I don't think it's documented anywhere in the Tropico manual, but you can change a citizen's name by double-clicking on it. I thought I'd try and make use of this by creating names that have useful information embedded within them, and my own particular set-up is detailed below. I'm still playing around with this approach to naming citizens, so it can likely be improved upon - ideas welcome!

Note: The naming scheme below has now been superceded by a more elegant scheme, detailed in post #12.

SURNAMES (Native Tropicans)
All founding families have the Scottish prefix Mc added to their surname, the next two letters indicating the occupation of the founding family. Then, by using the naming convention for female citizens mentioned further down the page, this surname can be preserved through successive generations, and you can track the genealogy of a family! Then see if the family prospers or dies out, and also how many citizens can trace their ancestry back to the founding families, and who is related to who ... this all turned out to be quite interesting!

Examples:
MCFALL (Farmer)
MCDONALD (Docker)
MCTEISH (Teamster)
MCSOCK (Soldier)

FIRST NAMES (Native Tropicans)
Founding Generation Tropican = first name begins with A
Second Generation Tropican = first name begins with B
Third Generation Tropican = first name begins with C
Fourth Generation Tropican = first name begins with D
and so on ...

It's surprising how many generations arise in Tropico, I was already up to the D's after 25 years of gameplay! And on my island, the MCSOCK boys all pursued military careers - probably just happenstance, but curious even so!

CHILDREN (Native Tropicans)
First child: second character of name = A
Second child: second character of name = E
Third child: second character of name = I
Fourth child: second character of name = O
Fifth child: second character of name = U

Examples:
BAsil = second generation, first child in his family
CAtherine = third generation, first child in her family
BUzz = second generation, fifth child in his family

Using this approach, I unearthed a high infant mortality rate on my island that wasn't obvious at all until I introduced this naming scheme - down the track I had families with kids called COLIN or DUGAN with no siblings!

So ...
Example (1): ADRIAN MCDOBBS is a founding first generation DOcker (though his fourth child BOB MCDOBBS is a DOctor, not a DOcker !!! - see modifiers below).
Example (2): Even though BADBOY MCFALL is a soldier, we can tell from his first name that he is a second-generation native Tropican, and also that he is the first child of a founding farmer ALAN MCFALL.

SINGLE FEMALES (Tropicans & Immigrants)
The names of all single females are hyphenated, so that when they get married their maiden name is preserved. So, we can tell from her name that BEATRICE-MCFALL is a second generation native Tropican, and also that she is the second child of founding farmer ALAN MCFALL. Then if she marries BOB MCDOBBS she'll become BEATRICE-MCFALL MCDOBBS.

As with native Tropicans, the names of single female immigrants are hyphenated ... again, so you can spot when they get married! And if you want, surnames can again reflect their occupation (though this can get cumbersome / awkward with large volumes of immigrants marked as 'unemployed'). Still, we can tell by her name that EILEEN-BArnes is a single female BArmaid. And if she marries BOB MCDOBBS she'll be renamed to EILEEN-BARNES MCDOBBS.

MARRIED PEOPLE
Once married, I rename single females without the hyphen - that way, any kids will carry just the family name as their middle name.

I prefix married men with MR and married women as MRS. This is handy for being able to tell at a glance the likely economic status of the individual (married couples typically having more money).

This MR and MRS thing revealed other interesting information. For example, I noticed MRS ALICE MCFALL was suddenly single, so evidently she'd become a widow (else her husband emigrated or had become a rebel!). Then er, at the age of 66 she remarried an immigrant in his 20s (!), and became MRS ALICE MCFALL RICHARDSON, with a son BARNEY MCFALL who was older than his stepfather! I wouldn't have noticed any of these goings-on with the ingame naming system.

MODIFIERS
MR = married male
MRS = married female
MC = Founding family
DR = DOctor (to distinguish from DOckers!)
REV = Priest
BISHOP = Cathedral
PC = Policeman
GENERAL = General
PROF = Professor

Similarly, you can promote soldiers / police with high work experience with modifiers like SGT or DETECTIVE. And come up with modifiers for teachers and bureaucrats too.

These modifiers have revealed other interesting snippets ... for example I discovered that my priest REV ALBERTO had a penchant for joining the army, as I kept seeing a soldier called REV ALBERTO popping up , so I sacked him and he went back to the priesthood - but had I not titled him REV it's very unlikely I'd have ever noticed him switching jobs like that. I can also take special care with the children of Generals, easily identified by their middle names of GENERAL.

SUMMARY
I've found that using a naming convention has added even more depth to the game, and a happy side-effect is that you tend to get to know your citizens far better, as opposed to when their names all look rather samey - like Francisco Christos or Christo Francos or whatever.

