USSR & CHINA - renaming all cities required

[geminif4ucorsair]

BOTH the USSR and China (mainland) need to have ALL cities and locations reviewed for NAME changes.

The SR-Cold War (SR-49) used, quite incorrectly, the same map as Supreme Ruler 2020, which left a lot of errors in SR-49.

Now, we are at SR-WW2 (SR-36), and the need is even greater to make name and map changes. The Soviet Union used Communist names
that were not present in SR-2020 and were not changed in SR-49.....those Communist names (ie, Stalingrad vice Volgograd, etc.) - which
endured until the overthrow of Stalin and the final collapse of the USSR - were never changed in Supreme Ruler.

IN the case of China (PRC), it is a worse situation. Supreme Ruler in SR-49 has a mixture of Japanese, Chinese Pinyin and Chinese Wade-Giles names - the latter associated with the Romanization used on Taiwan, under the then Kuomintang (KMT) regime still in control of much of southern China (Yunnan Province, Hainan Island, etc.) at the beginning of SR-49, but not represented at the beginning of SR-49.

The problems of naming cities is now mandatory, in part because continuing the early-70s Pinyin system in SR-49, forces all to be done at one time. Japan controls three provinces of northern China plus Manchukuo (Manchuria) in mid-1936. Basically the Japanese changed the Chinese names to a Japanese style so that the new names had basically the same meaning and a similar Chinese pronunciation, as under Kuomintang (KMT) rule. As for Pinyin, Taiwan doesn’t even teach it to locals - continuing the Wade-Giles system - which is a sensitive politicization of the issue. Unlike in China, where Hanyu Pinyin is used in schools and dictionaries as the official pronunciation key, the Romanization in Taiwan is theoretically there for the benefit of mostly foreigners, otherwise Taiwan continues using the more complex Mandarin Characters, while Pinyin simplified characters are used on the mainland. SR-2020/SR-1936 is using the Romanized Pinyin.

This was also the case of Japan's control of Formosa (Taiwan), where all cities down to villages, were renamed after 1895. In Korea, all names were adopted into Japanese after 1905. [FYI - New Japanese names have been provided BG for Taiwan.].

IF BG wants better map presentation than was provided players of SR-49, these two countries location names must all be changed to refelct "1936", and not some other period in time.

My two-cents anyway.

[George Geczy]

It has increasingly come to my attention that our names in South-east Asia are a royal mess. Some of this is because our source reference material first came from the early 2000's, and for instance in Korea the McCune–Reischauer naming system was the official style until 2000 (ie "Sŏul"), but the Revised Romanization now in place has different spellings ("Seoul"). Here at the studio I've started calling it the "Encarta problem" (work on the first modern Supreme Ruler game began before Wikipedia even existed).

Even worse is that in the years since we've mixed a lot of different romanization standards and different time periods. So it's quite a dog's breakfast.

The Soviet names are more a matter of changes over time, as you point out. There are also some oddities by our standard to use local language names (ie romanized "Moskva" instead of "Moscow"), but these can often cause confusion for everyone (such as many middle-east namings).

We want to improve in both South-east Asia and the USSR, so if you have specific suggestions/corrections please feel free to list them. As time permits we will be making an additional QA pass in both areas to try to improve the names.

-- George.

[geminif4ucorsair]

It has increasingly come to my attention that our names in South-east Asia are a royal mess. Some of this is because our source reference material first came from the early 2000's, and for instance in Korea the McCune–Reischauer naming system was the official style until 2000 (ie "Sŏul"), but the Revised Romanization now in place has different spellings ("Seoul"). Here at the studio I've started calling it the "Encarta problem" (work on the first modern Supreme Ruler game began before Wikipedia even existed).
Even worse is that in the years since we've mixed a lot of different romanization standards and different time periods. So it's quite a dog's breakfast.
The Soviet names are more a matter of changes over time, as you point out. There are also some oddities by our standard to use local language names (ie romanized "Moskva" instead of "Moscow"), but these can often cause confusion for everyone (such as many middle-east namings).
We want to improve in both South-east Asia and the USSR, so if you have specific suggestions/corrections please feel free to list them. As time permits we will be making an additional QA pass in both areas to try to improve the names.
-- George.

Reliance on an old "Encarta" disc is itself, a risk.

What makes it all a massive effort to effect now is that the change-over in the USSR from USSR Communist names was not done for SR-Cold War (SR-49) then, now add the further issue of not converting China to pre-1949 names (since CCP Pinyin was not adopted until early-1970s). BG also has to convert to Japanese names to areas in possession of Japan (Formosa, Chosen, Manchukuo and three north China provinces (Chohol, etc.) at the beginning of SR-1936. A lot of locations (what BG calls "villages" in the game but in reality, small towns, did not exist in 1936 in significant enough size to be represented by an "operational"-level game that is Supreme Ruler. Many of these villages have grown either as a result of the demands of WW 2 or economic growth in USSR/Russia, China, Korea, and Taiwan since. This only complicates the work, but it must be done to put out a superior product.

Actually, I provided Dax a list of Japanese names for both Formosa and Korea (via Bathagor's spreadsheet)....leave the rest to BG.

[Hullu Hevonen]

If someone made a list of what towns should be named from what to what, then I would add them to my mod(which starts in 1991). I wondered sometimes when looking up cities you find what seems to be spelling inconsistencies or even entirely different names for the same place. I can't make head or tail out of it and would rather not put time into recearching, since that goes towards the military-economic-historical side atm.

[geminif4ucorsair]

Because of doing other work, have not had time to consider doing USSR, China (PRC), or Taiwan (ROC) for SR-1949. At this point, only the
complex Chosen (Korea) and Formosa (Taiwan) for SR-1936 have been done (except for a few pending entries) for BG. Just doing Formosa and Chosen for the new game was challenging and required using some really old pre-war maps in my collection.

For either region, it won't be overly easy, especially because in the USSR you have cities created in the late-30s and -40s (during the war) that
were never there in '36....and, some are without names....and are still without them in 2013. Most were research centers in Siberia, but they cannot be ignored or not included. It just will take time to do and the time must be allocated in development before release date.

I brought this issue forward because the issue was not addressed when SR-Cold War was released and may have impacted perceptions of the development of the game, and maybe sales, so it absolutely has to be done before SR-1936 is released.

[Balthagor]

Coincidentally, this;

...the issue was not addressed when SR-Cold War was released...

is because of this;

Because of doing other work, have not had time...

Of course I would prefer to see it addressed, but I'm not sure it has the level of importance you assign it. As George indicated, we will do what we can.

[geminif4ucorsair]

If someone made a list of what towns should be named from what to what, then I would add them to my mod(which starts in 1991). I wondered sometimes when looking up cities you find what seems to be spelling inconsistencies or even entirely different names for the same place. I can't make head or tail out of it and would rather not put time into recearching, since that goes towards the military-economic-historical side atm.

IF I can move them easily from Excel to this location, will try and post these up, so early modding / beta changes can be done by platers.

[Hullu Hevonen]

I would convert the file to .csv, then open in notepad and copypaste