sweep in.

For Ethiopian Egypt I tended to keep it pretty Coptic when an Amharic exonyms didn't exist, as you can see here. A few of the Egyptian cities don't have indepedent city data - this is also true of regions like Asia minor, and it basically stems from these regions having so many different populations throughout history that it felt odd to give them an 'independent' name or two - rather it made more sense for them to retain the name of the culture that previously settled them.

Huh, that was quick! Not sure what triggered that. Rome returns, centred now at Genava.

I wanted to highlight this city in particular though. Rome founded this city as Suindinum, and it became Le Mans when independent - but under Roman flags once again it's now Cenomanum. These hypernames reflect both later Roman names (which the modern names often derive directly from, as occurs here) and medieval Latin names.

And the Byzantines are here! Persia very briefly took Constantinople, renaming it Balozrom - but it was not meant to be.

Still Persia are having a good game - not often you see Islam founded outside Mecca (tho we are on Marathon speed).

No Hindi exonym for Guzliev? How could I omit something so obvious? Actually, Hindi exonyms were surprisingly scarce, which is a shame.

Byzantines start to expand, taking Kiliya (now Kellia) and Raguxa (now Ragousa).

Persia loses a handful of cities. Notice in particular how Armenia has established their own kingdom centred in Armavir.

Poor little Persia, they were doing very well. I can't quite remember the parameters for Zranka becoming Sistan off the top of my head. The main settlement of Sistan (which is also the name of the region) shifted a fair bit through the centuries.

A little look at Asia as Japan spawn in. As you can see I've simplified the Japanese orthography, under strong advice from Japanese speakers.

And the Turks arrive! In general these fellows use endonyms for a lot of their core cities where historical names aren't available. Fortunately historical names are mostly available.

The Vikings spawn in, showing off Birka, which will now only become Stockholm in the Renaissance.

Ooh, I forgot I spawned Polynesia in. It's rare they ever settle anywhere, so nice to see them in Aotearoa - and it's a good place to show off the new city list down here, too. No longer do we awkwardly have Maori names for English-founded cities. That said, there's a typo here - it should be Rangiriri, I'll fix that right now. In any case it's an important Maori pa (a village-hillfort). Oh, looks like I haven't added any English rename data for these cities either - must get on that.

Oh, we very briefly saw the Barbarians take over Le Mans. Their name for it is Celmans, which is really just an older version of Le Mans, so history's going out of the window here! My reasoning was that barbarians or Celts would be the first ones to take the city off Rome, with it turning French or independent later, but it doesn't always work out like that.

Arabia spawn in. Yeah, I went for the ol' Babylon to Baghdad heresy. I'm not super happy about it, but I don't really see any other way out of it - Arabia never raze Babylon, it's always too big and too cultured, and in any case Babylon was never really razed anyway. To the south Meshan becomes Kazimah - no more early Al-Kuwait.

Arabian Egypt isn't much changed. I think Al-Maharraqa is new.

India collapses, so let's look at some new independent names. Pekhawar is the Pashto name for Peshawar, while Sopara has shifted to Mahikawati (or Mahim). This one's dynamic - it can stay as Sopara instead depending on which of the two independent civs it winds up being held by.

The Moors are here, so we can see what that Berber city from earlier has become. You'll also notice I have Carthage become Tunis immediately now, which is a no-brainer for me - when Arabs occupied the area, the dwindling city of Carthage became superseded by Tunis. I should say though that it's possible for Carthage and Babylon to stay on the map - just very hard.

Spain are here, and I've actually tweaked their capital. They'll now be centred in Toledo through the Middle Ages before establishing Madrid when they hit the Renaissance. You'll also see that I've already got to Faro, which is currently taking the name Santa Maria, as Faro only came a bit later.

Another Polynesian city? We're blessed. Huriawa is another pa.

Sigh. One ahistorical city I can't find a workaround for is Sapporo (and the other Japanese cities in Hokkaido). I don't know what to tell you; there's no reason in game for Japan not to settle Hokkaido early, but in our timeline they just didn't.

