Maybe the first player that discovers it gets to name it and that name is used for all players. Intersting thought - so would you want to cover the map with "DrGuppiexxxxxx" and thus give away to everyone where you ahd been, or would you want to go with neutral names to keep others in the dark? Or would you want to name things after other players to further muddy the water and confuse the opposition? Ah the devious mind game possibilities....

I completly agree with you Tridus. But Frogboy's comment doesnt discuss details as to how naming will work. And that's what I was confused on. Maybe they do it like Denryu was saying and the first person who discovers something gets to name it. Or maybe names can be fought out over war. Who knows...

For communication purposes in MP, It would be nice if every civilization has reference to the same names, regardless of how those names are chosen.

Re names on maps, GC2 has a player-centered version already. You can rename stars and colonies regardless of who occupies them.

What I'd like to see for Elemental is a way to view what names the other civs have put on the map--some sort of map room that you need to stock up via something like espionage spending or appropriate clairevoyance spells. The multiplayer question CapnWinky raised seems to make something like that an essential companion to enabling players to name map features.

I'm also curious about whether we'll be able to simply draw some boundaries and give them a label or if we'll only be able to rename specific 'geography' objects on the map. I'd like this especially for the larger maps, where I hope a 'bioregion' thing like a desert or forest could be fairly large, e.g. in the Big Dustbucket desert, I'd like to be able to mark the tile or tiles where a great battle occured with some name like Especially Bloody Sands.

The naming of sections of map terrain will be fun.  The solution within Multiplayer is actually quite easy.  

From the images we've seen it does appear each player has a dominion or magic domain or territorial boundary.  The player who has the majority of ownership for a section of map terrain should have the ability to rename the location for everyone in the game.  

As an extra feature a low level and inexpensive magic spell could be used so the location cannot be renamed until another player casts the spell using even more magic.

Do you need a reason beyond 'to look cool'? So long as there's gameplay behind it, I don't.

Still not sure I'll care for multiplayer, but if I did, I'd still want some ability to maintain the map coordinates & location names separately somehow. I'm thinking of things like "Istanbul's not Constantinople any more" and the Falklands/Malvinas, Malvinas/Falklands argument (still evident in the Wikipedia redirect).

Reminds me of a commercial where a guys says "Why didn't you just mail me the check?" and the other guy is like "um, we have a hovercraft..."

However an area gets named (exploration, ownership, other) I think that once a feature is named the name should stick for the duration of the game in multiplayer. I dunno I guess I can see both advantages and disadvantages to renaming stuff, it just seems like especially a hotly contested area it could get old for it to be renamed many times. Also, what if empire boundaries divide a geographical feature among 2 or more empires?

I really like the idea of the discoverer gets namng rights, and that name sticks.

 Multiplayer can be amazing fun... just don't have your first multiplayer experience with strangers on the internet.  Many strangers on the internet will either try cheating, quit when they start losing or possibly have a rude immature personality.... which can really destroy the fun.   First do multiplayer with friends and/or family when possible and start as a team against AI opponents.  If you must start with multiplayer online make sure you know the personality and behaviors of the individuals within the game...  typically online guilds have members who all trust each other and play together.

In regards to having map location names separately... this can cause confusion between the different players.  As you might have named a location as "The Great Forest"  while another player has it called the "The Grey Forest".  Ideally the names for all map locations should be the same for all players so communications with terrains are not confusing.

Yes, I'm expecting many areas which are not owned by anyone for large, huge, and gigantic maps.  I'm not sure if exploration would be fair... as one nation playing a turtle strategy would lose naming rights to another player using an expansion blitz strategy.  The best fair way to have these wild spaces named would be allowing all players to vote.  One player submits a name change request and the other players can choose none or submit their own name change request.  The next turn each player gets to vote among the list of names.  If 4 different human players all want different names then it should randomly choose one of the 4 names.    

The actual renamings of locations should only happen once every 20_turns OR if the location falls under control of a new empire.  I say 20_turns because an event may change the terrain such as a volcanic eruption leveling a forest or a great battle may cause a swamp to earn a new name.  If two players are renaming one location often due to the change of control the other players can pressure via diplomacy one or both players for a specific name to remain. 

I estimate it would be very rare for two empire boundaries to perfectly share (50% and 50%) one single geographical location... but for such an unlikely scenario the player who originally obtained the majority should have naming rights.

Well that can be a problem for a game which has  20 human players and each of them give unique names... the overlapping of names would make the map very cluttered.   Then for PBEM  games communication is done all by email between players causing even more confusion.

Dominions_3 is a fantasy TBS game where over 70 players can be all on the same game.

I don't think players need to be confused with in-depth naming rules. Leave that for the city council guys who decide who gets a street named after them. Against the AI, the player should be able to name geographic features, even if the names are silly and stupid. (Here be the Buttface Mountains!) Against human players: maybe disable naming? Only name stuff in your territory? Random names pulled from a database?

Well on a game with a very large map and many players this would still be a problem.  Say you receive a message to recieve a free item from another player who only wrote to meet him in Dunkans Forest.  The world map might have 50 different forests... so you have to highlight each forest and view the 10+ names for each forest before finding where to pickup the item.   Even worse what if he named the location Dunkans Mark...  then you have to search every terrain or wait another entire turn as you send a message back requesting more specific directions.

Also with so many different names being stored for each location it's more work for the game as compared to each location having only one name.

   Against the AI... of course the single human player could name the locations, this conversation is about naming locations for multiplayer games.  For multiplayer disabling naming would be removing a game feature.  Naming locations only in your territory... this is a possible option the developers may consider.  The random names pulled from a database is what the default game will be doing... ideally the naming convention should use an algebra formula as compared to fixed names which provides a greater list of names with less effort.   

/applause