[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#14343) Data: Egyptian city list

["Benedict Adamson" <badamson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=14343 >

miguel@xxxxxxxx wrote:
...
> This is very similar to an idea I proposed back in july for having
> translated city names
...

Indeed it is. I like the idea of conquered cities having their names 
changed. This will be particularly good for civil war nations were the 
rebel nation is a historical successor nation that spoke a different 
language.

I've been thinking along the following lines.
* Each city in a nation's city list has an associated 'canonical name'.
* In most cases the listed name and canonical name will be the same, so 
the default is to interpret the listed name as also the canonical name.
* The canonical name of a city is its modern name in the main language 
of the nation that it currently belongs to.
* Cities that have a canonical name different from their listed name 
give the canonical name in brackets after the listed name.
* When deciding whether to select (or suggest) a name for a city, the 
server will be strongly biased against choosing a name if a city with 
the same canonical name already exists.
* Under the control of an option, cities taken from another nation 
(including the rebels in a civil war) may be renamed. The new name is 
chosen by examining the canonical name of the city. If the conqueror has 
a city name in their city list that matches the canonical name, the city 
is renamed to use the city name in the conqueror's city list. In the 
(unlikely) event of multiple aliases, that canonical name is used if 
that is in the list of choices, otherwise some random choice is made,.
* A city name in a nation's city list may be marked as being the name of 
a foreign city. The server will never select such names for new cities 
created by that nation. However, the server will consider those aliases 
for renaming on conquest. A city name is marked as being a foreign name 
by using the word 'foreign' like a terrain designation.

For example, the rulesets might say the following:
roman.ruleset:
"Londinium [London]",
english.ruleset:
"London (river,ocean)",
french.ruleset:
"Paris",
"Londres (foreign)[London]",
russian.ruleset:
"Sankt-Peterburg",
soviet.ruleset:
"Leningrad [Sankt-Peterburg]",

Thus, if the Romans established "Londinium", but the city was conquered 
by the french, it would be renamed "Londres". If the Soviets had a civil 
war, with the Russians as the rebel, and the rebels controlled 
"Leningrad", they would rename it "Sankt-Peterburg". The Russians would 
never name one of their cities Leningrad, but might name one 
"Sankt-Peterburg".