Authentic Faction Names

[Alexios Komnenos]

The "Dominion of Soissons" was never called that way in their own times. Many historians believe there's something fishy about Syagrius and Soissons, and some believe it's a historiographical myth created by Gregory of Tours, who was writing the only History of the Franks that we have today, and who may have been very well crafting it.

Syagrius appears in this account as Rex Romanorum. King of the Romans. Some have theorised that the Limes and the Army were so culturally (not ethnically) germanised, that the whole "king" thing began to appeal to Romans, and that Syagrius, to oppose the King of the Franks, became the King of the Romans in Gaul.

Others say that Syagrius was just a Roman commander who fought Clovis and lost, and Gregory magnified this battle, raising the stakes and makign Syagrius more than he was.

Either way, "Dominatio" is not the word. You want "Dominium", which in Latin meant what now you call "Dominion", the part someone controls.

As for the several Roman Empires, I think they called them I. R. Pars Occidentalis and Pars Orientalis... But I'm not terribly sure. I have a friend who's an intern at the Department of Late Antiquity in my local university, I'll ask him.

Update: Fixed Longbeards DLC political parties and missing names for Longbeards DLC civil war factions (by making the factions table a fragment).

EDIT: Oh, I'm also thinking of renaming the Visigoths and Ostrogoths to Tervingi and Greuthungi... but then I need a new name for the existing Greuthungi. Any ideas/thoughts?

Bad idea, I think. Rex Visigothorum was a real thing. Even Rex Gothorum, meaning Visigoths.

[Augustusng]

Thanks for the Soissons fix. I really didn't know what to call them. Of course, I think they only show up in one historical battle anyway. I'm not sure if they're actually in the campaign - I've never seen them emerge yet, so maybe not.

As for the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, yeah I agree, but wasn't that distinction a little outside the game's timeframe? I'm not sure anyone started calling them Visigoths until a little later. Then again, it's easier for me to leave them as-is for now anyway, since I don't have a good name to change the Greuthungi to...

[Black9]

Thanks for the Soissons fix. I really didn't know what to call them. Of course, I think they only show up in one historical battle anyway. I'm not sure if they're actually in the campaign - I've never seen them emerge yet, so maybe not.

As for the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, yeah I agree, but wasn't that distinction a little outside the game's timeframe? I'm not sure anyone started calling them Visigoths until a little later. Then again, it's easier for me to leave them as-is for now anyway, since I don't have a good name to change the Greuthungi to...

Tetraxitae.

[Augustusng]

Tetraxitae.

Yeah, maybe, but in the sources I've found, the Tetraxitae should be east of the Straits of Azov, closer to Tanais (city that starts off desolate currently). I mean, it's not a huge difference anyway. I'll see if I can find more information (probably not, considering the information that does exist is already pretty scarce and of course there isn't any real certainty as to the names/identities of these groups).

[Augustusng]

Update to the endonym version with several changes, thanks in part to m_1512's faction names mod and Alexios Komnenos for the Soissons fix. I haven't updated the Latin version yet since there are more changes incoming for that version (rebels and separatists getting renamed), and I wanted to get these endonym changes out first.

This update is mostly fixes to several Eastern and Germanic factions, with a few others thrown in. There shouldn't be much controversy over most of my changes, but... most significantly, I've changed the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, after much deliberation, to "Vesi Gut-þiuda" and "Ostro Gut-þiuda," respectively. I've decided not to go with Tervingi and Greuthungi, since those names fall out of use soon after the start of the campaign and it's not entirely clear whom they refer to anyway. Here's the difficult part - the term "Ostrogoths" seems to be in use within the game's time-frame, but "Visigoths" is an invention of the 6th century - looks like Cassiodorus came up with it to match the Ostrogoths. Before that, the Visigoths are often referred to as just "Vesi" or "Visi," without the "Goth" part on the end ("Visi" probably doesn't mean "Western" either). I could do that, but I preferred to keep "Gut-þiuda" for both so it's clear that they're both Gothic peoples. If anyone happens to know Gothic (which seems to be surprisingly well-documented from the bit of research I've done), let me know if you have a better idea.

