Alternate player colours for 1.2 beta

[Flinx]

[EDIT] Netscape does not seem to show the colours below IE does however[/EDIT]
[EDIT]Everyone should now see the correct colours below

0		0		0
1		1		1
2		2		2
3		3		3
4		4		4
5		5		5
6		6		6
7		7		7
8		8		8
9		9		9
10		10		10
11		11		11
12		12		12
13		13		13
14		14		14
15		15		15
16		16		16
		17		17
		18		18
		19		19
		20		20
		21		21
		22		22
		23		23
		24		24
		25		25
		26		26
		27		27
		28		28
		29		29
		30		30
		31		31
		32		32

[Flinx]

where did the attachment go?

oh well, here it is

[Martin Gühmann]

From a look on the color table I must say, it is even wrose then the original :

-Martin

[Flinx]

Ok I know how to fix the colours so that they will show up in Netscape correctly, it's just going to take a while...

[Flinx]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
From a look on the color table I must say, it is even wrose then the original :

-Martin

Even now that the correct colours (should) appear above, I make no claim that my colour choices are better, just that they are (mostly) different.

Just as an aside , in the playtest version, colours 7 & 19, 14 & 30, and 16 & 20 are very similar and might lead to confusion in-game; also the number of units in a stack is shown in white in-game and are not readable against playtest colours 6 & 9

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Flinx
also the number of units in a stack is shown in white in-game and are not readable against playtest colours 6 & 9

And when I change it from white to black I have the problem with other colors. I never noticed the problem with yellow although I use it for years.

And red must be available as player color.

-Martin

[Locutus]

I've been working on my own colors.txt file as well, since I shared Flinx's criticism regarding the similar and unreadable colours in the playtest. It was originally intended for personal use, but I don't mind sharing:

I'm fairly satisfied with the colours, though I feel the order could use some rearranging (but that's a very minor point really).

Players (as much as possible) sorted by colour:

28	13	4
9	1	19
14	20	22
24	11	16
3	0	29
30	10	25
17	12	8
15	31	5
18	2	26
23	21	27
32	7	6

[Tamerlin]

I must admit that after having reloaded my current game I prefer Locutus' colors though my opinion is biased as I have a real soft point for the blue color...

As far as I am concerned I like barabarians to have the red color, they are thus easier to identify and to spot on the map.

I agree that the order could be rearranged but it boils down to players' preferences and it will be very difficult to reach a common ground.

IMO the best solution would be to allow the human player to choose the color of each civilization in play at the start of the game. But I suppose that it is certainly not the easiest one as it implies some coding. One could also add that this is certainly not a priority.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
I've been working on my own colors.txt file as well, since I shared Flinx's criticism regarding the similar and unreadable colours in the playtest.

Similarity? Your color 6 and 27 are very similar. And also 1, 20 and 22 are very similar, in that case I could use the original Barbarian red for the Barbarians.

And unreadability? Open the chat screen and see what player 14 does or say. It is dark gray on black the problem that made me change the Barbarian color from black to another red again.

28	13	4
9	1	19
14	20	22
24	11	16
3	0	29
30	10	25
17	12	8
15	31	5
18	2	26
23	21	27
32	7	6

[Martin Gühmann]

And again all the colors in one table on a black background with white font. Players are sorted by number. I would post both tables in one post if some more characters per post would be allowed.

0	1	2		0	1	2		0	1	2		0	1	2
3	4	5		3	4	5		3	4	5		3	4	5
6	7	8		6	7	8		6	7	8		6	7	8
9	10	11		9	10	11		9	10	11		9	10	11
12	13	14		12	13	14		12	13	14		12	13	14
15	16			15	16	17		15	16	17		15	16	17
				18	19	20		18	19	20		18	19	20
				21	22	23		21	22	23		21	22	23
				24	25	26		24	25	26		24	25	26
				27	28	29		27	28	29		27	28	29
				30	31	32		30	31	32		30	31	32

[Martin Gühmann]

Part two, colors on a white background, with black font. The colors at the left are the original colors, the colors in the middle left are my colors, the colors in the middle right are Flinx' colors and the colors in the right are Locutus colors.