Khmer spawn in, with their reshuffled city list. Their capital, Yasodharapura, is really just Angkor under its first name (well, Angkor is really just the name given to a whole host of settlements founded really really close to each other). And they've also settled Myeik, which is a Burmese city, but I couldn't find a decent Khmer option to occupy the spot - Myeik in any case is a very old city and would once have been controlled by the Khmer Empire, even though I can't find its Khmer name.

China capture Chattogram, renaming it Jidagang (which is closer to the name we know the city by, Chittagong).

Well, I lied about Katak! The region declares independence, establishing a new capital at Kalinganagara (and thus being the Eastern Ganga Dynasty - about the right timeframe, too!)

Meanwhile China seize the newly settled Thang Long and rename it Longbian. We'll see this city, the predecessor Hanoi, change names a few times throughout history.

Russia spawn in, which is as good a time as any to point out Persia have rebounded, even controlling Crimea!

Oooh, one of my last changes I made before releasing this mod. Not sure why I didn't make it earlier, actually. Russia found Orekhov, the historical name for Shlisselburg, which was the most important city in this region historically. It should become Sankt-Peterburg in the Renaissance Era, though as this was my most recent change I haven't tested it yet!

The Byzantines appear to be at war with Russia, seizing Uman and renaming it Ouman. For some reason, the Byzantine reserve language in the old CNM was Latin, but it's now Greek (and then Latin).

Oh, Mali are here. As I mentioned in my notes, Dia is not their historical capital, nor is Djenné as it has been in DoC before. It's Niani, which is a tile or two south. Still, Dia is considered an ancestral home of the Malinese people and will also happily default to Bamako when conquered by France. They also pull out another couple of cities in Saney and Mbissel, though I'm now wondering if Saney might just be better served being Gao instead.

Persia collapses. Once again Armenia elects to find a new capital, settling on Dvin. A reborn Turks fancy their luck in Susa. Oof, that brings up something painful. I don't think the character Ş will display in Civ IV, which hurts Turkish a lot. This should really be Şuşa, or Shusha.

From pain to pain, as the Byzantines conquer Buda and rename it... Aquincum. I couldn't find the Greek render for Aquincum, which is frustrating. In any case I didn't want them to have Bouda as their rename, as that wouldn't make much sense for the usual Byzantine spawn, splitting off from the Roman Empire. Budapest will become Voudapesti, though.

Incidentally, has anyone else noticed the auto-spawn for Buda ironically places the city at Pest?

Poland are here! Holstin is the Old Polish name for Olsztyn.

And Russia establish themselves in the south with Tsaritsyn... no more Caricyn, you hear me?

Ah, the Mayans have collapsed. You'll notice their city names have changed to their later Mayan endonyms, Tik'al and Chich'en Itza'.

The Byzantines end the brief Armenian independence, renaming Dvin Doubios.

And the Tamils attack the previously unseen Indonesia, renaming Srivijaya Palembang (and erasing any memory of Srivijaya for a few centuries).

Egypt are back! There's a weird thing with Egypt where they don't adopt their Egyptian Arabic names on respawn, only a few turns later. I'm working on Coptic translations for when Egypt respawns and doesn't adopt Islam - annoyingly, there's what would be a great Wikipedia article with a whole database of Coptic names, but it appears the unicode is outdated and all I'm seeing is boxes (despite having about ten different Coptic fonts installed).

Once again Armenia declares independence and picks a new capital. We're getting the full gamut of Armenian cities here! It's entirely possible for them to keep Artashat for the whole game instead, so it's nice to see some alternates be shown off.

Arabia didn't live long, and the Byzantines take Mesopotamia, Baghdad now Vagdati.

China's also collapsed. Their cities adopted plenty of different names throughout history, and I've tried to include the more prominent ones, hence Beijing being Shuntian at the moment. Alas, I can't find a Tibetan name for Shenyang.

Egypt's caught up! You'll notice Al-Maharraqa is abandoned in favour of the medieval city of Qasr Ibrim, and a similar thing happens at Buhen, which becomes Wadi Halfa.

Once again Armenia is assimilated, and once again we get another Greek city name, Anion. Have a look at that northern European village down near the Persian Gulf.

The Moors take Automala, renaming it Al-Uqaylah. Wy't holds on, though.

The Vikings are expanding nicely, into Bjorgvin and Nidaróss.

It's less good news for the Tamils.You'll notice that independent Sri Lanka has rebased to Mahanuwara though, or Kandy.

