Colors of Civs

Ementio · Apr 7, 2004

I decided to post this after searching the forum and not finding an answer.

Is there any way to change the default color used on the map to represent a particular Civ in C3C? For example, in a recent game, the Koreans, Spanish, Babylonians, Americans and Chinese were all different shades of blue--some of them so similar that it was very difficult to tell their units apart on the big map or to tell their cities apart on the minimap. If there's a way of choosing a different color from the palette to represent a Civ, this problem could be avoided.

If there is a way of changing default colors, can it be done after the game starts, or only when generating the map?

Thanks.

Steph · Apr 7, 2004

First, the editor allow to change the colors of civ, but not in a saved game.
However, I've read something about the palette. It seems there are some palettes located in the game folders, that are used in game to replace the units color, so you can get them civ colored.
I guess if you change these palettes, you may get the correct effect.
I cannot be more precise here, I don't have the game installed in this computer.

Ementio · Apr 8, 2004

Thanks, Steph. I don't have access to the game for a few weeks while I'm travelling, but I'll try out this suggestion when I get back and then post a response.

Pounder · Apr 8, 2004

There are 32 colours and 32 civs (including the barbarians).

What I have done is assigned a different colour to each civ and not assigned an alternate colour, that is; I made the primary civ colour the same colour as the alternate. This at least will guarantee that two civ s won't be the exact same colour.

There are unfortunely colours that are relatively close at first glance, but they can be differentiated.

I would like to change some of the colours, but like Steph said you would have to change the palette, I haven't personally meesed with that yet.

P.S. Leave the barbarians as white as it looks like that colour selection also affect other things like the army leaders flag showing the number of units is the army.

mrtn · Apr 8, 2004

Pounder, you know no civs can have the same colour in one game, right? If you assign all civs to be red, for example, the game lets the first civ be red, and assign unused colours to the others. If you have white barbs the second civ should be orange and the third yellow, and so on.
Personally I do it the other way around, I try to have as distinct colours of the civs as possible, and just use the difficult ones if I have to. Besides, I have no problem with seeing civs in different colours in different games, though I know some have.
The barbarian colour decides the army flag colour, but that's the only thing, AFAIK. I have a larger need for a white civ than for nice flags.

Pounder · Apr 8, 2004

Originally posted by mrtn
Pounder, you know no civs can have the same colour in one game, right? If you assign all civs to be red, for example, the game lets the first civ be red, and assign unused colours to the others. If you have white barbs the second civ should be orange and the third yellow, and so on.
Personally I do it the other way around, I try to have as distinct colours of the civs as possible, and just use the difficult ones if I have to. Besides, I have no problem with seeing civs in different colours in different games, though I know some have.
The barbarian colour decides the army flag colour, but that's the only thing, AFAIK. I have a larger need for a white civ than for nice flags.

Not true, I will send you a screen shot when I get home that shows the Mayans and the Americans the same colour. The histograph became a problem when the Chinese were eliminated. They were between the Mayans and the Americans on the histograph. They merged and I could not tell the size of either civ's power or score any more by using the histograph.

I have seen other screen shots posted that showed the same thing.

That is what prompted me to make these changes.

The more Civs you have in a game the better the chance is that there will be 2 Civ's the same colour. It happens quite frequently in 16 or more Civ games. The alternate civ colour scheme was not well thought out so I effectively removed it.

Edit: I think it was also posted by someone on the bugs thread.

Pounder · Apr 8, 2004

Here is the one Loulong posted on the Conquests Bug forum.

mrtn · Apr 8, 2004

Bugs are different.

I had a game way back when (early vanilla) where I managed to give the germans and the vikings the same dark blue, so the vikings ended up getting the barbarian white (as my barbarians were orange...). Maybe I'll test it...

EDIT: I've started a test...

Pounder · Apr 8, 2004

I have a game that I am currently playing on an unmodified Conquest 1.15 .biq with 16 civs I will post a screen shot when I get home.

Once I load 1.22 I will get rid of the alternate colours as they are useless and a problem.

mrtn · Apr 8, 2004

OK; I made a biq called colourtest.biq were I gave the red colour, both as alternate and default (or whatever the names are) to the first six civs in the list. I then started a game as Greece. As I'm the human player my colour is assigned first, so I got the red colour, while the other players got the next colours in the list.
This shows that it works as I said, disregarging bugs...

I could post the biq if you want it, but it's very easy to do yourself if you don't trust me.

Personally I love the alternate colours, I want the clearer colours as much as possible in my games...

Pounder · Apr 8, 2004

It is not a bug. The alternate colours are not distributed properly. They did not assign alternate colours to all Civs and also assigned alternate colours haphazardly.