One last example ... when the name MRS ALICE MCFALL popped up recently as leader of the militarists, and was threatening me with a coup, I instantly knew who that was ... that blardy grouchy old hag of a widow, the one who married that young fella from Haiti!

that is highly interesting.. But man that sounds like turning the game into a lotta work ! Im currious how long a 50 year game takes you?

Thank You for

Trop'je: Yes you're right, it's quite a lot of work to set up, but only at the start of an island. Once implemented, I've found it's fairly easy to maintain.

Actually, I've been tweaking things a bit since I posted. I've switched to appending a number 1, 2, 3, 4 instead of a letter to indicate birth-order of children, so I can have a greater variety of names.

I haven't got far enough timewise yet, but I'm keen to see if each generation of kids going through the school system all have names that match up with their generation - so there should be lots of Amys / Andrews / Archies / Annes / etc in the High School, with the Grade School full of Berts / Brendas / Basils / Benjamins etc following through ...

Also, as I progress the first names should hopefully give me an idea of the distribution of age-groups in the island. And there's things like - see who out of the 'A' generation lives the longest; or if the 'B' generation end up prospering more because I built two colleges for them, then demolished them after their generation had matriculated.

rj66: Yes, I'm finding it a lot easier to identify / remember who's who on the island by spending the time to assign everyone with meaningful names ... now, when I see a name pop up in the almanac, or someone becomes a rebel or whatever, I've found I've got a much better feel for what's going on. For example, I've noticed that whereas the McFall's are breeding like rabbits, Adrian McDobbs has remained resolutely single his entire life.

Oh, and I just discovered this bit of gossip ... it seems one Mrs Teuzman has taken her two kids Ashley and Adrian, left her husband, and shacked up with Mr Busson! And er, one of my Generals appears to have adopted two kids - that's nice of 'im!

er, I guess this is starting to sound like the Tropico equivalent of The Sims ...

(15-05-2011 09:40 AM)rj66 Wrote:  ... CoconutKid will probably find this info interesting.

Oh yes!

This is a very interesting variation on a similar suggestion posted long ago on the Cafe (sorry - I would post a link if I could). That suggestion was politically based -- to track people who were in sensitive jobs.

It amounted to a Secret Police Dossier file system to supplement El Presidente's already awsome ability to search the minds of his subjects -- if he could just figure-out how to do it without paying for useless "spooks."

Quote:Using this approach, I unearthed a high infant mortality rate on my island that wasn't obvious at all until I introduced this naming scheme - down the track I had families with kids called COLIN or DUGAN with no siblings!

@ one billion daleks,

Perhaps I didn't read quite as carefully as I needed to, but I couldn't track how infant mortality could be differentiated from emmigration and\or non-marriage. I am very interested in Tropican vital statistics, especially mortality and morbundity rates associated with age groups. In T1, Babies (age 0-3) do not die ; Children (4-13) seem to die only from starvation and then rarely. Of course, that is excepting the effects of the random events disasters.

So if your system provides a reliable track for deaths among the Babies and Children, I will be very interested in further reports.

CoconutKid: Well, I had a five-child family with the kid's names something like BARRY / JENNY / BILLY / COLIN / DUGAN (** see edit below). Then I happened to look at Colin's data, then clicked over to his parents, and just happened to notice that only Colin and Dugan were left listed as their children, which seemed odd.

I can't remember now whether Colin was adult or not when I checked, but yes - as you suggest - his three other siblings may've emigrated. Though I don't think so, as living conditions are pretty good. And if they'd married, they should still show up under their parents shouldn't they, whereas in fact only Colin and Dugan were still there.

Mind you, I've come across quite a few kids ending up with parents that are not theirs - due to remarriage, or abandonment perhaps - so maybe Colin's three other siblings were adopted out! But seeing as my population had dropped a bit I formed the opinion that they'd died.

I've got a lot of infants in my population at present, with quite a few six-child families, so I'll keep an eye on them and see if I can spot some more similar gaps popping up in the family birth-orders, and try and figure out what's going on. And I'll try a <Ctrl><n> on six kids from one of the bigger familys as well - hopefully that'll help solve the mystery!

Edit: Can't remember now, but the names were actually something like CATHERINE / CEDRIC / CINDY / COLIN / CUSTER as I was using a different naming convention at that point. As mentioned in the first post, I'm still tweaking things with this to try and generate a naming convention that is both flexible enough to provide lots of different yet realistic names, but still be optimised for efficiency in conveying useful information.

I have noticed some really wierd things in T3 regarding remarrying. It kind of ruins the family ties. I often see retired tropicans with alive "parents" in their thirties. Really messes things up, especially since I sort of liked to watch the growth of families in T1. Really hope they fix it in T4.

Yes, I've now come across a few anomalies like that too, it does look like a bug unfortunately.