While in the north we can see Katak has returned to being Katak (it's the modern city of Cuttack), and Pravarapura is replaced by Nagpur.

The Siberian city lists have been pretty heavily improved. That's all I'm showing off here.

The Incas are here. Poor mysterious Caqonatambu is finally gone, replaced by Ckara-ama. You'll also note Jang-Jang, which is the Moche name for Chan Chan (not sure on the Quingam name I'm afraid). There's a bit of playing around here with Chan Chan and Chan-Chan, with the intention that more often than not a Spanish conquest of the Inca will result in Lima (the same games are being played with Tucume and Quito).

The Mongols are here, taking control of central Asia. You'll notice Amul now has its medieval name, Chorjoy.

And the Mughals soon follow. Of all the transliterations I found when researching these city lists, "Dehli" is the one I still can't get used to. The Mughal city list in general prioritises cities founded by them (as it should, really!). Hence Muzaffarnagar.

Mongols conquer Persia, finally ridding the world of those ancient Persian cities, replacing Shush and Parsa with Dezful and Shiraz. Again, a nice way of ensuring that Shush and Parsa can remain on the map forever, but more often than not will disappear by the modern era.

And of course they take over Crimea, lending the city its Crimean Tatar name.

The Tu'i Tonga Empire collapses. The Maori immediately invent muskets.

The Mongols establish the Yuan Dynasty. We get a few pretty renames here accurate to that era, with Xi'an becoming Fengyuan and Hangzhou taking the name Lin'an.

...I'm not sure how the Mongols got an invader event here, though. Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens to the city names here.

Indonesia settle some rather boring cities - I did redo most of their city list, I promise! Actually, Ternate is a fun one. While they'll always found Ternate first, it can flit between being Ternate and Tidore, the two rival island city-states, throughout history - reflecting the two neighbouring islands' power struggle.

Another Malinese city, the Cote d'Ivoire city of Kong.

The Mughals meanwwhile expand further through the subcontinent, taking Mahim and founding Suleiman Nagar (Bhuj).

The Turks are here! You'll remember Miletos survived the Classical Era, and this shifts to the very nearby Yoran when becoming Turkish (modern Didym). Not that Turkey will last long here - the Byzantines are far too prepared.

A little late to be crusading, don't you think?

And the Mongols swipe through Armenia, completing the rename data a fraction too early - that's a relic of Mongols mostly relying on Turkish for their rename data, and Yerevan being the main city in the Ottoman era. But really the Mongols should keep this city as Ani, the capital of Armenia when they were a vassal of Mongolia. I'll fix that now!

Hmm, I'm noticing most of the Mongolian captures in India are defaulting to Chinese, which is... well, hard to say, as the Mongols never conquered India. Would it have been part of the Yuan Dynasty or the Chagatai Khanate? Who knows? Madras stands out though, I'm guessing that's a piece of Turkish rename data floating about. The Mongols are hard - this is why I'd like to find a way to regionally set the Mongolian reserve languages.

More Russian cities! Ilimsk will become Ust'-Ilimsk later, in one of the more unnoticeable renames.

Alas, the Vikings collapse. The far north takes on a Sámi flavour.

France is a mess! Geneva is captured by the Germans, who call the city Genf, while Bordeaux/Burdeos is lost to Spain.

A neat look at the Aztec Empire, who have a brand spanking new city list. Given the Aztec Empire was in reality quite small, they're not all the prettiest, but they're still an improvement.

The Byzantines finally collapse, giving the Turks a fighting chance. Don't ask what I did with Greece. Demotic vs Katharevousa Greek is a real nightmare.

Thailand spawn in, and there's that weird glitch that happens sometimes where Ayutthaya isn't razed properly and instead Angkor is renamed Ayutthaya and the capital is moved elsewhere. I don't know what causes this, but it happens to me a few times. Also sad is that because I have separate identifiers for Thang Long and Hanoi, the Khmer don't get renamed Dai Viet anymore. At least we get the neat Thai exonym for Myeik, Marit.

And we end today with another headache. The Inca settle a little further north than their historical boundaries. I've already added in some questionable rename data for this region now (and for the Mayans, who also like to settle this region), which will be in the newest version. Until next time!