Small Observations General Thread (things not worth separate threads)

[Boris Gudenuf]

That’s not what I meant. I mean the coats of the soldiers are yellow. They’re probably coded to change color based on the assigned color of the leader (Isabella in this case) leading the civ the units belong to (France.) If they were being led by Machiavelli the coats would probably be a blue color, because his assigned colors seem to be blue/white.

While I understand the colors being matched to the Leaders for 3-Age identification, French troops, either Royal, Revolutionary, Imperial or later Republican never in reality wore yellow/gold uniforms. The nearest was the special Neufchatel Regiment ceded to Napoleon in 1806:

Which in fact was one of the few military units in all of Europe to ever wear 'yellow' coats, so is probably one of the most-painted miniatures units Ever.

I suppose I can get used to it. After all, the aforementioned Royal, Imperial, Rpeublican, etc French at various times wore gray, white, blue, or very light lavender coats, and the old Royal Army had foreign troops in red, dark blue, light blue, and brown coats.
Yellow will just take some getting used to . . .

 

[j51]

While I understand the colors being matched to the Leaders for 3-Age identification, French troops, either Royal, Revolutionary, Imperial or later Republican never in reality wore yellow/gold uniforms. The nearest was the special Neufchatel Regiment ceded to Napoleon in 1806:
View attachment 713159
Which in fact was one of the few military units in all of Europe to ever wear 'yellow' coats, so is probably one of the most-painted miniatures units Ever.

I suppose I can get used to it. After all, the aforementioned Royal, Imperial, Rpeublican, etc French at various times wore gray, white, blue, or very light lavender coats, and the old Royal Army had foreign troops in red, dark blue, light blue, and brown coats.
Yellow will just take some getting used to . . .

Lavender?!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Lavender?!

The 'distinctive' colors on uniforms all over Europe tended to be very different from what is usually considered 'military' colors now. The piping on the uniforms of the Prussian Guards was pink, as an example. The old French Royal Army used everything from pink to light yellow to lavender and the Imperial Russian Army had a color called 'Ognevoi' - 'Fiery' which nobody knows what it was now - no samples have survived. It is described by one contemporary opbserver as a "orangish pink', so your guess is as good as anyones.

Napoleon, in an experimental mood about 1811 - 1812, put several regiments into a new uniform on a trial basis. Looking for something different and distinctive from the rest of Europe (who were, after all, his enemies at the moment) who were in red, blue, green or white, he put several regiments in coats of a very light lavender/mauve color. They very quickly changed back to the regular Imperial blue and white, because they discovered that
1. From a distance the lavender looked like white, and so they were indistinguishable from the Austrians' white coats and
2. There was no lavender/mauve/purple dye available that wouldn't wash or fade out after a few days in the sun or rain, so the uniforms were impossible to maintain.

Of course, most uniform colors before modern artificial dyes were entirely dependent on what was available cheap: madder was available all over Europe for a cheap, though dull, red, Indigo was a relatively cheap blue dye, and white was just Bleached Wool. There's a reason why those three colors covered most of the troops from 1650 to 1850!

 

[j51]

The 'distinctive' colors on uniforms all over Europe tended to be very different from what is usually considered 'military' colors now. The piping on the uniforms of the Prussian Guards was pink, as an example. The old French Royal Army used everything from pink to light yellow to lavender and the Imperial Russian Army had a color called 'Ognevoi' - 'Fiery' which nobody knows what it was now - no samples have survived. It is described by one contemporary opbserver as a "orangish pink', so your guess is as good as anyones.

Napoleon, in an experimental mood about 1811 - 1812, put several regiments into a new uniform on a trial basis. Looking for something different and distinctive from the rest of Europe (who were, after all, his enemies at the moment) who were in red, blue, green or white, he put several regiments in coats of a very light lavender/mauve color. They very quickly changed back to the regular Imperial blue and white, because they discovered that
1. From a distance the lavender looked like white, and so they were indistinguishable from the Austrians' white coats and
2. There was no lavender/mauve/purple dye available that wouldn't wash or fade out after a few days in the sun or rain, so the uniforms were impossible to maintain.