In truth, it's probably also the reason for kids ending up with parents with a different surname from their children - and may well be the cause of me thinking I had a high infant mortality rate, whereas in fact the kids had actually just vanished into the crowd by relocating to another family (or even a single adult, as in the case of my single General ending up with two kids!).

Still, for the sake of expediency, you can 'suppose' that such instances are foster parents and just leave it that - well, that'll be my coping mechanism anyway!

Mind you, in the scenario you mention you'd need a pretty vivid imagination to accept the idea of elderly folk being 'fostered' by much younger parents! So perhaps all you could do there to keep things looking sorta sensible is just bump off that elderly gremlin with a bullet!

But yeah, fingers crossed it gets fixed with T4. A quick fix would be to change the fieldname from 'Children' to 'Dependents', then an elderly person living with younger adults could be deemed to be a distant relative or a former neighbour perhaps.

Not so much

Good points there rj66, after all we wouldn't want any *ahem* funny business going on would we!

I've been adjusting my naming conventions again, and have been testing the latest ones with a new island with a population of just 10 to begin with ... I then built an Immigration Office straightaway so I can keep a tight rein on population influxes, and also a clinic to increase pregnancy rates. With those buildings in place, I can prevent things from getting out of hand!

So far, I haven't actually spotted any bugs, though interestingly some things tend to look like bugs but turn out not to be ...

For example, the wife of a founding farmer died in the first year and he then remarried an immigrant and had two more kids, on top of the two from his previous marriage. One of the daughters from the second marriage then changed her name by marrying an immigrant as well ... end result is that it looked like she had the wrong parents, and the wrong siblings too! But she didn't of course ... it was actually all correct.

So I think maybe there's a need to be darned careful about evaluating these relationships! ... as they may look wrong on superficial inspection, but when you dig down they actually turn out to be correct.

Anyway, I'll post my modified naming convention when I've tested it some more ... admittedly, it looks a bit scary at first, but it isn't complicated - it just looks that way (!). It produces a wide variety of realistic names with plenty of information embedded within them. And if it seems to be working OK, I might have a crack at making a decision tree as well, to help with naming children correctly.

(16-05-2011 10:40 AM)one billion daleks Wrote:  ... So far, I haven't actually spotted any bugs, though interestingly some things tend to look like bugs but turn out not to be ...

My references for T1 are locked-up and probably lost forever, so I have to work by memory and I don't pay as much attention to the family relationships as some players do. Just in case T3 follows the same conventions, here are some things about T1 families and names.

Naming seems to follow Anglo-American conventions generally with a few simplifications to reduce the required coding. That is: upon marriage, the female spouse's surname changes to that of the male spouse -- and for simplicity, her minor children change with her (I suppose it's an assumed adoption by the step-father; the only adoption in Tropico). Note: Coming of age in Tropico doesn't happen magically on a birthday; the individual has to change from the Child avatar to an adult avatar (another discussion). I suppose there is a lot of room for strange gaps in the code.

It seems that making changes in the surname when any family relationships are already established, tends to introduce anomalous changes later. Most players using names to flag or track individuals reported using only the first name (adding symbols such as * or letters) unless the change could be made while the person is single and childless.

When something negative\positive happens to an unit\person, the effect travels out through six levels of relationships - but at a decreasing intensity. So it's not a good idea to assassinate the patriarch of a large family.

Emmigration is a family thing -- when the lead spouse (I forget which one) decides to emmigrate, the other and all the minor children follow -- Babies are immobile and do not (immobile Babies and the related anomalies are another discussion).

The female initiates marriage from among the males who have decided to be available and are available. The male spouse decides on where to live. There is no mating ritual for the female spouse to become pregnant. Generally they live together with their children, however a jailed female spouse may have children join her in jail.

For what it's worth --

---

---

(16-05-2011 03:49 AM)one billion daleks Wrote:  [Democriss says, "I often see retired tropicans with alive "parents" in their thirties."]
Yes, I've now come across a few anomalies like that too, it does look like a bug unfortunately.
...
Still, for the sake of expediency, you can 'suppose' that such instances are foster parents and just leave it that - well, that'll be my coping mechanism anyway!
...
A quick fix would be to change the fieldname from 'Children' to 'Dependents', then an elderly person living with younger adults could be deemed to be a distant relative or a former neighbour perhaps.

Unless T3 introduced something as a new feature for family relationships, Tropico has very limited adoption (only as relates to step-parents) and no "fostering." Only Babies and minor Children share housing units with their adult parents.

Family size is limited to eight children. I suspect that if a widow with six children (minor or adult) decided to marry a widower with six children (minor or adult) she would hit a brick wall in the code because there would be no room to display 12 children.


