Most necessary civ color changes?

[Miznia]

When I first got Civ3, one of the first things I felt the need to do was to reassign the colors of virtually all civs. Germans > black, French > dk blue, Japanese > dk purple, Chinese > red, Zulus > green, English > orange (or were they already?). I was okay with a brown Russia, but they've ended up white (brown Greeks).

Anyone else have strong preferences about what civs get what color? I'm kind of curious where color conceptions come from.

IMO the most necessary change I made was to get rid of the French magenta, that awful light purple. I gave it to the barbarians.

Miznia

[Spec]

well, I think they should look at history for those by we'd end up with the same color for different civs.

-France and Americans are supposed to be blue (almost the same in fact)
-English and romans are supposed to be red.
-Zulus should be White (I'm not joking here)
-Greeks are supposed to be light blue
-Aztecs I dont know but The iroquois should be orange (color of the sun)
-Egypt is definatly yellow.
For the rest I dont know.


Spec.

[Aeson]

The Zulu need to be orange, not because of anything historical, just my favorite Civ and Color should be matched! Orange Impi look so cool!

[Dida]

China should be YELLOW or GOLDEN because that is teh imperial color.

[Dida]

China should be YELLOW or GOLDEN because that is the imperial color.

[TheDarkCavalier]

Russia should be RED - RED army....

[Coracle]

I thought changing colors in the Editor caused problems with game CRASHING??

Anyway, French magenta is indeed HIDEOUS!!

[ixnay]

I think the problems with color changes only happen if you choose some of the last 15 colors on the list. There is some workaround, and Firaxis said they'd fix this in the next patch, I believe.

[Spiffor]

Agreed, the pink French are horrible, The barbarians are pink in my games. But England should be red (I wonder why romans should be ? Any historical data for this one ?), France should be deep blue or white (color of the French monarchy). Blue Germany makes sense, since Germanic tribes were the only ones to make blue in the ancient times, while Greeks colored essientially with red.

[Lister]

Uhm.. Hello?
Greeks=Pink
thats the way it was in civ1.. i miss my pink greeks!

[nato]

Some of my color associations:

Chinese - Must be yellow! Like Dida said, their favorite color, with all that loess around.

English - Orange for earlier times, red for later.

Germans - Grey or black. Has to be a "modern" color for me since they unified right during the Industrial Revolution.

Rome - Red, like the shields and capes

Russians - Grey or black. I tend to think of them as the Russian Empire, not the USSR, so no red for me.

Egypt - Yellow for all that gold, and the sand and pyramids are kind of yellowy too

Aztecs - Green for the jade / feathers, orange for the jaguar fur, or yellow for the ... gold or something

[notyoueither]

Barbarians... Grey. They're so blah.
Rome... Imperial Purple of course!
USA... Dark Blue, natch.
France... Pink. They look really good in it.
Russia... Dark Green, because their regiments were dark green in System7 Napoleonics.
Egypt... Desert Tan anyone?
Greece... Light Blue. Seems to be important to them.
China... Light Purple/Mauve. Almost Imperial.
Japan... White. The colour of many Chrysanthemums. As per the throne.
Germany... Black suits the predominant sentiments of the 19th century. Cult of death and all that stuff.
Aztecs... Medium Green. Like the jungle. And because they can't be dark green. The Russians are.
Iroquois... Light Green. Growth, nature. You know, all that living in harmony stuff.
India... Peacock Blue, as in the Peacock throne.
Zulu... Yellow. At least it's one of the colours of many African flags
Babylon. Brown. Gotta go somewhere.
Persia... Teal. Ditto this colour has to go somewhere.
Britain... I could allow them Crimson (Dark Red) because...
Canada... Red (Scarlet). We own it. We own hockey. We own you all. Hahahaha.

Salve, eh!

[Adagio]

I have no prefences for that. To be hornest I don't think any country should be assigned to a color, I would prefer to have random color for each civ. Only the babarians should keep one color!!!

[The JIG is up]

I think its quite cool to see the edge of a border and you instantly know that you have the Chinese (or whomever) as a neighbo(u)r...

