colourblindness

[rikrak]

Is anyone else having trouble reading the RED warning messages against the dark background?

They pop up and disappear too quickly for my colourblind brain to read...

I seem to remember there was a similar problem with SMAC - but it was patched pretty quickly.

Who should I contact to request an increase in colour contrast - so that us colourblind Civ players can see exactly where it is that we're being pillaged?

cheers,

rikrak

[vmxa1]

You can just open the event log and read them. It is the icon on the upper left. It has the combat logs as well.

[rikrak]

thanks - didn't know about that - i'll give it a try when i get home

rikrak

[Sirian]

You can also mod the game to display different colored messages. For instance, the red can be changed to yellow or something else that you can read better.

You'll have to edit some XML files (or make a mod, instead of changing your core game files) but you can get there.

Under the Interface folder, there is an XML file called ColorVals.xml

In that file, you can change the values on Color_Font_Red and Color_Warning_Text, and maybe some others. Might take a little experimentation. Use a saved game that you know will display offending messages, where you can try your edits out and see how they look.


Don't suffer! Mod it, fix it, then if you are really nice, spread your mod around so others can benefit.


- Sirian

[pauli]

hot damn, it's FIXABLE?

[Drachasor]

I thought there'd be more trouble telling two civs that almost have the same color apart.

-Drachasor

[vmxa1]

Yes this is a bigger issue to me. I was white and so was Engalnd in my prior game. We were soon bordering each other, ugh.

[Addled Platypus]

spill their blood

problem solved

[rikrak]

brilliant idea - and thanks for pointing me at the exact files.

it turned out to be the COLOR_RED tag - i've changed it to a pinker shade of red - works a treat!

I just changed the tag definition to:


COLOR_RED
1.00
0.50
0.50
1.00


cheers Sirian!

rikrak

[rikrak]

Yes this is a bigger issue to me. I was white and so was Engalnd in my prior game. We were soon bordering each other, ugh.

yeah - this affects everyone, not just us colourblind - but there are so many civs - very difficult to find a set of colours with no 2 clashing

several of the civ colours clash with the background terrain for me - but i can make them out if i squint real hard - as i said, the main problem for me was the fast warning text that appeared

but, how fantastic that the game is defined by a bunch of xmls, and it can be fixed in a matter of minutes

civ rocks.

rikrak

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by rikrak


yeah - this affects everyone, not just us colourblind - but there are so many civs - very difficult to find a set of colours with no 2 clashing

several of the civ colours clash with the background terrain for me - but i can make them out if i squint real hard - as i said, the main problem for me was the fast warning text that appeared

but, how fantastic that the game is defined by a bunch of xmls, and it can be fixed in a matter of minutes

civ rocks.

rikrak

Yeah, but I can tell the difference in colors, even if they are sometimes close (sometimes it takes a second or two).

I think the only way to fix the border issue for people who are colorblind is to make it so borders/nation colors are not just a single color. Replace the current methodology with a color pattern (such as horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagnal lines, dots, etc with two or more different colors). Hmm, I am not sure this will be easy to do however.

-Drachasor

[pauli]

the thing about nation colors is that you can (almost) always hover over whatever is in that color and see the civ name. this pervasive tagging has actually made civ colors less of an issue than in any past civ game... so it was just that friggin red text screwing me up.