Well if you have examples of Retirees displaying "parents" of a younger age; I wonder if the parents' display shows the Retirees as children? That is a cross-check to see if the 'glitch' can be identified.

And it occurs to me just now that the Gay Marriage Edict may introduce strange and wonderous effects to the naming convention code. What if two Lesbian widows, each with a couple of children, marry? How shall their children be renamed? More commonly, what if two old Queens who are widowers with children take advantage of the newly passed edict? What about the gay children of gays? And how about the "Fire Island" Challenge which has the edict in effect from the get-go?

Thanks for those tips CoconutKid, I'll work my way through them when I have some time tonight. In the meantime, here is my NEW! IMPROVED! naming system ... it may look complicated, but it's actually dead simple.

SURNAMES (Native Tropicans)
Founding families = prefix MC + two letters for occupation.
First Generation Tropican = first name begins with A

IMMIGRANTS
Append (I) to their first names as they arrive on the island (and don't forget to name one of them after yourself, so that you have a personal stake in spreading their name throughout the land!)

CHILDREN SURNAMES
Children always take their Father's surname (that's automatic).
The maternal lineage is preserved via the child's first name, which will need editing, as below:

CHILDREN FIRST NAMES
... from marriage between native Tropicans
... from marriage between a Tropican mother and an Immigrant father

Note: For the purposes of preserving the maternal lineage, children born of a Tropican mother are deemed to be Native Tropicans when they get married. They are identified as Native children by (a) having a birth-order number appended to their names, and (b) having a first initial in the range A-H.

1) Determine the child's first initial by looking at the mother's first initial, then incrementing one letter on from that.
2) Choose name.
3) Append the birth order number to the child's first name ... (1) (2) (3) etc

Second Generation = first name begins with B
Third Generation = first name begins with C
Fourth Generation = first name begins with D
Fifth Generation = first name begins with E
Sixth Generation = first name begins with F
Seventh Generation = first name begins with G
Eighth Generation = first name begins with H
then back to A

CHILDREN FIRST NAMES
... from marriage between an Immigrant mother and a Tropican father

Note: For the purposes of preserving the maternal lineage, children born of an Immigrant mother are not deemed to be Native Tropicans when they get married. They are identified as immigrant children by (a) having a birth-order number appended to their names, and (b) having a first initial outside the range A-H.

1) If the mother has an (I) instead of a birth-order number, give her children first generation initials.
2) Otherwise, determine the child's first initial by looking at the mother's first initial, then incrementing one letter on from that.
3) Choose name.
4) Append the birth order number to the child's first name ... (1) (2) (3) etc

First Generation = first name begins with I
Second Generation = first name begins with J
Third Generation = first name begins with K
Fourth Generation = first name begins with L
Fifth Generation = first name begins with M
Sixth Generation = first name begins with N
Seventh Generation = first name begins with O
Eighth Generation = first name begins with P
then back to I

CHILDREN FIRST NAMES
... from marriage between two Immigrants

Note: For the purposes of preserving the maternal lineage, children born of immigrant parents are not deemed to be Native Tropicans when they get married. They are identified as immigrant children by (a) having a birth-order number appended to their names, and (b) having a first initial outside the range A-H.

1) If the mother has an (I) instead of a birth-order number, give her children first generation initials.
2) Otherwise, determine the child's first initial by looking at the mother's first initial, then incrementing one letter on from that.
3) Choose name.
4) Append the birth order number to the child's first name ... (1) (2) (3) etc

First Generation = first name begins with R
Second Generation = first name begins with S
Third Generation = first name begins with T
Fourth Generation = first name begins with U
Fifth Generation = first name begins with V
Sixth Generation = first name begins with W
Seventh Generation = first name begins with Y
Eighth Generation = first name begins with Z
then back to R

RECOMMENDED MODIFIERS (Optional, obviously!)
MR = married male
MRS = married female
DR = DOctor (to distinguish from DOckers!)
REV = Priest
BISHOP = Cathedral
PC = Policeman
GENERAL = General
PROF = Professor
SGT = Soldier, experienced
DET = Policeman, experienced
MGR = Bureaucrat, experienced

Below is a Quick Reference card for naming children, the direct link is:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40/...ckref.jpg/



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

CoconutKid: Yes, I thought that messing around with surnames might be a bad idea, as game-code may utilise them for implementing the 'ripple effect' of player actions on citizens. Even so, I'm inclined to think that the game is more likely to use pointers to database records for managing such events, rather than some kind of basic database query function on surnames - and that's because I doubt the developers would permit players to edit names at all if doing so could stuff something up!