[Miznia]

ADG : I have no prefences for that. To be hornest I don't think any country should be assigned to a color, I would prefer to have random color for each civ. Only the babarians should keep one color!!!

No, that would suck. That's how it is in CTP2. It makes you feel like there's nothing distinct about any of your opponents. The player color is determined by what player slot it is, additionally, so the set of colors you get is always the same, and the human player is always dk blue.

And also, I hated the pink countries in Civ1; I was happy it was changed to orange. I wasn't as happy about grey going to purple, though. I wish we could've had both, and maybe gotten rid of that unreadable dark blue.


A more complete listing of mine

Americans: lt cyan (it makes them look inexperienced and not very intimidating)
Indians: grey (as in Civ1)
British (formerly English): orange (as in Civ2, dunno why else tho)
French: dk blue (as in Col, Civ1/2)
Germans: black (they just gotta be black! like that cross symbol)
Zulus: lt green (as in Civ1/2...)
Italians (formerly Romans): dk green (flag)
Chinese: red (don't the women traditionally wear red?)
Japanese: dk purple
Koreans (formerly Persians): kind of indigo, dk blue-purple
Turks (formerly Egyptians): yellow (as in Diplomacy)
Russians: white (Diplomacy, Civ, surely lots of other games?)
Greeks: brown (I play Greeks as my customized civ, and our color is brown damnit)

the others I can't remember and don't care about.

Miznia

[Purple]

Originally posted by nato
Russians - Grey or black. I tend to think of them as the Russian Empire, not the USSR, so no red for me.

The Soviets were associated with red because it was the color adopted by the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks were the "whites," and they lost out to the "reds."

However, red has long been a favorite or lucky color for the Russians, and this preference probably dates back to the Mongol era. Red Square was named much earlier than the Soviet Era. The Russian word for red, krasnyi, is related to their word for beautiful, krasivyi.

So, Russia has to be red for me, no question.

Red wouldn't be a bad choice for England, but take a look at a world map, especially one from the pre-WW2 era. England and all her possessions are colored pink.

I give the Aztecs the dark red color (blood!).

[nato]

Well I thought the revolutionary reds defeated the non-revolutionary whites, but I didn't know Russia liked red or anything. I always thought it was just the whole red=revolution thing. Interesting info.

Uhhh ... yellow = jaundice = sickly to Russians, there, I'm not totally clueless!

I don't know though, the Russians were for so long so poor and such an oppressive government I have a hard time giving them a bright color. Must be all that capitalist propaganda I was subjected to.

Good observation about the pink UK. I've spent a lot of my youth memorizing atlases ... I think pink, light green, and yellow get used a lot because they are light shades. Somehow the Pink Empire just doesn't do them justice!

Americans: lt cyan (it makes them look inexperienced and not very intimidating)

I found that line pretty hilarious.

About the English again, I think orange works because I think they used to use red and orange flags ... I don't know for sure. At least I hope they did, or else I was picking orange for AOK English all that time for nothing...

The Chinese were obsessed with red during the scary Cultural Revolution. So for that breif period it is a great choice for them. Non-communist Chinese really liked yellow though.

Canada... Red (Scarlet). We own it. We own hockey. We own you all. Hahahaha.

Gee I thought it was obvious that Canadia should be white for all that snow! Oh ho ho ... I need the Yank equivalent of "eh" now...

Man, I just made a post this long about civ colors ... ouch ...

[Purple]

I forgot to mention that I assign that bright shocking pink color to the Indians (as opposed to the light pink for the English), for no better reason than my associating it with brightly colored saris. But it seems to fit the Indians better than any other Civ, so why not?

[Kinnie]

Originally posted by Miznia
When I first got Civ3, one of the first things I felt the need to do was to reassign the colors of virtually all civs. Germans > black, French > dk blue, Japanese > dk purple, Chinese > red, Zulus > green, English > orange (or were they already?). I was okay with a brown Russia, but they've ended up white (brown Greeks).

Anyone else have strong preferences about what civs get what color? I'm kind of curious where color conceptions come from.

IMO the most necessary change I made was to get rid of the French magenta, that awful light purple. I gave it to the barbarians.

