Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Froonp

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In the system of 24 bit color using RGB, red is set to 255 and G and B are set to 0. That's as red as the system gets. 24 bit color has 2 to the 24 different colors, so if you have a longing for something more red, I doubt that you will ever get it sated. I don't see the computer industry changing the number of color bits for the next couple of decades.

Sure. Maybe adding some brightness ? Is it possible ?
Anyway, your Japanese counters are lovely, with the division square maybe too much orange, I forgot it in the previous post. Pale pink would be better, wouldn't it ?

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The only way to add brightness is to introduce more of the G and B which will dilute the red. If we were using a CYMK coloring system, the K would allow for more brightness. Bitmapped graphics under Windows uses RGB. I don't want to go outside of that design envelope, if for no other reason than it increases the likelihood of system crashes.

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ORIGINAL: Glen Felzien
1 - Yes. The Russian interiors are too orange. The basic colour is perfect however.

2 - Regarding the Chinese and maybe others too, for the white print combat/movement factors, maybe black or gray "shadowing" to help make the numbers more visible.

3 - The French blue is the same as the rivers. Is the river colour fixed? Can it be shaded a little darker?

4 - Will there be an option to view the map without the units during any point in thegame?

5 - Is this the actual scale of the units vis-a-vie the map hexes? Should the units actually extend beyond the top hex borders?

6 - Finally, the map looks really good with these unit colours. The decision to keep the map colours slightly muted (almost pastel) was well made. The unit colours really do standout in a crisp way. Remember my brain terrain comment? Although I think the use of greys for it on the paper map was brutal (sry but for me it really was dsitracting from a map that was already over the top) I think that maybe the mountain hexes do need some texture added to them. All the other hexes have some super texture patterns to help break up the solid block. but the mountains are too "much". Does this make sense?

Ok, looked at those mountain hexes again and yes there is indeed texture to them. I missed it the first time. Maybe it is just my eyes. I think there ought to be more just to "break it up" some more. Italy look very solid otherwise. Bah, I am sure it i just my eyes.

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ORIGINAL: scout1
Shannon,

This isn't specific to the unit counters/color scheme, but can influence how clear they are when viewed.

One feature that I've come to relly like in SSG's Decisive Battless Series (Battles in Normandy and Battles in Italy) is a hot key that basically produces a magnifying glass that use can move across the map. This is helpful as you don't have to change the scale of the map (which you can't really do in those game engines) and still can get a clean/clear look at the map pieces.

Even though the computerized version of WiF has mutliple view factors (I think as I new to the game itself), this would be a nice feature to have. Just wanted to pass along the suggestion.

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I am trying to replace the ability the player has over the board of seeing the entire world on a 25 foot square paper map. That isn't easy with a 17 inch monitor. I'm working at it, but magnifying only a portion of the screen with a moving cursor - no way!

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ORIGINAL: scout1

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I am trying to replace the ability the player has over the board of seeing the entire world on a 25 foot square paper map. That isn't easy with a 17 inch monitor. I'm working at it, but magnifying only a portion of the screen with a moving cursor - no way!

I'm assuming this is NOT the only way to drill down and see things. There are (presumably) others. Just that this is another method for a small given portion of the map. One thing I've learned about presenting information is it is beat to present the SAME information in many different approach as not ONE method work for everyone.
The Decisive Battle series also has a preety clean method for deisplaying the frontlines on a strategic map as well.

Do what you want, but just thought you might like to hear about "other" approaches as well. I've found in the past that the UI is BIG part of any game, and NO one approach seems to hit on all cylinders. "Different strokes for different folks".

Anyways, as your post clearly points out, you apparently aren't looking for input other than what you've already decided on, I'll just haunt the forum and look forward to a great game coming out in the future ....

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4 - Removing all the units from view is done with a single mouse click - a simple toggle. I want to add the ability to filter which units are shown on the screen. For example, just the air units when looking at strategic bombing, or only the HQs, or only the armor capable units (armor, mechanized, AT, etc.). I do not have the details worked out for how to enable that. There are other things that have to be decided and implemented first.

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What you have on the screen in front of you is much bigger than what you will see when playing - roughly double the size of the highest resolution possible in the game.

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6 - Right now there is one bitmap for each terrain type. I want to expand that to 6 or more for terrain that appears frequently within the area where the land battles commonly occur (western USSR, France, China, North Africa, the Balkans). For example, a 2 hex by 3 hex pattern from which I can cut individual terrain hexes. There are technical details about doing this, which I don't want to go into here. The end result should be a map that is less boring. I also still have under review the entire issue of what each terrain type looks like. They definitely won't be finalized until after the play testers try them out playing through a game.

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I also intend to add the ability of the player to save detailed map settings: which portion of the map is visible on the screen at what zoom level and what unit resolution level. The intent here is that the player can have a setting for the war in Russia, in China, strategically bombing Britain, North Africa, Italy, etc.. These settings are limitless in number and the player can redefine them whenever he wants. Simply clicking on a defined map setting redraws the detailed map on the screen. You can use this feature to have multiple views of a battelfield available: (1) the whole eastern front, (2) the area around Moscow in high resolution, (3) the area around Rostov and the Caucasus in medium resolution, or (4) a half a dozen more concerning tactical bombers flying ground strikes - (5) whatever.

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I wonder, once you have decided on the various bit maps for each terrain type, will the game engine randomly select "M" (mountain) bit maps for all areas of the map marked with an "M" resulting in a dynamic map each time to start a campaign? Or will the map be static once you have decided on what looks best?

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ORIGINAL: Neilster
All I can think of for displaying the long names is to replace some letters with an apostrophe. The full name can be in the unit dialog box and/or documentation.

Cheers, Neilster

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ORIGINAL: c92nichj

Would it be possible to post screenshots with the different resolutions? For example how will your medium and low resolution look like, when I played CWIF I mostly used the 75% size to fit as much as possible of the map on the screen.

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ORIGINAL: Glen Felzien

Pale yellow on black for the SS units looks good; especially if it makes viewing easier. I know it has been a while since I last played but I remember all SS units were "white" print. Why is there both white and yellow?

Personally I like the yellow interior for all Canuck units. This would leave the actual numbers to distinguish between white and black print units. To me that's cool. Has something changed over the last few years to make white interiors mean something else.

Could the interior of the NZ units be a slight different shade of blue as compared to the surrounding colour if for no other reason than to add further colour to the unit pallete as a whole?

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ORIGINAL: Alexander Seil
Well, if there is a conflict of principles, shouldn't the distinction between units of different nations take precedence? If doing white backgrounds for Commonwealth units makes them look like Australians, drop that principle in favor of white print. Otherwise, the player frustration will know no bounds, besides the fact that it will look downright silly.

By the way, the newer pics of the terrain look good...maybe I won't bother with changing it all to CWiF standard

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The counter sheets have SS units with white lettering and red lettering. The white are elite, the red aren't. In the rules, the term "white print unit" means elite and there are different rules for them concerning their strength when out of supply.

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ORIGINAL: Alexander Seil

1 - As for captured units, is there any need for a *solution* other than making them show up as a unit fully belonging to the conquering nation? What's the use of knowing that such and such ship was captured from, say, Finland if that has no bearing on its behavior?

2 - To get back to my original point, though, while having different backgrounds for elite and regular units is fine, the limitation to that rule should be that units must be distinguished by nationality using colors alone, as anything else is contrary to common sense and practice in other wargames.

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Dumb question. What happens if the player is color blind ?