Your point about activating the Gay Edict is interesting, as I'll now have to keep my fingers crossed that the immigrant I named as myself doesn't turn out to be gay haha! I don't see that the edict would be relevent to ingame genealogies though, as by definition, gay folk can't produce progeny - they can only adopt, or inherit kids from past hetero relationships - in which case I'd be inclined to leave the kid's names as they are anyway.

I haven't come across any evidence of infant mortality under my revised naming system yet, so it looks like my earlier remarks may've been based on a misperception on my part!

Under my revised naming system, the integrity of family structures has turned out to be water-tight so far - all sorts of odd-looking things do happen, but codewise they've so far all turned out to be consistent with a correctly managed population.

One good example is my 66 year old founding farmer, who has now married a barmaid 35 years his junior, but he also has a son from his first marriage who is older than his new wife. So naturally, any player not tracking such matters might easily assume there was some kind of bug in the game, on the basis that the son is older than his female 'parent'. But tracking genealogy has demonstrated that the game is in fact correct, because the son's female 'parent' is actually his father's second wife, and not the son's mother - but that's not obvious at all just from the game by itself, it only becomes apparent from tracking the genealogy.

(15-05-2011 10:12 PM)Democriss Wrote:  I have noticed some really wierd things in T3 regarding remarrying. It kind of ruins the family ties. I often see retired tropicans with alive "parents" in their thirties. Really messes things up, especially since I sort of liked to watch the growth of families in T1. Really hope they fix it in T4.

Now that I've looked at the mechanics of family relations, I can see how an elderly citizen can end up with 'parents' younger than him, as I watched it happen with the son of my founding farmer:

1) His mother dies.
2) His father marries a younger woman (who becomes the son's new female 'parent').
3) His father dies.
4) His stepmother then remarries a man nearer her own age (who becomes the son's new male 'parent').

Result: Hey presto! Once the son ages, he acquires the appearance of a retiree, with two parents that are both younger than him.

(17-05-2011 10:31 AM)one billion daleks Wrote:  CoconutKid: Yes, I thought that messing around with surnames might be a bad idea, as game-code may utilise them for implementing the 'ripple effect' of player actions on citizens. Even so, I'm inclined to think that the game is more likely to use pointers to database records for managing such events, rather than some kind of basic database query function on surnames - and that's because I doubt the developers would permit players to edit names at all if doing so could stuff something up! ...

Based on experience with and reports from T1 play, I am reasonably certain that the game-code uses the unit numerical base ID + pointers to construct the genealogical table for the "six level" effects ripple, and the name field is surperfluous -- provided only for verisimilitude. Therefore it can be left open for the player to fool around with. I believe the name field is triggered for update by only two events 1} creation = initial placement\birth\immigrant arrival and 2} marriage. The implications seem simple enough until you remember that there are more units than just people. In T1, there are glitches in the code -- sometimes a Freighter thinks it is Ralph the Cow -- very rarely happens though. The issue I suggest is the data base quiry routine connected with the up-date sequence may find and apply a name field which your system skipped\overlooked\etc. and introduce something to confuse the player.

Your example of a young female choosing to marry a male geezer does explain the middle aged parents of retirees (I think?) -- But how many players can cope with the level of detail you suggest interjecting?

BTW, does T3 still use the T1 Almanac list of "National Origin?" It was crystal clear about "native born" and immigrant status. Nowever, in T1 all non-tourists resident on the island are citizens!

I guess by this time you have also discovered that Tropicans pass personal characteristics and political preferences to their children.

The only glitch I've come across so far is if a married woman called MRS <FIRSTNAME> <SURNAME> remarries, she loses her first name and her name changes to simply MRS <NEW_SURNAME>. A workaround would be to remove the space and just make the first name MRS.<FIRSTNAME>. But it's actually quite handy as it is, as it tells me that any female whose first name is missing must've been married more than once, and some of her kids may therefore not have her new husband's surname.

Of course, if you lose a woman's first name due to her remarrying, under the naming convention detailed in this thread you also lose her generation or immigrant status. In which case, the best thing to do is check to see if she has any parents - if not, she must be a new immigrant, in which case just reassign her an arbitrary name appended with (I). Otherwise, just give her a name that is incremented one letter on from her mother, and re-establish her birth-order number from her mother's other children.

I agree that most players probably wouldn't want to bother mucking about with citizen names to this extent. But for me it adds an extra level of depth and realism to Tropico, and getting to know citizens as individuals instead of just rather anonymously-named economic units, has increased the 'immersive' element no end. I also tend to approach Tropico more as an open-ended simulation of an ecosystem rather than simply as a game, so I do like to familiarise with individual components, and taking the time to name them helps in that process.

