Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Races ruleset - patch

[Ed Cogburn <ecogburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Falk Hueffner wrote:
> 
> Jerzy Klek <qpkjeek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> [snip]
>
> > I have changed the russian city names, now there are only cities
> > from Russia, no cities from former Soviet Union, that are now in
> > independent states like Ukraine.
> 
> I don't understand why. Many people seem to think that freeciv races
> represent today's races, but they don't. They represent a historical
> race. That's why the Soviet leader is Stalin, and Stalingrad is named
> Stalingrad, and there are city names from the Soviet Union. If you
> want to represent today's Russia, create another race with another
> leader.


        This isn't really correct.  In fact, this issue is somewhat
complicated when you look at Civ1, Civ2, and freeciv.  Civ2 seemed
to be trying to provide two different types of nations. 
Historical nations like the Aztecs and Babylonians, and "modern"
nations like Americans, English, Russians, etc (but used
historical leaders for some of these modern nations, like Queen
Elizabeth for the English, Lincoln for the Americans).  In Civ2
(Civ1?), the "Russians" aren't called the "Soviets", they are
"Russians".  Their list of cities does *not* include Stalingrad,
and does include "St. Petersburg", which was the old, and now new,
name of the city known as "Leningrad" in the USSR.  Unfortunately,
it also includes cities that aren't part of Russia proper, like
Sevastopol in the Ukraine.  The "Russian" male leader is Lenin,
*not* Stalin, and furthermore the female leader is Catherine the
Great, of old Russia fame (leader of Russia during the Napoleonic
Wars era, IIRC).
        In other words, "Russia" should not be considered "the USSR" just
because Stalin is their leader in freeciv (and Civ1?).  I believe
that was the intent of the Civ2 developers despite their mistake
about "Sevastopol".  Stalin just happens to be the most infamous
and ruthless leader in Russia's history, thus his notoriety led to
him being used as the leader for Russia in freeciv (Civ1?). 
Otherwise though, Russia != USSR.
        I agree therefore with what Kerzy has done wrt Russian city
names.  If we want a "USSR" as a historical nation, then make
Russia's leader someone like Peter the Great, and use Stalin for
USSR's leader.  Use Soviet style city names from the entire USSR
empire (including "Sevastopol" for example), for the USSR's
cities.


>
> [snip]
> 


-- 
Ed C.