0	1	2		0	1	2		0	1	2		0	1	2
3	4	5		3	4	5		3	4	5		3	4	5
6	7	8		6	7	8		6	7	8		6	7	8
9	10	11		9	10	11		9	10	11		9	10	11
12	13	14		12	13	14		12	13	14		12	13	14
15	16			15	16	17		15	16	17		15	16	17
				18	19	20		18	19	20		18	19	20
				21	22	23		21	22	23		21	22	23
				24	25	26		24	25	26		24	25	26
				27	28	29		27	28	29		27	28	29
				30	31	32		30	31	32		30	31	32

[Maquiladora]

How about leaving the first 8 colours as they are? You can do with the rest what you want though.

And unreadability? Open the chat screen and see what player 14 does or say. It is dark gray on black the problem that made me change the Barbarian color from black to another red again.

Thats not really a problem. The only players that need good readability against black background are (at most) players 0-4, we can see their chat messages, and 0 for general messages using the barb colour.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Similarity? Your color 6 and 27 are very similar. And also 1, 20 and 22 are very similar, in that case I could use the original Barbarian red for the Barbarians.

6 and 27 are clearly distinguishable in the game, even if they may look somewhat similar in the HTML tables.

As for the blue colours, certainly in-game (but also in the tables) there's no problem between the colours you mention: 20 is clearly light blue while 22 is clearly purple (or violet or whatever I called it in the colors.txt file). Colour 1 is quite clearly a much darker shade of blue. If there's any problem with the blue colours, it's between 1 and 13. You can still see the difference there, but it's not as good as with the other colour schemes posted here. This is because in the colour schemes you, Flinx and Activision used, dark blue is hard to find back on the minimap (that is, with only land/water display enabled; when displaying the terrain types almost all civs are hard to find back), something which I hate 'cause I use that map all the time to locate civs/cities/units. My dark blue (13) is easier to find back and clearly distinguishable from bright blue (1) on the minimap, though it's slightly harder to tell apart from that same colour on the main map -- a sacrifice I'm willing to live with as one of those colours is the default human colour anyway, so you can't accidentally attack the wrong civ or anything

And unreadability? Open the chat screen and see what player 14 does or say. It is dark gray on black the problem that made me change the Barbarian color from black to another red again.

As Maq pointed out, only for the first 4 (in the future maybe 8) civs does the chat screen matter, and in my setup at least that shouldn't be a problem. In all other places the colour to contrast with is very light (either white or pale yellow/brownish or similar), in which case the colour schemes of Flinx and me work better than the one in the playtest version.

[Locutus]

Update: hmm, I think I just solved my 'blue' problem by giving color 1 and color 20 a tad (0x40/64) more green and red respectively: that made both those colours slightly lighter, and easier to distinguish from both each other and #13 and #22. Colour 1 looks a slightly off now (not unlike the new links-colour here on Apolyton ) but I think I could get used to it, especially since it fits nicely with the new pure-red barbarian colour as well.

[Flinx]

Summarising and Suggesting a Compromise.

People can (and will) individually come up with their own colors00.txt with their 32 most favourite colours if they choose.

That said however, the version supplied with the playtest/patch should probably conform to the following points so that it is functional for everyone:
Player colours should be different and distinguishable from each other on the main map.
Player colours should be different and distinguishable from each other on the mini map in land/water mode (all terrain mode is too cluttered to worry about).
The barbarian colour should standout (i.e. more than just different and distinguishable) on the mini map. (How about a flashing “There be barbarians here” arrow? )
Number of units in a stack must be readable against player colours.
Player colours and barbarian colour must be readable on the multi-player chat screen.

In addition, how the ability to choose your player colour (in single-player mode only?) is implemented could suggest additional criteria: e.g.
The player should be able to choose (at least one) version of the major colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and brown.

....Flinx runs for cover