Yes, the almanac does still list National Origin in T3, so natives and immigrants are easily identified there. But of course it only applies to the population as it stands at present. Tracking genealogy serves a slightly different purpose - by preserving information about lineage within names, a citizen's historical origins as well as their 'present' origin is recorded, and that can strengthen the player's sense of the cumulative impact of generations / families (rather than just current individuals) on island affairs. And it's very interesting (for me anyway!) to see which families prosper over the long term, and which ones become dominant on the island. So genealogy certainly enriches the sense of a 'historical narrative' attached to an island.

Genealogy probably isn't of much use in campaign games though, where the focus is on the player racing to achieve specific goals. But I'm not much interested in campaigns - I prefer to take my time, and in fact use Tropico more as a political / economic / social simulator - for me it's far more interesting as a piece of modelling software than it is as a game.

Very interesting explanation of what you are about.

As to: "The only glitch I've come across so far is if a married woman called MRS <FIRSTNAME> <SURNAME> remarries, she loses her first name and her name changes to simply MRS <NEW_SURNAME>. A workaround would be to remove the space and just make the first name MRS.<FIRSTNAME>." That doesn't seem to me to be a glitch; rather, the name field appears just to use a very simple format. It appears to be a character string with everything before the first <space> is treated as the first name; what follows the first <space> is the second\sur name. I haven't noticed if you report trying a second <space> or results of such a trial.

Yes, you're right - it's not really a glitch in the game, more of a glitch in the naming system due to not always using two word names! Like I say, it's quite handy in a way - for spotting remarriages.

It's customary for a bug that turns out to be accidentally beneficial like that, to be referred to as a *ahem* 'feature', so er ... it's a feature

(18-05-2011 03:13 AM)one billion daleks Wrote:  anonymously-named economic units,

I love it !

from now on instead of tropicans, they are to be called..

ANEU!

Ohh how i must pay attention to my little ANEU's..

ohh god,, if you only knew how amusing i find this

That makes the game world sound like a clone of the Star Trek Borg! Of course, I still love '7 of 9' and wish to be both '6 and 8 of 9' with the agenda of eliminating the rest of the '9'.

But, back to Tropico. The T1 developers spent maybe too much time on creating the menus of names to provide Verisimilitude. Maybe they should have taken a clue from RLS and given everyone the day of the week when they were created as a first name with the last three digits of their unit ID as a surname.

The T1 name menus can be modded.

(18-05-2011 04:07 PM)Tropije Wrote:  anonymously-named economic units - I love it! From now on instead of tropicans, they are to be called ... ANEU!

Well, it's really just the polite dalek way of saying 'peasants'
I mean, seeing as we have a Sensitivity Edict, we might as well use it eh ...?

Sleepyness is overcoming so I will read this through more carefully tomorrow, but just tossing it out, have you ever done kinship studies?

Sounds like something right up your alley. I am also quite sure that some kinship study models could be applied here as well. (I can add a bit about family and kin organization later in Carribean countries but too tired to do that now. You will have to wait!)

Well no, I haven't studied kinship in any sociological sense - I mean, if you were to pose a question like "Can my wife's cousin's daughter's son marry my aunt's brother's daughter" I'd be as flummoxed as anyone else! But if you mean more along the lines of population distribution as in genetics, then yes - that certainly interests me. For by setting up a naming convention, T3 does offer a means for tracking the spread of genes through an ecosystem.

Mind you, after just three generations - and largely due to remarriage - I've already seen all sorts of weird family structures, with children having a variety of surnames, apparently quite unrelated to their parents. But the game does appear to be handling things right, it only looks wrong sometimes! But because females arbitrarily change their last name (and often more than once too), tracing the distribution of genes is only practical via the male line, where the last name remains constant.

I've noticed a couple of anomalies so far ... single hetero women never get pregnant - they always seem to cohabit with a male (very handy as it turns out, see Footnote ** below). And no one ever gets killed in earthquakes or hurricanes, which is er ... very disappointing - for my purposes anyway Edit: It turns out there are fatalities arising from natural disasters, I just didn't notice them being reported, buried away as they were in the small print of the pop-up message!

I've also found it's a good idea to grab a list of first names from one of those baby-naming websites, as I'd run out of ideas beyond the first half-dozen or so!

Oh, and I was pretty peeved when the immigrant bearing my name produced three daughters and only one son, and the son then promptly died while still in grade school, effectively snuffing out any chance of spreading the family name. So next time I'm gonna just rename an entire family, one with plenty of sons!

** Footnote: That has resulted in a lot less work keeping on top of changing names ... I've found that by just checking for newborns every six months, and renaming those infants promptly, the renaming workload is quite small. That's because a newborn first child also enables me to spot any women who've recently changed their names through marriage, and so I can change the parents to MR and MRS at the same time as I rename their first kid. Beyond the firstborn though, I don't have to bother checking the parents. The end result is, I don't have to wade through all the adults looking for new marriages all the time - if a child is a firstborn, then I know the parents must've just got married, and retitle them MR and MRs accordingly, otherwise there's nothing to do. So I only have to monitor for first newborns every six months to pick up all the name changes arising in that timeframe.