There are situtations where both the both the primary and alternate colours have been assigned in the game to two previous Civs and leaves no choice but to use the same colour twice.

Your test would not find this the way you have set it up.

Edit: Try using more than six Civs in your test, run a test with maybe 24 Civs.

embryodead · Apr 8, 2004

You can change the colours to anything you want. You can even make 32 civs all the same shade of red...

Go to art/units/palettes and look at ntp*.pcx files. Numbers match the color index in game. Now load them up in graphics editor capable of editing palettes. 64 colours in the palette are for units, but the rest (about 10) are for other things - like color in diplomacy, histograph, borders, cities etc. You can change them to anything you want. I did that in wh-mod 2 since I needed a frog-like green colour for lizardmen, and also wanted both Empire and Nippon be red (a bit different red but still red).

Pounder · Apr 8, 2004

Thanks embryodead.

If there are 64 colours available, then I wonder why didn't they use 32 colours for the primary colours and the other 32 colours for the alternate colours.

Edit: And why would they assign the same primary colour to more than one Civ, unless they consider it an exploit knowing the Civ by it's border before you actually make contact.

They have some Civs with no alternate colour so it doesn't seem like they were considering the exploit angle.

Goldflash · Apr 8, 2004

In my mod I've given each of the Civs a unique Color and made sure I used all 32 colors....

Steph · Apr 8, 2004

I think there are several shades of the same color in a ntp*.pcx file.

ntp1.pcx -> different shades of blue for the first civ color
ntp2.pcx -> different shades of red for the second civ color
...
ntp32.pcx -> different shades of ? for the 32nd civ color

Pounder · Apr 9, 2004

I just did a count on the default biq.

The Colour that is assigned to America for both primary and alternate colour is assigned to other Civ's for both primary and alternate colours at total of six times.

This is one of the problem colours.

embryodead · Apr 9, 2004

Originally posted by Steph
I think there are several shades of the same color in a ntp*.pcx file.

ntp1.pcx -> different shades of blue for the first civ color
ntp2.pcx -> different shades of red for the second civ color
...
ntp32.pcx -> different shades of ? for the 32nd civ color

We have a small misunderstanding here I think... It's not that they are different shades for one civ... one ntp file is for one color (not civ, since color number doesnt match civ number). The different shades are just for different things ie. histograph, borders, diplomacy etc.

Pounder... there are 32 colours available, not 64. There are 32 ntp*.pcx files are for various in-game colours and units, while the other 32 otp*.pcx are corresponding population heads colours.

I prefer to assign fixed colours too and never use alternate ones, but I do edit ntp*.pcx files since I dont like to have 3 pink civs...

Pounder · Apr 9, 2004

Here is a post from a game running a default Conquest .biq.

Korea picks it's primary colour, Maya's primary colour is the same as Korea's, so Maya chooses alternate colour.

Then America comes along and it's primary and alternate colours are the same (it has no alternate colour), and it is the colour that the Mayans have already choosen. America has no choice but to be the same colour as the Mayans.

Americas colour is assigned 6 times as both primary and secondary colours in the default biq.

By the way I am just trying to survive a Sid game here. :crazyeye:

Pounder · Apr 9, 2004

Originally posted by embryodead

We have a small misunderstanding here I think... It's not that they are different shades for one civ... one ntp file is for one color (not civ, since color number doesnt match civ number). The different shades are just for different things ie. histograph, borders, diplomacy etc.

Pounder... there are 32 colours available, not 64. There are 32 ntp*.pcx files are for various in-game colours and units, while the other 32 otp*.pcx are corresponding population heads colours.

I prefer to assign fixed colours too and never use alternate ones, but I do edit ntp*.pcx files since I dont like to have 3 pink civs...

I misread your post. I was thinking Civs while you were talking units (I must be spending too much time on a cell phone

).

Pounder · Apr 9, 2004

I have be doing some testing and there seems that all Civs do not choose their colours the same way.

I am not sure why, but some Civs like Rome and England (that I've noticed) will randomly choose an alternate colour and other Civs like the Iroquios and the Mayans only choose between there primary and secondary colours (which may explain the duplicate colours in some games).

Maybe I am wrong but it seems the the Civs near the top of the list will randomly choose their alternate colours. I gave the Mayans and the Dutch the colours that belong to the Romans and the English and England choose Dark Green which was not assigned to it Primary or secondary.

I am sure that more testing would reveal more inconsistancies.

The testing that 'mrtn' did above proved his thinking, yet in game things still messed up occasionally with the colour selections.

I have removed the alternate colours (primary and secondary are the same).

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