I've also changed the Picts to "Qritani," which appears to be a better choice than "Picti." It's closer to the Irish "Cruthin," but it's not really certain whether that word refers to Caledonian Picts, or what the Picts actually called themselves.

Oh, and I've used "Langbarðr" for the Langobards. This word is actually just an epithet for Odin in Old Norse, "Long-bearded." This one is probably the least accurate, but it's better than simply using the Latin. I'm thinking about a few more changes to some Germanic factions, but I can't find a good source for proto-Germanic.

EDIT: Looks like I forgot to actually add those Visigoth and Ostrogoth changes. I'll update again in a few minutes with those.

EDIT 2: And fixed. Didn't want to triple-post just for that.

[Ataegina]

for me i like this idea of using genuine names, but also is quite unpractical for a vast ammount of people since they won't be enable to barely spell any faction name xD "oh i'm playing with.....ehm THAT ONE I CAN'T SPELL " xD but good job anyway

[Nutsh]

Very nice work as usual !
Could you add a version with faction names in english ?
some names sound awfull in french ahahah

[Augustusng]

for me i like this idea of using genuine names, but also is quite unpractical for a vast ammount of people since they won't be enable to barely spell any faction name xD "oh i'm playing with.....ehm THAT ONE I CAN'T SPELL " xD but good job anyway

Well, is it any easier to spell the Anglicized versions in the vanilla game? Well, okay, maybe some of those letters that don't exist in modern English are difficult...

Very nice work as usual !
Could you add a version with faction names in english ?
some names sound awfull in french ahahah

Well, I'm not really sure how that would work with localized versions of the game. Apparently this mod currently does not work with any version but the English one, since the text files in other localized versions of the game are different. Could be that I'd have to edit the db tables instead of text tables for that.

[Nutsh]

It s not a problem since once you port all the tables into the localisation.loc file, it s supposed to work for non english clients

[Nutsh]

but i can do that part easily but i don't have english loc :s

[Alexios Komnenos]

I've seen the argument about Cassiodorus making up "Visigoths", and I'm suspicious of it. Alaric, Ataulf and Theodoric were all called "Gothi", never "Vesi" by Roman sources, as far as I know. They're not reliable, they still call anyone coming from above the Black Sea "Schythian", and there's the case of Byzantine generals still calling the Arabs "Barbaroi" in the IXth Century!!!! But I don't think we have any source in which Visigoths speak of themselves in Gothic, so we don't know their endonym.

Given that the Visigoths are already pretty romanised at the start of the game, that Alaric's army was composed of Goths, Alans, protoslavs, Illyrians, as much as Romans, I think Visigothi, or at least even Gothi, is the proper term.

The Visigoths were not a thing before their contact with Rome. Rome brought them together. Rome, by action or reaction, had the heaviest hand in creating most of the Germanic nations we know today from the "big arrow maps" of the Barbarian Invasions. The Visigoths emerged as an amalgamation of peoples. Why did the Crimean Goths kept on speaking Gothic until the XVIIIth Century, but the Visigoths seem to have all but forgotten Gothic already in the VIIth? I believe it's because the Gothic component was not as strong as we could think already in the Vth.

I've said it somewhere else; Alaric didn't just enter the Roman Empire with his Goths behind and nothing but fire and steel ahead. He got into politics, he joined, like many of his Gothic countrymen did, the Roman Army, rose spectacularly, thanks in no part to him being one of the several Gothic "kings", and he used his cred as Reiks of his particular group of Goths, the Balti, to become even more powerful in Rome. He was Magister Militum per Illyriam (thanks in no small part to military career, but also to extorsion once he had an army of Goths and other followers behind him) and he was King of the Visigoths. These "Visigoths" were his army. It is to be expected that when he marched on Rome, he did it with his Roman army, made out of Romans, Goths, Alans, Franks, etc etc etc. Romans marching on Rome? Many Roman generals did it, and if Alaric spoke Latin, dressed up and behaved in the Roman way, he was a Roman by that day's standards. Romanitas was much like being American, you just need a piece of paper and the will to be American. This is the time of mighty generals of Germanic ascent that usually act as Barbarian Emperors in the shadow. Stilicho, Aspar, Arbogast... So Alaric being on the top of the Empire would not be seen as strange, decadent or wrong. These men happened to be very good at what they did, and may have had an extra help in being kings or noblemen in their own nations or origin (although sometimes not; Stilicho never considerd himself anything else than Roman).

