LANGUAGE[s] of(Character / unit)- Innovations in this topic

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Part one- The originality of languages

**Originality -**I have seen in previous games in the Age of Empires series that languages have been not accurate–I don’t mean grammar but the language the characters speak. Like the Mughals of Indian civilization speak more of a modern Hindi than the original classical Persian (Farsi) influenced Urdu ( as there is a slight difference between the duo. Hindi is more affiliated to Sanskrit while Urdu is influenced by Arabic and Farsi in technical vocabulary. Both descend from Rekhta(a dialect of Awadhi).

I understand Hindi thus I told you this and please also check this out if the languages match the time period. For instance, Sultan Suleiman’s Ottoman empire would speak a more of an Arabic and Farsi influenced Turkish or ancient Briton kings would speak Gaelic languages and Old English instead of a modern one. Sub-title can be given for all of them in the default language of the player.

Because we don’t want to have all the Sikhs, Marathas, Bengalis, Maithils, Karnatas, Tamils, Nepalis to speaks the same modern Hindi as they as somehow the same. They should speak there own Marathi, Bangla, Maithili, Telugu, Tamil, Nepali and so on.

**Focus on dialects–**There may be instances in the game when you would encounter other tribes or ethnicity that match the civilizations and please be sure to maintain the difference in dialects.

**Accent–**It would be better if there could be a native accent of these languages when they are spoken. Please also do have a suitable matching voice for the characters.

**Animations–**Short introductory animations would also be better perhaps, as in Civilization series games with good language yielding to the mood.

Part II- Sensible and Natural language spoken required

**Add diversity and Humour—**Now, another thing we have seen in this series is that the sentences or words spoken when a unit is selected is quite monotonous----the same thing is told over and over again when a unit is selected. It seems boring and maybe players would love to see a diversity in the spoken language with some humour.

Natural answersAnother part is that it would be good if the unit’s reply upon being selected is natural. Like when you call upon a gardener he wouldn’t cry “Gardener” like we’ve seen in AoE series. Instead he would seem natural if he says “How can I mend your garden?”

                                                                                                          --I hope this would be considered.
                                                                                                                                                 Thank you!
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Hi SamratJha!

I am excited about the idea of having accurate and diverse dialects included in AoE 4! Maybe you can also contact the developers via email to inspire them further.

In AoE 1 & 2 I always enjoy the voices. They make the overall sound experience very special somehow. And the more authentic and less monotonous they speak the better I would say. I imagine that adding diversity is more or less just a matter of time and resources—collect more examples and record them. And that effort is totally worth it.

Including humour sounds like a challenge. I like “How can I mend your garden?” :D. In general, I think one could try to give each unit an individual character, and convey these different characters via their voices, what they say and how they react. In general optimistic, pessimistic, ironic, realistic… For example, some units could be generally happy to engage, and react accordingly: “Can’t wait to send them home”, " You shall not be disappointed." (better examples are welcome). Archers might be optimistic about attacking light cav, and ironic when you let them engage skirms. In order to reduce monotonicity, I would suggest to lower the frequency at which units reply, or replace spoken language by sounds (horses, mangonel, etc., they sound so nice in AoE2!).

Does anyone have more ideas?

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Have AOE II for long, long time… Always wanted an option for a close up of the King(s) where they have a discussion on current events with military advisers, etc. Ideally the game would already know the situation and the conversation would be relevant. As an example; your kingdom lacks gold and there are no trade routes open. This topic and possible solutions are discussed and then back to the action. These conversations should be relatively short, say perhaps 1 maybe 1 1/2 minutes maximum.