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English review of cavalry unit references
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Authored by Gallaecio on Aug 18 2018, 10:20 PM.

Details

Summary

Kingu reported on Transifex the usage of "cavalry soldiers" in a string, when most use "cavalry units" instead. I took the chance to normalize the usage of cavalry terminology, and covered the choices in the English style guide at https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/EnglishStyleGuide

Test Plan

Only affects user-visible strings.

Diff Detail

Repository
rP 0 A.D. Public Repository
Lint
Lint Skipped
Unit
Unit Tests Skipped
Build Status
Buildable 6338
Build 10513: Vulcan BuildJenkins

Event Timeline

Gallaecio created this revision.Aug 18 2018, 10:20 PM
Vulcan added a subscriber: Vulcan.Aug 18 2018, 10:22 PM

Successful build - Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

Linter detected issues:
Executing section Default...
Executing section Source...
Executing section JS...
|    | [NORMAL] ESLintBear (curly):
|    | Unnecessary { after 'if' condition.
|----|    | /mnt/data/jenkins-phabricator/workspace/differential/binaries/data/mods/public/maps/tutorials/starting_economy_walkthrough.js
|    |++++| /mnt/data/jenkins-phabricator/workspace/differential/binaries/data/mods/public/maps/tutorials/starting_economy_walkthrough.js
| 430| 430| 		"OnPlayerCommand": function(msg)
| 431| 431| 		{
| 432| 432| 			if (msg.cmd.type == "gather" && msg.cmd.target)
| 433|    |-			{
|    | 433|+			
| 434| 434| 				if (TriggerHelper.GetResourceType(msg.cmd.target).generic == "stone")
| 435| 435| 					this.stone = true;
| 436| 436| 				else if (TriggerHelper.GetResourceType(msg.cmd.target).generic == "metal")
| 437| 437| 					this.metal = true;
| 438|    |-			}
|    | 438|+			
| 439| 439| 			if (this.IsDone())
| 440| 440| 				this.NextGoal();
| 441| 441| 		},

Link to build: https://jenkins.wildfiregames.com/job/differential/721/display/redirect

Nescio added a comment.EditedAug 21 2018, 4:30 PM

Actually I dislike both 'cavalry soldiers' and 'cavalry units'. Both strings are superfluous. Cavalry implies soldiers, cavalry soldiers is saying twice the same: soldier soldiers. And e.g. the 1st Cavalry Division is a cavalry unit.
What should be used is simply 'cavalry'.

cavalry [noun] (in the past) soldiers who fought on horseback. / modern soldiers who fight in armoured vehicles.

Army, artillery, camelry, cavalry, chariotry, elephantry, infantry, military, and navy are all similar nouns.

In my opinion the strings ought to be e.g.:

  • train citizen cavalry
  • use spearmen against cavalry
  • cavalry +10% movement speed
  • promote your cavalry to advanced rank

(Also, 'siege rams' should be replaced with 'battering rams' or 'siege weapons'. And make sure you don't add or remove new lines at the end of file.)

That was my initial idea, but when I went to update the English style guide (https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/EnglishStyleGuide) accordingly, I though that rather than having "Cavalry" for uncountable plural (e.g. +10% attack against Cavalry) and "Cavalry Unit" for countable scenarios (e.g. train 1 Cavalry Unit, train 6 Cavalry Units) it was better to keep it simple and use Cavalry Units also for the former scenario.

Notice however that this criteria only applies to "gamey" text, not to historical or background text.

Lets see what other people think, though. I added you and @Itms as reviewers because you have both edited the English style guide, but maybe you can think of more people who might want to provide feedback. maybe @elexis or @bb?

Notice however that this criteria only applies to "gamey" text, not to historical or background text.

Descriptions and tooltips (the vast majority of strings changed here) is actually far more important than historical background texts, because hardly anyone opens up the history section to read everything, whereas descriptions and tooltips are constantly being displayed in game.
In my opinion descriptions and tooltips should be:

  • generic
  • precise
  • consistent
  • brief
  • proper English

I might be biased, but I can see many reasons in favour of just 'cavalry' and not really any for the more verbose and less correct 'cavalry soldier units'.

"Cavalry Unit" for countable scenarios (e.g. train 1 Cavalry Unit, train 6 Cavalry Units)

How often does this occur? I don't recall ever encountering that in game. But if there is such a specific scenario objective, it might as well be 'train 6 cavalry spearmen'. It is unnecessary to complicate other strings because of a (hypothetical?) scenario.

