Diplomacy/Leader Voices?

https://www.galciv3.com/databanks

The Civilizations pic could point at a diplo screen like in Civilization, which I like. Going the step beyond that and add voices? From a cool factor, it'd be a nice plus if they were to speak their own Mucha Shaka Paka (with proper translated subtitles once UT is researched). It'd add to each major civilization getting their own visual style for ships (and their own AI, techs,...?).

Speaking english at any point? No. If the only interaction with them is in the diplo screen, I see no reason to pierce the cool factor of custom "Mucha Shaka Paka" (despite its flaws in use for KotOR and SWTOR). Wouldn't be against it, just make sure that Drengin don't get Hollywood-fake British accent, ok?

Once one has "universal translator" then the original language is going to sound like "English" to the human player.  That's the whole point of "universal translator."  Regarding the Thalan, I think they might be humans anyway. 

The whole point of the UT is to be able to communicate with them. Doesn't change the fact that each one still speaks whatever they speak. My leader in Civ V is supposed to be able to learn all the languages of the other leaders? Or do we just assume that despite whatever the leader dolls use as language, they and mine use a common language that is reflected in the UI?

Edit: funny thing, if I played altarians, the other leaders should use "altarian Mucha Shaka Paka" once UT is researched because altarians don't use english (or chinese, or spanish...).

I would argue against this. You can't always guarantee that a player will be able to play in quite environment where they can hear things clearly. Maybe they like listening the news or the radio while they play. Also, in the event that they miss something, would they get the option to tell the leader to repeat what they said? What about getting everything in text, so they can read instead of listening. Finally, some people are deaf, so speech does them no good.

If this were to be included, I would suggest that it would be a feature that could be turned off. Everything should be made possible using text first.

Furthermore, this might not be something that could be easily modded. Is current technology capable to creating high quality speech without voice actors? The best voice actors will cost money.

You are correct that it doesn't change the fact that the speaker still uses its native language, but the way I understand a universal translator is that it automatically translates that language into the listener's native tongue.  As a result, the only thing the listener hears is his own language.  Of course, it's just as valid to assume the universal translator is not instantaneous and that the listener first hears the alien language followed by a translation.  Whatever works.  I have no strong feelings on this either way.  It's all tech magic.

I don't think so.  At the very most you'll get a computer player that sounds like an answering machine.  "Lord Kona isn't here right now but please leave a message after the screaming slavelings,"

I wouldn't mind voicing Lord Kona actually, get my name on the credits, it would be a great gig, of course I'd have to sandpaper my throat first but that's just par for the course.

http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html

http://www.text2speech.org/

http://codewelt.com/proj/speak

Be it Star Trek tech or translator microbes, that's correct. So if you play Drengin and have researched the UT, you would not get english speaking sound from those aliens talking to you but drengin language. At least, if you want to keep the immersion factor.

Although not well stated, what I was trying to say was that what the listener actually heard was his own native tongue and not what the alien was actually saying.  It would be as though the alien was speaking the listener's native tongue.  Again, this isn't a big deal to me.  It's all good.

I don't know why you're assuming voiced diplomacy screens would be mutually incompatible with text. They aren't in Civilization V.

Like I said, sounds like an automated answering service.  If you want a quality voice with the right inflections, you need a human to do the job.  For now, anyway.  In the future, all bets are off.

Actually, I think the technology is there, or at the least, very close, although I wouldn't expect to see it on a PC for a while.

If they add voices, they should always speak in their native language and just have the text below in English when you have the universal translator.  That's what Civ 5 does, the other races don't suddenly start speaking English at any point.

I don't think the game need's voice work, but if it has it, I think everyone speaking English works fine. In order to have other species speak other languages without it just sounding silly, they would have to put together at lest the foundations of 7 languages. That seems like a bad investment of development time to me.

I agree, I was just speaking hypothetically.

What we need are Babel-fish. That way all the worlds problems (and Galaxy's) would be solved!

If we could only 'empathize' with those Drengin, then they would be able to get past the mouth-watering tastiness of deep fried Torians!