groovy9 wrote:I appreciate the color code feature and all, but frankly it's a lot of work to read a map - you can't just glance and see what's what.
So I have two suggestions to help with this:
1) we colorblind folks have a better shot at discerning colors if there's a bigger swatch to look at - the colored numbers in use today just aren't a big enough patch to identify at a glance. I'd prefer to see a black or white number on a colored background (circle, etc).
2) Use some higher-contrast colors. Why mess with purple and green when black and white are available? Black/White/Gray/Red/Yellow/Blue solve a lot of problems. But you still have the other 2 players in 8-player games, which brings me to:
3) Combine colors with shapes - put a number on top of a green circle, black square, blue diamond, etc. Problem solved.
White is already used in neutral so that doesn't help. There are currently 9 colors in use, but you are right that black may be more discernible to some people.
Bigger color swatches were previously looked into. We discussed replacing the colored numbers on army shadows with colored buttons and white or black numbers. This would give a larger swatch of color and would make the numbers much more visible. The problem however is that it would make the map less visible. some maps have very detailed graphics that could be ruined by larger or more colorful swatches. And some maps have size constraints that might make opaque color swatches a problem. I think the real issue is that the current 120+ maps were designed with the current number system in mind. Switching to a different system with opaque circles or rectangles could really mess with some of the maps that people worked hard to develop.