All that to say: we're not sure the Visigoths were actually Goths fully, or Germanic even. Not only they were the most romanised barbarian tribe out there already in the 400's, they were also changed by their adventures within Rome. The Visigoths that entered through Hadrianopolis didn't vanish or become a horde; some became bandits, some became farmers, but most entered the army and got a sweet deal from Valentinian and later Theodosius.

So keep maybe the name Visigothi, or Gothi. Just my two cents

[Augustusng]

Yes, I know. I did a bit of research myself, and decided to keep "Visigothi" for the Latin version of the mod. For the endonym version, I've used "Vesi Gut-þiuda," in the Gothic language. By the way, the Latin version is getting an update... soon... with changes to rebels, separatists, and maybe the Roman emergent faction names. Just have to decide exactly the words to use.

[Delicate Strawberry]

Yes, I know. I did a bit of research myself, and decided to keep "Visigothi" for the Latin version of the mod. For the endonym version, I've used "Vesi Gut-þiuda," in the Gothic language. By the way, the Latin version is getting an update... soon... with changes to rebels, separatists, and maybe the Roman emergent faction names. Just have to decide exactly the words to use.

I hope the endonym version gets all the rebels etc done too. I was thinking about that earlier, as to what they would be called. Bit of a challenge.

[LucasMDL]

very well done!!
Thanks!

I have only one question... it seems that the name of the faction in diplomacy map dosent change...
Can you work on that as well?

[Augustusng]

very well done!!
Thanks!

I have only one question... it seems that the name of the faction in diplomacy map dosent change...
Can you work on that as well?

Are you sure? The names on the diplomacy screen are working fine for me. Could maybe be an issue if you're not using the English version of the game, but I'm not sure.

[LucasMDL]

Are you sure? The names on the diplomacy screen are working fine for me. Could maybe be an issue if you're not using the English version of the game, but I'm not sure.

Work fine now! I dont know what it was... Maybe a conflict with another mod...
Anyway, thanks again! Much better with this mod!!

[The Iron Chancellor]

Hello, I seem to be having a spot of bother. I'm using your Authentic Latin Names file and it successfully changes the faction group names, but faction names remain the same as in vanilla. I am using multiple mods that may conflict (though, according to the Attila Mod Manager, they do not) so have moved your mod to the top of the load order. It doesn't seem to have fixed the issue! Could you offer any advice?

[Augustusng]

Do the names work when you disable your other mods? If you're not sure which mod might conflict with it, try disabling them one at a time. Of course, by using PFM you should be able to see if any of the other mods modify text files. Are you sure that the other mods you're using don't change any faction names? It could be that since my faction name tables are fragments, they're not properly overwriting the changes another mod makes (this shouldn't really be the case, but I guess it's possible). I made them fragments so that they'd work immediately if a patch or DLC added more faction names (generally separatist factions).

[Delicate Strawberry]

I was doing some (albeit brief) research for the emergent and rebel factions. Have you had any ideas? I think finishing those would complete the mod. By my numerous posts, you can guess I'm interested in the progress of this mod.

[Augustusng]

If you mean for the Latin version, those are almost done. I just need to decide if I want to use "Praefectura," "Provincia," or something similar for the Roman emergents. Since most of them never really existed, it's difficult to decide.

If you mean the endonym version, that's much more difficult. For most of them, I have absolutely no idea which words to use, and of course it's hard enough finding the names for the factions in some of the languages, let alone what to call their separatist/rebel versions.

I'll probably release an update for both versions with those Latin changes (of course in the endonym version only for appropriate factions) when the new DLC/patch arrives.