For anyone that might be interested in genealogy within Tropico, here's a selection of Generation first names to copy'n'paste (they have an Anglophile bias, sorry!)

If a player applies them in sequence and then strikes them off the list, they'll be in alphabetic order. This can be quite useful as an indicator of the oldest individuals in each generation, especially when they aren't related.

So, we can tell by their names that JACK is probably quite a bit older than JUSTIN, but only slightly older than JENNIFER.

GENERATION 1 Names

The shortage of 'I' names needn't be an issue, as there are typically very few I-T marriages - that is, if you switch off immigration as soon as possible to prevent the gene pool from becoming too 'diluted'. If, on the other hand, you need a lot of 'I' names, it's best to resort to nicknames like say Itsy, Itchy ... or Idiot!

BOYS
Aaron / Abel / Abraham / Adam / Aden / Adrian / Ainsley / Alan / Albert / Alec / Alex / Alfie / Alfred / Albert / Allen / Alvin / Andrew / Angus / Anthony / Anton / Archie / Arlo / Arnold / Arthur / Ashley / August / Austin

Ian / Ike / Immanuel / Irvin / Irving / Irwin / Isaac / Isaiah / Isadore / Ivan

Ralph / Ramsey / Randall / Randolph / Randy / Raphael / Raymond / Reagan / Reece / Reed / Reggie / Reginald / Reid / Reilly / Reuben / Rex / Rhett / Rhys / Richard / Ricky / Riley / Robert / Robin / Rocky / Rodney / Rodrigo / Roger / Roland / Roman / Romeo / Ronald / Ronan / Ronnie / Roosevelt / Rory / Ross / Rowan / Roy / Ruben / Rudolph / Rudy / Rufus / Rupert / Russell / Rusty / Ryan /

GIRLS
Abbie / Abigail / Acacia / Adelaide / Adele / Adrianne / Aileen / Aimee / Alana / Alexandra / Alice / Alicia / Alison / Alma / Amber / Amelia / Amy / Anabelle / Anastasia / Andrea / Angel / Angela / Angelica / Angelina / Anita / Ann / Anna / Anne / Annemarie / Annette / April / Audrey / Aurora / Autumn / Ava / Avril

Ida / Imogen / India / Irene / Iris / Isobel / Ivana / Ivy

Rachel / Raina / Ramona / Raquel / Rebecca / Regina / Rene / Rhea / Rhiannon / Rhonda / Rita / Roberta / Robyn / Rochelle / Rosa / Rosalie / Rosalyn / Rosanna / Rose / Rosemary / Roxanne / Ruby / Ruth

---

GENERATION 2 Names

BOYS
Bailey / Barrett / Barry / Bart / Beau / Beck / Ben / Benedict / Benjamin / Bennett / Benny / Benson / Bernard / Bert / Bill/ Billy / Blair / Blaise / Blake / Bobby / Brad / Bradley / Brady / Brendon / Brennan / Brent / Brett / Brian / Brock / Brody / Bruce / Bruno / Bryce / Buddy / Byron

Jack / Jackson / Jacob / Jacques / James / Jarvis / Jason / Jasper / Jeff / Jeremy / Jeremiah / Jermaine / Jesse / Jesus / Jim / Joe / John / Joseph / Jonathan / Jonah / Jose / Josh / Joshua / Jude / Julian / Julius / Junior / Justin

Sammy / Samson / Samuel / Sandy / Saul / Scott / Seamus / Sean / Sebastian / Seth / Shane / Sheldon / Sheridan / Sherman / Sidney / Simon / Solomon / Sonny / Spencer / Stirling / Steven / Stewart / Sullivan / Sylvester

GIRLS
Bambi / Barbara / Beatrice / Becky / Belinda / Bella / Bernadette / Bernice / Bertha / Beth / Betsy / Betty / Beverly / Bianca / Bonnie / Brandy / Brenda / Bridget / Britney / Bronwyn / Brooke

Jackie / Jacqueline / Jade / Jan / Jane / Janet / Janice / Janine / Jaqueline / Jasmine / Jean / Jeanette / Jeanine / Jennifer / Jenny / Jessica / Jewel / Jill / Joan / Joanna / Jocelyn / Jodie / Jolene / Joni / Joselyn / Josephine / Josie / Joy / Joyce / Judith / Judy / Julia / Julie / Juliet / June

