So, you can select a new culture each era, cool, I like it. But the name of every empire changes everytime they advance an era. This gets really confusing unless I just refer to them as "Blue Nation" "Green Nation" "Red Nation". This is especially annoying during war and diplomacy. Go to war with the Assyrians and then they become the Romans. Wait why are the Romans attacking me? Oh, wait, it's the Assyrians, they're the Romans now, ok. It's just a PITA.

How about one name for a nation regardless of what culture they select, and the ability to then name your own nation. You can name units and cities, but not your nation. This feature needs added.

I really like this idea.

This was one of my complaints from the beginning from both watching LPs and playing the Open Devs.

1000% agree to this. I get the idea is to play as historical nations and they want to tie certain playstyles to those as historically as possible, but the confusion that comes from this is tedious and unnecessary. If they instead allowed you to name your faction and then select bonuses in each era imitating those historical nations it would cut back on confusion and open up the potential for players and AI to select their own path through history as opposed to the now limiting aspect of first come first serve. When you end up picking the Phoenicians as a land locked society because it's the only good one left in that era the game just loses a sense of freedom and the "guided hand" of your civilization that it seems to be striving for. Maybe this will sort itself out as new choices are included but I would love to see more freedom and player choice. 

@Quiter 

That seems like another issue altogether, though have that as an option to choose for a run would be great. (Admittedly I'd likely always choose it myself)

+1 I like how the game is designed but remembering who's who is very difficult other than just regarding to them as their colour.
For me it's boiled down to, "okay I'm fighting blue" which isn't really that ideal

@Ranmyakki 

Granted it's taking it much further than simply allowing a name to carry through eras, but I don't see them as entirely separate issues. Either way I would love to see the OP's point implemented before something as drastic as my suggestion.

@Quiter

We'll have to disagree on it being the same/separate issue... BUT I absolutely would love it regardless!!

All I meant to get at is that having the option to name your nation (And have a pool for the AI) while keeping the same game mechanic is pretty much mandatory (Slight exaggeration)

But having the option to not have cultures locked after being chosen would be fun to add in general for the game as a whole.

I would suggest the nations are named after the emblem chosen.

"Purple Sun Empire"

"Cyan Diamond People"

"Black Bear Empire"

Alternatively it wouldn't be difficult to generate 50 etymologically diverse fictional names.

Faraaq Empire. Chim Empire. Alavorian Empire. Greenback Empire. Hassenheim Empire. Takanori Empire. Ferox Empire. Tsing Empire. Ja'dorra Empire. Lieburg Empire.

Then in parentheses put (Egyptian Influenced) or (Celtic Influenced) to describe the real world archtype behind it.

The cities can all be named by the influence that's fine (it's what makes them influences after all) but the core name should remain static and unique each era.

The easiest short-term solution is probably just making the name of the AI persona (or player) more prominent in various places around the UI. In the future some sort of dynamic naming derived from a combination of the current culture and civics (several Civ mods do this, for example) would go a long way towards making things more consistent as well, I think. I also really like KnightDuty's idea of naming empires after their color + symbol.

All the AI we play against have a name. It would be quite easy to say "Poe's French" or "Lucy's Romans." That way the culture will change but at least we can remember the name - "Poe is being aggressive in this game, gotta watch for him." "I like Lucy, don't attack her."

It would be a step up from remembering the colors.

I'll be the dissenting opinion here. I really hope this isn't implemented. I love the way the game is right now. It's really cool to forge alliances with Rome, to ransack the Huns, to betray the Ming empire. If I need to refer to them, I refer to their culture and it feels great. A randomly generated name I'll have to deal with is far less so.

In Civilization that's ok for me, but here it isn't like forging an alliance with rome because the cultures are mixed. What's rome now could be the french with a little bit of babylon and some rome in it an hour later. It's more like building a civilization by taking cultural influences from the real world. So it doesn't feel right for me to forge an alliance with rome and then going to war against germany with my fellow french friends formerly known as rome, babylon and nomadic tribe.

100% agree with this. I've only played a bit, but in terms of naming conventions what I would really like to see (alternatively to having the option to choosing one's own empire name and have it remain for the game, if that wouldn't work for whatever reason) having prefix-suffix names based on the cultures you choose - Egypto-Romans, Greco-Saxon etc would really play into the evolving nature of your culture. Choosing to transcend a certain culture would also have a nice little impact in your name remaining pure. Having options to change your banner as your culture evolves would be cool and in a similar vein, but I'll make a new thread for that suggestion.

Another idea could be a name based on your starting continent/district, but over this I would rather; the districts remain unnamed during the neolithic era, and upon the founding of a capital, the name of said district is chosen to match the nation claiming it. 

I really hope that this naming scheme is fixed in a future update, it's a bit jarring and I think takes away somewhat from the idea of "build your own culture, shape history" if your culture is limited to the names of those in actual history.

name the nation is ok or using the name of the avatar/persona to define it like 'Victor king of the mycenian' is good for me too.