How would you phrase “If you accidentally select a Cavalry Citizen Soldier, hold Ctrl and click on the Cavalry Citizen Soldier icon of the selection panel at the bottom of the screen to remove the Cavalry Citizen Soldier from the current selection.”?

How would you phrase “If you accidentally select a Cavalry Citizen Soldier, hold Ctrl and click on the Cavalry Citizen Soldier icon of the selection panel at the bottom of the screen to remove the Cavalry Citizen Soldier from the current selection.”?

To me that sentence sounds unnecessarily precise. I'd replace the current:

"If you try to select the three idle female citizens by clicking and dragging a selection rectangle over them, you might accidentally select additional units. To avoid that, hold the I key while selecting so that only idle units are selected. If you accidentally select a cavalry unit, hold Ctrl and click on the cavalry unit icon of the selection panel at the bottom of the screen to remove the cavalry unit from the current selection."

with something like:

"If you try to select the three idle female citizens by clicking and dragging a selection rectangle over them, you might accidentally select additional units. To avoid that, hold the 'I' key while selecting so that only idle units are selected. If you accidentally include a different unit, hold 'Ctrl' and click on the unit icon on the selection panel at the bottom of the screen to remove the unwanted unit from the current selection."

Or perhaps condense it:

"Hold the 'I' key while clicking and dragging in order to select only idle units. You can also remove units from your current selection by holding 'Ctrl' and clicking."

OK, so please state your suggested replacements for the cavalry unit names I added to the English style guide (https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/EnglishStyleGuide , Units section), and lets wait for feedback.

I also noticed you seem to want to keep (generic?) unit names uncapitalized, please confirm this or state how you would like to change the capitalization criteria from what is currently described on the English style guide.

Nescio added a comment.EditedAug 22 2018, 11:15 AM

Actually I think specific scenario text strings belongs in a separate diff; this one should focus on GUI elements, loading screen tips, descriptions, tooltips, etc. Moreover, scenario text does not necessarily have to follow the same criteria.

Concerning replacements, I'd suggest to have the description follow the internal names, e.g. Kushite Champion Infantry Archer. In most circumstances only one or two words are required. Be precise; e.g., if a technology multiplies the melee attack damage of cavalry by 1.2, the tooltip should be "Cavalry +20% melee attack damage", not "Melee Cavalry +20% attack damage" nor "Cavalry Soldiers have +20% attack".

As for capitalization, on the one hand, Excessive Capitalization Makes Text Harder To Read, on the other, current practice seems to be to capitalize game concepts (e.g. classes). If a string is talking about classes, capitalize them, e.g.: 'use Spearmen against Cavalry'. If, however, a specific scenario text is talking about an arbitrary selection instead of generic classes, then there is no need for capitalization, e.g.: 'select 20 units and send them towards the enemy base'.
However, I don't know how consistent capitalization is currently implemented. Besides, it's a different discussion; let's focus this one on the proper use of Cavalry.

[Edit]: I've edited your edits to the English Style Guide. Clear examples can make discussions easier.

Gallaecio updated this revision to Diff 7614.Mar 24 2019, 1:22 PM

In order to move things forward, I’ve simplified the diff to change only ‘cavalry soldiers → cavalry’, which was the scope of the original report.

Successful build - Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

Link to build: https://jenkins.wildfiregames.com/job/differential/1132/display/redirect

Perhaps you could also include some related corrections for consistency and completeness?

  • cavalry units → cavalry
  • infantry units → infantry
  • mercenary soldiers → mercenaries
Gallaecio updated this revision to Diff 7633.Mar 31 2019, 1:46 PM

Successful build - Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

Link to build: https://jenkins.wildfiregames.com/job/differential/1141/display/redirect

Nescio added inline comments.Mar 31 2019, 2:47 PM
binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/data/civs/sele.json
105

Citizen-Militia → citizen-soldier

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/structures/pers_barracks.xml
6 ↗(On Diff #7633)

citizen-soldier infantry

binaries/data/mods/public/simulation/templates/structures/pers_stables.xml
21

citizen-soldier cavalry

Gallaecio updated this revision to Diff 7636.Mar 31 2019, 11:55 PM

Feedback applied.

Gallaecio marked 3 inline comments as done.Mar 31 2019, 11:56 PM

Successful build - Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.

Link to build: https://jenkins.wildfiregames.com/job/differential/1144/display/redirect

Nescio accepted this revision.Apr 1 2019, 10:22 AM
This revision is now accepted and ready to land.Apr 1 2019, 10:22 AM
This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.
Nescio added a comment.Aug 9 2019, 9:44 AM

For the record, it seems all classes are uncapitalized here.