The Translation Guide!

A guide to how languages work in the game and how to add new ones

Translating the game into a new language

All of the text that is displayed to the player is kept separate from the main game in a folder called ‘translations’ inside the games program files(x86)\democracy 4 folder.
You will see a ‘data’ folder, and a ‘translations’ folder, and inside that is a folder for each supported language:


Each translations folder contains a bunch of files and spreadsheets that contain nothing but translated text, and some object ‘names’ so that we know what each piece of translated text refers to. Here is a guide to what text has to be translated in each file to create a new translation for the game.

Note that csv files can be opened in any text editor, or a spreadsheet program like excel, but MUST be saved out in csv formnat, not as txt, not as xls or xlsx, but simple csv.

Missions
(This folder contains a text file for each country, and everything on the right hand side of the equals sign (=) on each line needs translating)

achievements.csv
attacks.csv
dilemmas.csv
events.csv
policies.csv
spin.csv
tutorial.csv
(everything in the 3rd and 4th columns (C&D in excel) needs translating)

media.csv
simulation.csv
(everything in the 3rd column (C in excel) needs translating)

partynames.txt
(All the lines of text need new versions, but they can be renamed as you see fit. obviously dont translate the very top title ([names]))

pressuregroups.csv
situations.csv
(everything in the 3rd to 6th columns (C,D,E & F in excel) needs translating)

quotes.csv
(everything in the 2nd column (B in excel) needs translating)

sliders.csv
(everything in the 3rd to 7th columns (C,D,E,F & G in excel) needs translating)

strings.ini
(Everything on the right hand side of the equals sign (=) on each line needs translating, but all-caps text inside <> such as has to be left alone)

votertypes.csv
(everything in the 3rd to 5th columns (C,D & E in excel) needs translating)

Thats it. The game is in unicode so should work fine with any language, including non-wetsern character sets. Once a full translation is done, if the folder has been named in English (for simplicity sake), it should then show up as a drop-down item in the games option screen:


I welcome any questions on how this works, and anybody who can contribute to helping translate the game is HUGELY appreciated. People who contribute to this can definitely be added to the games credit screen (assuming you want that!). Even if you are only able to find the time to translate just 1 file, its super-helpful as I’m sure with the collective playerbase we can get high-quality translations done collectively, because you people KNOW how the game works and what the terms mean more than a 3rd party would.

I will start a thread in the translations forum for any languages people are able to help out with, and hopefully it can be a cool group effort. If anybody has any questions about translations, please post in the translations forum.

[niccccolleee]

If the "data" and "translations" folders do not appear inside the Democracy4 folder, go to the Democracy4 folder and there you will see "config.txt", click on it, go to where it says "language: english", delete the language (english) and put the language of your preference. Click on save and start the game (depending on where you have it, it will appear as a document to edit in notepad).

[*Nom Nom Pancakes*]

Hello cliffski, where can I find a list of all policies, situations, events, ect. Thank you.

[Sogt]

I will start for Thai translation. once it done I will add to workshop.

[s_degirmenbasi]

i cant see translations file...

[clho]

It's columns C&D for simulation.csv no ?