Official Sounding Star Names

PURPOSE Provides "realistic" sounding star names forthe entire 3,790 possible names that shipped with Galactic Civilizations III. See "Sources" below for how this file was constructed. This mod only affects the names of STARS. You can rename colonized planets within the game normally, either at arrival or via the "Govern" option for the colony

HOW TO INSTALL If this is the only GalCiv3 mod you use, simply applyunzip to the file, which gives you a directory named NamedBayerStarsOnly. Copy that directory, with all its files, into your mods folder. The mods folder normally can be found at "My Documents" > "My Games" > "GalCiv3" > "Mods" on a Windows PC.

If you have other Mods running, you can probably mergethem by unzipping the file and finding the following file:   \NamedBayerStarsOnly\Text\StarNamesText.xml  Copy this file into the "Text" directory ofwhatever mod you are using.

COMPATIBILITY This file has been tested with GalCiv3 v1. 7 and v1. 8, andworks without the Mercenaries DLC.

The file is intended to REPLACE the existing star names,not supplement them. The goal of this mod was eliminate the various odd and unattractive names found in the original name list in a non-judgmental way. In this case, by substitute "realistic" names for original "unrealistic" names.

Internally, the game always uses"StarNamesText.xml," which has a special numbering system for names within the files. Therefore, appending or merging two or more StarNamesText files is difficult, since you must be aware of the numbering sequence used in all other name files. lf you want to edit or merge two or more lists, you should do it manually, which means you have to understand XML syntax and ASCII files at the very least.

Also note that racial homeworld star and planet names aredefined elsewhere within the game. This mod does NOT change those.

SOURCES This list is the exact length of the original GalCiv3names list (3,170), to insure maximum compatibility within the game. Effort has been made to insure that all names came from actual astronomical names or designation systems. The list includes commonly used names for stars including alternate names(1); all names from the Bayer designation system (2) of 24 greek letters and 88 modern constellations(3); additional Bayer style names using older constellation names(4); and a scattering of Flamsteed names(5). The Flamsteed names are limited to a semi-random selection from those that actually exist(6), since Flamsteed's list has various limitations.

The list does not include more modern  star catalog names, such as those of MaxWolf, Wilhelm Gliese, Kevin Luhman,  or theWISE list (Wide-Field Infared Survey). That means that more recently discovered star, many within 25 light years of Earth, are not included. This disinclusion includes nearby stars Wolf 359, Luhman 16 (A and B), etc. This is probably best, since more recent lists handle multi-star systems. These are extremely common in our universe, but don't exist in the GalCiv3 universe. For example, our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is a tinary system - see Alpha Centauri A and B (a binary pair about 11. 2 AU apart) , and Proxima Centauri orbiting the pair about 15,000 AU out. What type of planets, and where, exist within Alpha Centauri is debated, but evidence for at least one close-in planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B is very strong.

References (1) Star names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proper_names_of_stars (2) Bayer naming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_designation (3) Modern constellations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_modern_constellations (4) Former constellations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_constellations (5) Flamsteed naming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamsteed_designation (6) Flamsteed numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_stars_with_Flamsteed_designations