Reading all the feedback from the Tuesday's changes to the Classic, it's pretty clear that we screwed up. I expected the change would have been well received after the touchup spent over 2 months in the Map Foundry - but the Classic is so important that we should have publicized this beforehand on a much larger scale. Rest assured that we are listeningcarefully to what the community has to say. That's why we prepared this post and poll - to see what YOU want your Classic to look like!
The vast majority of complaints were made about the white army shadows. The army shadows were changed from black to white to make it easier to see armies when they are printed on a territory of the same colour (e.g. blue armies over Europe), and to help people with poor eyesight distinguish green from blue. However the white shadows seem to be annoyingly bright. So below are versions of Classic with various army shadows. Please pay attention to clarity and aesthetics and vote for the one you like best. All versions contain the less contoversial improvements of orange Oceania, coloured legend and non-overlapping territory labels. The priority is to focus on the shadows, we can work on the rest later

Note: these images were posted with the new [bigimg] bbcode - please use that instead of [img] when posting oversized images to avoid breaking the layout!
Black 30%
Black 40%
Black 50%
Black 60%
No Shadows
White 30%
White 40%
White 50%
White 60%
Update 1
lackattack wrote:I just want to make something clear - I personally commissioned the Classic touchup and it was not initiated by the Foundry. So please direct all criticisms about the decision to improve Classic on me and not the volunteers of the Foundry who provide us so many great maps to play on!
Here are the small versions with all army colours:
Black 30%
Black 40%
Black 50%
Black 60%
No Shadows
White 30%
White 40%
White 50%
White 60%
Update 2
lackattack wrote:The people have chosen... and, as is the will of the masses, we will change the army shadows to White 30%. A runoff vote really isn't necessary considering that all white shadow votes add up to 57%. As Twill mentioned having an option for toggling the artwork is not on the table because it would put other much more interesting and important changes even further behind.
I think this is a Classic the vast majority of members will enjoy. We'll let the dust settle and see how it goes before considering further changes so we can make an informed tweak rather than an emotional one.
Thanks to everyone for voicing their opinion and participating in this important process! We will be sure to notify you of any future major changes long before they happen to avoid anything like this again.