Miznia

Should be the same colors as in civ2 with new civ it doesn't matter. After years of playing civ2 I have gotten used to those
colors and I always think green is Zulu for example.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Coracle
I thought changing colors in the Editor caused problems with game CRASHING??

It can. However, Gramphos has found a way around this problem. If it causes a problem, drop him a line.

[White Elk]

My two cents

Russia - Brown (must be the "Axis and Allies" influence)
Aztec - Jade Green (due to the Jade artificates and the color of their homeland landscape)
Egypt - Golden Yellow (Gold artifacts and the color of the Egytian landscape)
Germans - Black or Grey (just seems right)
Americans - Olive Drab (probably influenced by growing up on Marine Corp air bases)
Chinese - Yellow (once again it just seems right)
Japanese - Bright Red (Imperial flag)
Rome - Fushia Red (hollywood depictions of Roman Soldiers)
Greek - Light Green (Olives and pictures I've seen of the Greece landscape)
Babylon - ??? (I don't know-no associations)
French - Light Blue (probably some more "Axis and Allies" influence)
Persia - Purple (both start with a "P")
India - Saffron Yellow (does Saffron really come from India?)
Zulu - Light Brown (seems right)
English - Orange (that color comes to mind-dont know why)
Iroquois - Pipestone Red (because of the Chinupa and the Sacred Pipestone)
Barbarians - White (nuetrality)

[GeneralTacticus]

The Soviets were associated with red because it was the color adopted by the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks were the "whites," and they lost out to the "reds."

Actually 'Whites' was just a catch-all term for the anti-Bolshevik forces after the Revolution. I think the red colour came from a Welsh miners' revolt or somesuch... something to do with blood.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Miznia
No, that would suck. That's how it is in CTP2. It makes you feel like there's nothing distinct about any of your opponents. The player color is determined by what player slot it is, additionally, so the set of colors you get is always the same, and the human player is always dk blue.

I just want to make sure that every game doesn't feel the same. I think it's boring to say: "Hey I can see light blue borders overthere, that means were close the Americans". It would be better to say: "Hey I can see some light blue borders overthere, I wonder who that is".

That makes it more suprising!!!

But the worst kind of that I have seen is in e.g. Settlers I and II, where you always had to play as the red (or was it blue, and the Settlers III was red. Doesn't remember). That is just soooooo boring I like suprises, and there's no suprise in knowing the enemies on the border color.

Originally posted by Miznia
That's how it is in CTP2.

And just because it's in ctp2, it'll suck??? That was one of the few good parts they had in that game!!!



BUT ofcause, most important of all: It needs to be optional, so for those who want to play by suprise they get to play by suprise, and for those of you who don't like to be suprised.......Well I think you have got the point!

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by TheDarkCavalier
Russia should be RED - RED army....

You can say that about China too.

[cassembler]

China... I can't force myself to play a pink empire.

[Ethelred]

The most needed color change in Civ III is NOT any of the civs but the LINES for treaties on the Foreign Advisor screen. The Right of Passage and the Mutual Protection Pact are nearly the same exact shade of green. I have to flip those two on and off to tell which civ has which agreement.

What were thinking on those color choices? Why haven't they fixed them? Have they ever heard of CONTRAST?

As for the civs I like the French and hate the Pink Fopeteers. I would like to choose the color of whatever Civ I am playing.

[steelehc]

French - Light Blue (probably some more "Axis and Allies" influence)
Americans - Olive Drab (probably influenced by growing up on Marine Corp air bases)

There wern't any French in Axis and Allies, IIRC. Germany had already conquered France by the beginning fo the game.

I don't think Olive Drab is on the color list for Civ3.

Steele

[elfstorm]

I don't like to make England Orange, that whole Northern Ireland, Orangeman thing puts me off. Seems slightly offensive and inappropriate.

The Dutch should be Orange, but they aren't in the game.....

Romans - surely they should be Imperial Purple??? The colour of the Emperor??

[Purple]

Originally posted by elfstorm
Romans - surely they should be Imperial Purple??? The colour of the Emperor??

Absolutely!