Sabrina / Sadie / Sahara / Sally / Samantha / Samara / Sammi / Sandi / Sandra / Sarah / Sasha / Savanna / Scarlett / Selena / Serenity / Shannon / Sharon / Sheena / Sheila / Shelley / Sherry / Sheryl / Shirley / Sienna / Sierra / Simone / Skye / Sonya / Sophie / Stacey / Stella / Stephanie / Susan / Susanne / Susie / Sylvia

---

GENERATION 3 Names

BOYS
Cain / Callum / Calvin / Cameron / Camille / Campbell / Carl / Carlos / Carter / Cary / Casey / Ceasar / Cecil / Cedric / Chad / Chance / Chandler / Charles / Chester / Chris / Christopher / Clarence / Clark / Claude / Cliff / Clifford / Clint / Cody / Colin / Connor / Conrad / Constantine / Cooper / Cornelius / Craig / Curt / Curtis

Keaton / Keegan / Keifer / Keith / Kelly / Kelvin / Ken / Kennedy / Kenneth / Kent / Kerry / Kevin / King / Kip / Kirby / Kirk / Kris / Kurt / Kyle

Tad / Taylor / Ted / Terence / Terry / Thomas / Tim / Timothy / Toby / Todd / Tom / Tommy / Tony / Travis / Trent / Trevor / Troy / Truman / Tucker / Tyler

GIRLS
Camilla / Candice / Candy / Carla / Carly / Carol / Caroline / Carolyn / Carrie / Cassandra / Cassie / Catherine / Cathy / Cecilia / Celeste / Celia / Chantelle / Charity / Charmaine / Chastity / Chelsea / Cherie / Cheryl / China / Chloe / Christie / Christine / Cindy / Claire / Clara / Clarissa / Claudia / Cleo / Colette / Colleen / Connie / Constance / Coral / Corinne / Crystal / Cynthia

Karen / Kate / Katherine / Kathleen / Kathy / Katy / Kay / Kerrie / Kim / Kimberlee / Kirstie / Kylie

Tabatha / Tamara / Tammi / Tania / Tara / Tawny / Teresa / Tess / Thea / Thelma / Therese / Tiffany / Tina / Tori / Tracy / Treasure / Tricia

(20-05-2011 05:06 AM)one billion daleks Wrote:  Well no, I haven't studied kinship in any sociological sense - I mean, if you were to pose a question like "Can my wife's cousin's daughter's son marry my aunt's brother's daughter" I'd be as flummoxed as anyone else! But if you mean more along the lines of population distribution as in genetics, then yes - that certainly interests me. For by setting up a naming convention, T3 does offer a means for tracking the spread of genes through an ecosystem.

Mind you, after just three generations - and largely due to remarriage - I've already seen all sorts of weird family structures, with children having a variety of surnames, apparently quite unrelated to their parents. But the game does appear to be handling things right, it only looks wrong sometimes! But because females arbitrarily change their last name (and often more than once too), tracing the distribution of genes is only practical via the male line, where the last name remains constant.

I've noticed a couple of anomalies so far ... single hetero women never get pregnant - they always seem to cohabit with a male (very handy as it turns out, see Footnote ** below). And no one ever gets killed in earthquakes or hurricanes, which is er ... very disappointing - for my purposes anyway

I've also found it's a good idea to grab a list of first names from one of those baby-naming websites, as I'd run out of ideas beyond the first half-dozen or so!

Oh, and I was pretty peeved when the immigrant bearing my name produced three daughters and only one son, and the son then promptly died while still in grade school, effectively snuffing out any chance of spreading the family name. So next time I'm gonna just rename an entire family, one with plenty of sons!

** Footnote: That has resulted in a lot less work keeping on top of changing names ... I've found that by just checking for newborns every six months, and renaming those infants promptly, the renaming workload is quite small. That's because a newborn first child also enables me to spot any women who've recently changed their names through marriage, and so I can change the parents to MR and MRS at the same time as I rename their first kid. Beyond the firstborn though, I don't have to bother checking the parents. The end result is, I don't have to wade through all the adults looking for new marriages all the time - if a child is a firstborn, then I know the parents must've just got married, and retitle them MR and MRs accordingly, otherwise there's nothing to do. So I only have to monitor for first newborns every six months to pick up all the name changes arising in that timeframe.

I did mean kinship studies in the sociological sense It can help to explain why it seems a bit "random". I do however think the kinship system in Tropico does follow the basics of Carribean kinship models where women should remarry when widowed and get a gazillion of children. People do divorce a lot as well depending a bit of the part that you study, because there is a general attitude that men should spread their seed everywhere, kinda.

In the book I am currently reading, the idea of "kin" is a very loose definition and can include anyone who has lived with one of your relatives, blood related or not. I suspect a similar idea is the case in Tropico after reading your findings.

The title of the Cafe Tropico thread I mentioned above is "Secret Police Dossiers." The link is:

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/caf...opic=910.0