Of course, most uniform colors before modern artificial dyes were entirely dependent on what was available cheap: madder was available all over Europe for a cheap, though dull, red, Indigo was a relatively cheap blue dye, and white was just Bleached Wool. There's a reason why those three colors covered most of the troops from 1650 to 1850!

Woah! I wish these weirder colors were in the books of military dress that I used to look for drawing references when I was kid. I woulda had a lot of fun!

 

[j51]

the Imperial Russian Army had a color called 'Ognevoi' - 'Fiery' which nobody knows what it was now - no samples have survived. It is described by one contemporary opbserver as a "orangish pink', so your guess is as good as anyones.

I’ll try: maybe a Texas ruby-red grapefruit color? Or maybe a coral or salmon?

 

[Zaarin]

It is described by one contemporary opbserver as a "orangish pink',

I’ll try: maybe a Texas ruby-red grapefruit color? Or maybe a coral or salmon?

Sounds to me like the color of padparadscha sapphires, which themselves take their name from the orangish-pink flowers of the sacred lotus.

Spoiler :

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Sounds to me like the color of padparadscha sapphires, which themselves take their name from the orangish-pink flowers of the sacred lotus.

Spoiler :

View attachment 713160

My wife has about 5 dresses of shades very similar to that color, all earned by being a bridesmaid in the late 00s. I tend to think of it as Bridesmaid's Blush.

 

[Potworny]

I think the French Imperial guards in the first picture are being led by Isabella because their coats are gold.

I think it's debatable, there are blue accents on the coats and yellow ones on their hats (American line infantry also has Tubman's colors in the accents). Also, their trousers and shirts are white, and Isabella's red is nowhere to be seen. This leads me to believe this is our first look at one of Napoleon color jerseys, either gold on white or gold/yellow on blue.

Spoiler Friedrich's? vs Tubman's shade of blue in cities :

The same freeze frame shows a city with dark blue accents behind the "Hohenzollern" commander (if it was a Harriet Tubman's city the awning would have been light blue for her background color), so I think that Friedrich's colors will be black on "Prussian" blue. It also appears that Prussian (?) and American line infantry models are identical and based on Seven Years' War. Though it's very much possible that the city behind the possibly Prussian troops is actually French for some reason, as it shares its architectural style. And some details on the army opposing the French seem either white or even lavender in the smoke so it could even be Machiavelli leading Prussia? It's all a mess made to make us guess

(now it's time for me to spend 4 hours figuring out how colors on units work)

EDIT: It seems that Ben Franklin also has the more vibrant and darker blue in his First Look, even though it's not part of his colors. And the building actually is part of American, not European city style. So it's Prussian commander, behind Prussian or American units, in front of an American city, fighting the French lead by one of Isabella, Machiavelli, Napoleon and who knows who else. I don't understand anything anymore.

Spoiler :

Also, have a screenshot of Ashoka and Xerxes sharing a color jersey which doesn't even belong to either of them because why not.

EDIT 2: Ibn-Battuta First look also has two different shades of green for accents in Arabian cities, depending on the shot. So it's like footage of cities was either shot a long time ago and colors changed between then and when the gameplay footage was shot, or some shots were shot with civ's colors instead of leader ones???????????????????????????????????
Many first looks have a discrepancy like this, which makes me think that there's maybe an option of playing with civ's color instead of the leader's?
Something is amiss ever since that Australian trailer which had different colors for Egypt and Rome than the regular one......... (i'm joking, i'm actually totally sane, i think)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Woah! I wish these weirder colors were in the books of military dress that I used to look for drawing references when I was kid. I woulda had a lot of fun!

There's a reason why the 18th century and Napoleonic period is one of the favorites among the miniatures modelers and painters: it was the high point of colorful military uniforms and the sheer variety is almost overwhelming. I still have on my shelves a two volume set of watercolor illustrations of Napoleonic uniforms totalling over 500 pages, and it doesn't begin to cover all the varieties of uniforms of the period!

