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[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

It has off course charm with names like "The Steppe of Venegation" and so on.

To me at least, it makes the game harder to play that ALL the name are random like that, because I can't remember what is what.

In adventure mode it can slow things down that it's hard to remember which forest was The Forest of Beards and which one was The Forest of Tomes.

I propose to use "managed" procedurally generated names like the names for intelligent undead that always kinda sound like something an undead would be called. Like they're called "sunless stalker" but not something random like "bewildering stalker" or "buttonstalker."

Managed procedurally generated names will be like

Example 1 Sites. Example: Dwarf fortress.

There's 3 name models and then the 4th one, the old random name generator. 25% of names are picked from each model at random.

Prefixes, [most common metal], [most common precious stone], [most common ore] [name of king's favorite metal], and so on.

Name-prefixes:  [name of founder], [name of most worshipped god], [name of founder civ's leader]

Suffixes: [keep], [forge], [hold], [fort]

Model 1: Prefix + suffix

Model 2: [name-prefix]'s + sufix

Model 3: The [Suffix] of [Prefix]

Model 4: The old random generator.

So you get many names like Uristforge, Bismuthkeep, Magnetitefort, Etur's Keep, Dastot's Hold, The Keep of Galena, The Fort of sapphire.

They'd sound like dwarf fortress'ish, I think it will make them easier to remember. You can recognize on the name that it's a dwarven fort.

IDK how many names the game can generate like that, I guess Toady can calculate if they're enough - I think it's enough names so the fort's don't get similar names in different games. There's a lot of minerals, metals and dwarf names.

Civilizations and governments,

Civlizations could be named after the founding holding, governments after the site they're at.

So it'd be like

Civilization: "The dwarves of Etur's Keep"
Govt. "The dwarves of The Keep of Galena."

Does the site get conquered by say, Armok forbid, Elves, the new govt. is called "The elves of the Keep of Galena."

Example 3: Mountain ranges.

The game checks the mountain range for characteristics. Each time it finds one, it has a chance to name the mountain range of that characteristis or to move on. If everthing is "rejected" it gets one of the old random names.

Tallest peak. Sky, Heaven, Endless.

Most northernly/westernly/etc - square of a mountan biome: Northern, Western, Southern, Eastern.

A megabeast lives there: The mountains of the roc/hill titan/colossus/etc.

Coldest mountains: Frosty, Frozen, Icy, Snowy.

Color of most normal mineral: Grey, Red, Orange.

Most common ore: Galena, etc.

A random god.

That would end up with mountain ranges being called like The Southern Mountains, The Icy Mountains, Dragon Mountains, Mountains of Etur, The Sky Mountains, The Mountains of Galena.

I think it would also make them easier to remember, and it should be done for everything - hamlets, dark pits, necromancer towers , prairies and so on.

[BlueManedHawk]

I like this idea and support it.  One thing I am interested in is what will happen in the event of conflicts, e.g. when two sites have galena as their most common metal.  Will it be first-come-first-serve, where the second has to pick a new name?  If so, how would they do that?; would it be through choosing a different model, or going with the second-most-common metal, or choosing a different prefix or suffix?  Will this take into account whether or not the site is aware of the other site, leading to Haiti-versus-Liechtenstein shenanigans?

[Azerty]

You're right both toponymy and ethnonomy needs to become more realistic.

And you forgot events: I'm sure there'd be a sea named after the appearance of a deity by its worshippers, or a forest named from a bloody battle.

[Bjorn]

I love all your suggestions except for the civ name. Although I think it being tied to the original mountainhome is good, I also think it being its own think would be great too.

One thing I'd do is actually give civ nationals a name themselves. For example, a dwarven civ could call their dwarves "Brassbeards", a goblin civ could call their goblins "flesh-skinners", etc. Each race could also have a government type name (similar to how Dukes get Duchies for example in holdings). Dwarves could have it as Kingdom, Humans as Republics, Empires or Realms (or be procedurally generated per civ) etc. Then the name of the civ itself could be chosen randomly from certain patterns like the name of the people or the government type together with other elements like the name of the first Ruler or a metal or some other thing.

You could have then things like the Iron Kingdom or the Kingdom of the Brassbeards, or the Ņurian Realm (Law-Giver's name was Ņur. Game concatinates the string with "ian", "ic" or "ite" endings at random so you can get Ņurites, Ņurians or Ņurics)

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

I like this idea and support it.  One thing I am interested in is what will happen in the event of conflicts, e.g. when two sites have galena as their most common metal.  Will it be first-come-first-serve, where the second has to pick a new name?  If so, how would they do that?; would it be through choosing a different model, or going with the second-most-common metal, or choosing a different prefix or suffix?  Will this take into account whether or not the site is aware of the other site, leading to Haiti-versus-Liechtenstein shenanigans?

IRL it happens two places have the same name, like there's two countries called Georgia and a ton of cities called San Juan. The San Juan cities happen because St John was important to the Spanish religion, so they liked naming cities after him. I find it cool if something of the same happens in the game.

For game purposes It would thb be too confusing if you got a LOT of Galenakeep's in a world so IDK.

One way could be to add suffixes and prefixes to other Galenakeeps:

Either add "New" or "Western/Northern/Eastern/Southern" (depending on it's placement relative to the original Galenakeep.) or both if the version already exists. Like if two Galenakeep is added to the west of the original the first one would be called Western Galenakeep and the second one New Western Galenakeep.

Other options if adding suffixes: of [geographic region] and of [founder/important person.]

It would add variety as well as some names would become longer.

I'd like this solution, but maybe it's easier to just roll another name. I wonder how the game does it now, it must be possible already to get two jungles with the same name?

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

You're right both toponymy and ethnonomy needs to become more realistic.

And you forgot events: I'm sure there'd be a sea named after the appearance of a deity by its worshippers, or a forest named from a bloody battle.

I was thinking of NAME CHANGES.

Say a forest gets named after [most common tree] so it's called the Forest of Birches in year 1.

And then in the Forest of Birches it happens a meyhem of battles and deaths and bloodshead.

It seems fair that the game can change the name according to certain trigger events.

Say a battle with +100 deaths happens in a place - then it gets a new name based on the formula [Area typo] + of blood*/of the battle of [battle name]

*I think the game already has lists of words related to death, battle, that sort of thing, so it could be taken from there.