GAME INFORMATION
- GAME BUILD v. 100.19.17293.0 P1 (also very prevalent in both public Batlic Beta Builds)
- GAME PLATFORM: Steam
- OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10
ISSUE EXPERIENCED
To put it simply : The French translation of the term “Skirmisher” uses 3 separate terms in no consistent fashion, throwing confusion on what some units are and to whom some effects apply. One of these “French” terms is even a word… that is no longer commonly in use in modern French, and the other means something entirely different than Skirmisher! With the upcoming DLC and patches, I hope it will finally be time to tackle and, hopefully, solve the issue once and for all.
Why tackle it? It is INCREDIBLY CONFUSING as to what means what, especially for newcomers. (And is quite frustrating when you’ve noticed it too.)
These three terms are “Belliciste” (used in the original game to refer to the unit), “Tirailleur” (had less than half occurences in the pre-DE game) and finally “Escarmoucheur” which is rarely used but has become more and more prevalent in the DE era (especially in the upcoming Batlic DLC).
Sometimes, the terms are used interchangeably in the same sentence. You can compare the Royal Jaeger/Hunter description in both English and French :
I think one can easily understand how confusing it becomes… with a third term being thrown into the mix as well.
To add other examples, the short description of some skirmisher-type units (that appears when hovering over the unit in-game), like the Neftenya, aptly states “Skirmisher” in English as to remind a player unfamiliar with Ethiopia that this unit, while name differently, is a Skirmisher for all intents and purposes. Yet, in French, it says “Tirailleur”… which is not used as the Skirmisher unit’s name !
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
- 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS)
REPRODUCTION STEPS
-
Be fluent enough in French
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Play the game’s French version and pay relative attention to anything skirmisher related
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Alternatively, compare every instance of the word “Skirmisher(s)” in the data files’ English stringtable with how they are translated in the files’ French stringtable.
EXPECTED RESULT
A SINGLE TERM should be chosen and consistently displayed as THE ONE NOUN used to refer to the unit and unit type as in the original version. Now as which to chose:
- Belliciste is the original term used by the game (barring a few instances of “tirailleur” here and there). HOWEVER “belliciste” does NOT mean “skirmisher” but “warmonger”… And apparently was invented as late as in 1870 to coin Bismarck as a, well, warmonger. (See the article from the French National Center of Textual and Lexical Resources (CNTRL).)
- Tirailleur is a correct term. Used from the 18th onwards to describe skirmishers, being officially in use in the French Revolutionary Army. In the later half of the 19th century, it is also used to qualify regiments formed by natives from the colonies (as in “Tirailleur Sénégalais”). See the French Wikipedia pages for Tirailleur, French Army Reorganisation of 1793 and Light Infantry, as well as the CNTRL Tirailleur Article.
- Escarmoucheur is an archaic term from the late Middle Ages (see the CNTRL Escarmoucheur article). It’s not common language to use it, especially to describe gunpowder warfare. (I suppose it is an translation overlap with Age of Empires II where it is more adequate, if barely.)
There is also another term “Franc-tireur”, but it is also associated in meaning with voluntary corps (such as the Freikorps from the upcoming Prussian/German Confederacy Revolts), so is not fully adequate as well.
Personally, I advocate to replace all mentions of Belliciste for Tirailleur (a literal 3-clicks search-and-replace of the French text file to replace “Belliciste ” with “Tirailleur” would solve all occurrences (singular and plural) and take like 20 seconds tops).
It would require older players to adapt, which would require of them minimal time & effort (since the “tirailleur” term is already extensively used in the game), but I could also understand the idea behind keeping the original translation, even if it is a nonsensical translation in of itself. (But then, please do pay attention as not to make the same mistake and reintroduce some “tirailleur” occurrences later down the line!)
Whichever you may chose, it would lift a lot of obfuscation off the games’ shoulders, and be beneficial for accessibility and clarity’s sake especially with newer players.
(But please, if someone could at least take the time to at least fix the escarmoucheur problem (a literal 3-clicks search-and-replace of the French text file to replace “Escarmoucheur” with “Belliciste” would solve it all and take like 20 seconds tops), that would already be great at limiting the already-existing confusion.)
/!\ Baltic Beta additonal details: The new lines added in the Baltic DLC Beta also contain a lot of these inconsistencies, with the most use of the “escarmoucheur” term ever.
