Designing scenarios for re-coloring

[Cpl GAC]

I’ve never built or designed a scenario, but I’ve tinkered enough and know how databases work so I’ve got a few thoughts for scenario builders regarding selecting unit colors with keeping an eye out for re-coloring. After all, this game is very visual.

I believe I’m repeating someone’s comment about don’t design a scenario without having this chart handy. These are the color IDs - what the program will read no matter what color you make a unit afterward;

SetUnitColors3.jpg (145.9 KiB) Viewed 974 times

For those who don’t understand - the program uses color IDs to determine Formation Characteristics (section 8.6.1 in the rules) and our eyes see these colors as Support & Cooperation indicators; The program is reading IDs individually and as “blocks of five” and our eyes use the colors to help determine what the overall picture is. Example; “In this scenario all the same background color fight and supply and move past each other freely” or ”In this scenario, those two formations don’t cooperate very well together even though they have the same background color”. Cooperation levels are set by the designer.

I pull this chart up all the time as a reminder of what to expect (hotkey - press “F” when on a unit to see that Formation’s Cooperation level);

Support and Cooperation.png (184.63 KiB) Viewed 974 times

So below let's start fleshing out and discussing the implications and pitfalls of designing with re-coloring in mind if either of your forces is going to use more than five colors.

I'm not an expert, but I've had to solve this a few times by moving units around in the editor; trying not to break the designer's cooperation level intentions but trying to create a more intuitive look in the unit colors.

[Cpl GAC]

When you choose a main force color, lets say color ID4 - the blue base and black background - don’t automatically start stuffing other same Army formations into the other blue backgrounds in that column - ID0, ID1, ID2 and ID3 - as you go just because they are all from the same Army.

You picked “blue”, and IDs 55-59 are also blue, so now there are 10 color IDs to use for that force or an Army or Formation in that force.

For clarity let's call the formations using ID4 the main Army side1.

If your main Army side 1 is going to be on Force Support - start putting the main Army Free Support formations in IDs 55-59. That way even if not re-colored it registers in our heads as “that color blue supports all other side 1 formations”.

With re-coloring you can now bring some recognizable historical identity to ID0 thru ID3 apart from ID4 AND visually tie the Free Support units placed in IDs 55-59 back to the Armies in ID0 - ID4.

The limit is 5, but now if you want color-relatable Army Groups or the Cold Stream Guards or the Old Guard or SS to be on Force Support AND have very different colors but still fully cooperate with other “block of 5” Formations it works. AND you still can have other Formations from that Army set on Free Support working with them.

Just don't put any other units into the color ID you don't want to be the Cold Stream Guards or Italy or whoever.

Another example is you can assign up to 4 smaller not-main Army side 1 allied Armies into slots ID0 - ID3 and they’ll have full cooperation with the main Army because you put the Free Supports of the main Army in a different color. You can color those 4 allied Armies whatever color you’d like because the computer still reads them as all having the same background color Support & Cooperation level. Then, make the Free Support Formations similar looking to ID4 with some visual tie-in So they look like they too are in the main Army. Then... make that outlier nation/group nobody wants to fight with a really ugly color (and put them on internal support)...

TLDR; save the other four color ID slots of the main color you pick for less cooperative units and put the Free Support units in a similar colored color block. Then there's more flexibility to recolor everything.

[Cpl GAC]

Developing the color palette

The last step I have before going into the COL file and changing the colors we will see is to let a spreadsheet convert hex color codes to decimal color codes on a spreadsheet ( the formula “=HEX2DEC(B3)” ) so they are easy to transcribe into the COL file - all presented here; https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=318021

color ID100 and ID101 small.jpg (23.2 KiB) Viewed 934 times

It's best to use hex color codes while researching and collecting notes. This is a great site for that (and here’s the famous Panzer Grau); https://color-hex.org/color/2f3234 . FYI - Panzer Grau is more blue than red or green and that's why in the WW2 color pictures and film the tanks’ paint has that bluish cast.

The real work is researching “official” colors on the internet. Cameras and movies and our monitors really change what you’d see in person, so I prefer getting the official formulas from government records. Europe uses the German system for color standardization developed in the 1920s called RAL and the USA uses a system called Federal Standard (FS). If you can get the RAL or FS finding the hex color is easy. Panzer Grau is RAL7021.

Final note - I have a good eye for color, but people who are color blind or with other visual limitations also play this game, so that needs to be accounted for.

Good news - you can kill two birds with one stone here; https://venngage.com/tools/accessible-c ... -generator . This is even a good starting point for pre-RAL/FS color development. Enter your hex color code for FS Olive Drab (FS34088 = #695f4b) and BOOM now you have a color palette for the US formations hitting the beach. Sprinkle in a little red, white and blue (#b22234, #ffffff, #3c3b6e, respectively) and have some fun.

I recreate pieces with draft colors in Google Slides to get an idea of what the combinations look like, but once loaded into the COL file you'll find the combinations may need some tinkering (hard to read, colors too close, typos ...)

Here’s what I believe I have learned in the research; weather, laundering, film variation, monitor variation, and, poor manufacturing standards all combine to alter what we see as uniform colors/paints with such variability, as opposed to being, well, uniform.

[Cpl GAC]

The block of 5 and using different background colors caveats


The Support & Cooperations Levels chart did not take into account recoloring, so you have to design with the idea that players will understand that what they are seeing intuitively supersedes what the chart says in some cases.

I believe the program is reading five pieces of data interactively; unit - colorID# - Formation the unit is in - what block of 5 that colorID is in - Assigned Support Type.

So to not confuse players, if you are going to make an odd-colored Formation on Force Support then there needs to be some historical sense as to why that Formation would cooperate with dissimilar unit background colors. In some cases where it is not intuitive, you might want to mention it in the Scenario Briefing.

Here’s a historically intuitive example;

same Army different colors.jpg (43.94 KiB) Viewed 904 times

Three formations with the units assigned ID2, ID3, and ID4, put them on Force Support, then recolor them; blue-red-white-white, blue-blue-white-white, and green-red-white white; the computer reads three “block of 5” Formations on Force Support and the player sees three French Napoleonic formations and would expect them to fully co-operate; which they do. Then put the Napolean HQ and the Old & Young Guards on Free Support IDs 5,6, and 7 in a combination of The Tricolor (#0055A4, #FFFFFF, #EF4135).

Based on the above, here's my 2 cents because I play East Front scenarios; do not make Waffen SS and foreign SS or SS police the same color ID and maybe not even in the same block of 5. Don’t approach it as “SS have to be colored black”, rather, approach it as “the German Army fighting units fully cooperated” and recolor everything.