Period-dependent ship names

[Grey Roger]

I don't want to see a British ship named Hood in my game.

Not because that was the name of a ship which was famously sunk in WW2, but because that ship plus a couple more before it were named
after Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, an admiral who made his name in several battles during the late 18th century. I'm currently playing "Assassin", set in 1663 - Samuel Hood won't even be born until about 60 years in the future!

Hood isn't the only British name which shouldn't appear in games set in earlier periods, and British ships aren't the only offenders. French names Trente et Un Mai and Tricolore, for example, are meaningless before the French Revolution.

I've done a bit of experimenting and found that this:

    if(GetCurrentPeriod() >= PERIOD_REVOLUTIONS)

    {

        n = AddStr2Array(&sRndShpEnName, n, "Anson,Hood,Rodney");

        trace("InitRandomShipsNames(): late English names added");

    }

... at the end of the British section of "ships_names.c" does indeed only produce that trace if I start a game in "Revolutions" or "Napoleonic". Ship names seem to be rebuilt whenever you start a game; I tried starting a default FreePlay ("Golden Age of Piracy"), went back to main menu and started again as Jack Aubrey ("Napoleonic"), then back to main menu and started "Tales of a Sea Hawk" ("Colonial Powers"). I'd also added another 'trace' outside that period-dependent block, and "compile.log" showed that "ships_names.c" was read at the start of each game but only showed the line about late English names once.

Which means it is indeed possible to have some ship names that only appear in certain periods. So, any comments? Any suggestions of other names which need to be visible only in some periods?

 

[Hammie]

Would it make sense to also remove some names in later periods?

 

[Grey Roger]

It should be possible - just have a conditional block with '<=' instead of '>=' and put all the names which should not appear after the chosen period in there.

Can you give me some examples? Possibly the name of someone who fell out of favour in a later period?

 

[Hammie]

It's actually difficult to find an example. There already appear to be very few names referencing characters. Also not entirely sure what the custom on renaming ships might have been.

For the French "Majesté" might be strange/uncommon after the revolution.

For the English, "Queen Elizabeth" might become a bit awkward > 1650?

"King George" was probably not a thing until King George I (1660)

For the pirate faction "Queen Annes Revenge" and "Royal James" were most like references to the Glorious Revolution

 

[Grey Roger]

For the French "Majesté" might be strange/uncommon after the revolution.

Dauphin Royal as well.

For the English, "Queen Elizabeth" might become a bit awkward > 1650?

"King George" was probably not a thing until King George I (1660)

Some patriotic Englishman might have named his ship after his queen, but certainly Queen Elizabeth should not be available in "Early Explorers" in case someone picks a start date before she was on the throne, or even born. Grenville, Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake should also be unavailable in "Early Explorers", though Drake is fine - without the context of Sir Francis, it's another name for a dragon. King George can be restricted to "Golden Age of Piracy" or later, several other military commanders can be limited, and Collingwood is right out - he was in the Napoleonic Wars, frequently serving with Nelson.

For the pirate faction "Queen Annes Revenge" and "Royal James" were most like references to the Glorious Revolution

Yes, and as pirates have plenty of other names now, those two can be limited to "Colonial Power" or later.

And American ships can't be named after any of the leaders of the War of Independence during the War of Independence! Washington, Franklin etc. are only to be available in "Napoleonic" period.

 

[Homo eructus]

In the case of Spanish ships, I've decided to change some names that wouldn't be particularly at home in any era or just because I liked others better (file attached), but still there's a few:

Colón, Cuzco, Don Juan de Austria, Emperador Carlos V, Lepanto, Limeño, Mejicana, Nueva España, Peruano, Río de la Plata and Villa de Madrid shouldn't appear in Early Explorers, because they're people who lived, battles that were fought and places that were discovered during the 1500s (and Madrid didn't become the capital of Spain until the 1560s and was fairly unimportant until then).

Almansa probably shouldn't appear until Colonial Powers, because it references a battle in 1707 (the town existed previously but not much of a reason to name a ship after it).

 

[Homo eructus]

Someone more knowledgeable than I should make a full rewrite of Portuguese ship names, they obviously were originally taken from a list of names from the modern Portuguese navy and most of the people referenced in them are form the second half of the 19th century.

 

[Grey Roger]

In the case of Spanish ships, I've decided to change some names that wouldn't be particularly at home in any era or just because I liked others better (file attached), but still there's a few:

Colón, Cuzco, Don Juan de Austria, Emperador Carlos V, Lepanto, Limeño, Mejicana, Nueva España, Peruano, Río de la Plata and Villa de Madrid shouldn't appear in Early Explorers, because they're people who lived, battles that were fought and places that were discovered during the 1500s (and Madrid didn't become the capital of Spain until the 1560s and was fairly unimportant until then).

Almansa probably shouldn't appear until Colonial Powers, because it references a battle in 1707 (the town existed previously but not much of a reason to name a ship after it).

Comparing your file to mine, I see no differences in Spanish names - you must have uploaded that file at some time in the past so all your new names are already in.

I'll make all those you suggested conditional on the game being "Spanish Main" period or later, and also Almansa conditional on "Colonial Powers" or later. And one more - Blas de Lezo earned his claim to fame in 1741, then died four months later, which means ships named after him should not appear before "Revolutions". (1741 is only just inside "Colonial Powers", so I was inclined to be lazy and add him to the "Colonial Powers" section which otherwise only adds Almansa. But I suppose I'd better do it properly because "Hoist the Colours" starts in June 1740. We don't want Jack Sparrow encountering the Blas de Lezo before the battle which made de Lezo famous!)

 

[Homo eructus]

Oh, I had the file open and uploaded it without saving it. I had made a few newer changes.

Blas de Lezo is one of the names I removed altogether, because his figure was mostly forgotten until pretty much the 21st century. I remeber I initially added it as a kind of easter egg, but now we have the actual character in the game, there's no need.

 

[Grey Roger]

Try this one. It should have all the names from your latest version, some of them now moved into period-conditional sections. Blas de Lezo is still there in the last Spanish conditional section - if you see a ship with that name, perhaps it was built in Cartagena, where they'd certainly remember him! There are probably plenty more ship names which in reality weren't used until a lot later, if at all, but which aren't completely wrong due to being named for someone who hadn't been born.