 

[Vandlys]

While I understand the colors being matched to the Leaders for 3-Age identification, French troops, either Royal, Revolutionary, Imperial or later Republican never in reality wore yellow/gold uniforms.

I also don't think they were led by Isabella

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yellow is probably one of Napoleon's alterative jersey colours. It doesn't go deeper than that.

 

[AriochIV]

There aren't 26 distinctly different colors, so don't expect to be able to reliably recognize a leader just by the unit teamcolors.

...and as if it really matters which leader's troops we are looking at in a given clip. It doesn't tell us anything meaningful. No civilizations or units are unique to a particular leader.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think people are just curious about what the leaders' team colors are and trying to deduce them.

We have seen some leaders using different team colors despite the jersey system not being in the game at release. It's probably just different sets being used at different times in development, but people are still trying to work out what colors are whose.

While I would like to know also, I'm content to wait for release.

 

[Potworny]

We've seen Shawnee special unit in two color variants in one video: one in brown shirts, corresponding with Tecumseh colors, and one in light blue corresponding with Shawnee civ colors as seen on social media:

Spoiler :

To me, this means one of three things or some wacky combination of them:
a) Tecumseh's colors have changed midway during recording of the FL (this option means that this was likely our first look at Charlemagne's colors as well)
b) Color jerseys in game took from civs instead of leaders, and this changed midway during recording of the FL (but why use two builds at all?)
c) third option, the most fun one - there is a setting, either available to players or just debug, to switch between the civs' and leaders' color jersey

I have one bigger theory regarding colors though. The basis for it hidden in Maurya and Mongolia game guide. Notice something similar? It's the accents, they're in the same beige color, so could this mean there's a Mughal leader? Though the beige also appears in Mayan and Shawnee one but shhhhhhhh. Unless...

Also, Hawaii, as well as Majapahit, seems to be led by Trung Trac in the game guide.

All this of course is completely irrelevant, but I like analysing things and really there's nothing better to pick apart. Merry Christmas.

 

[moysturfurmer]

There aren't 26 distinctly different colors, so don't expect to be able to reliably recognize a leader just by the unit teamcolors.

...and as if it really matters which leader's troops we are looking at in a given clip. It doesn't tell us anything meaningful. No civilizations or units are unique to a particular leader.

Well, no, but I’m sure it’s possible to come up with more than 26 unique palettes. Like, take ROYGBIV, then account for distinct variations for all those colors (burgundy/pink/hot rod red, etc, instead of just “red”) then multiply what number by itself to account for the secondary colors and presto.

Even if you have 4 leaders with a primary color of “red,” one could be Red+Orange, another could be Red+Teal, another could be Pink+Cream, another could be Burgundy+Lime.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

While I understand the colors being matched to the Leaders for 3-Age identification, French troops, either Royal, Revolutionary, Imperial or later Republican never in reality wore yellow/gold uniforms. The nearest was the special Neufchatel Regiment ceded to Napoleon in 1806:
View attachment 713159
Which in fact was one of the few military units in all of Europe to ever wear 'yellow' coats, so is probably one of the most-painted miniatures units Ever.

I suppose I can get used to it. After all, the aforementioned Royal, Imperial, Rpeublican, etc French at various times wore gray, white, blue, or very light lavender coats, and the old Royal Army had foreign troops in red, dark blue, light blue, and brown coats.
Yellow will just take some getting used to . . .

This is really a problem with tinting systems. Now Civ7 uses 'Base and Trim' color schemes. (Similiar to Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, though in that game paintings were done in a different screen).
But then again. France under different system uses diffrenent color schemes for their soldiers. the Bourbon France favors white as basecolor. Republics and Bonaparte era prefers blue.
What matters more is unit names. What names will be used? 'Fusiliers' or 'Imperial Guards' ?
Since 'Fusiliers' aren't used as generic unit names in place of Line Infantry. it is best being French UU name, which describes French footsloggers since 1680s to this day.

There's a reason why the 18th century and Napoleonic period is one of the favorites among the miniatures modelers and painters: it was the high point of colorful military uniforms and the sheer variety is almost overwhelming. I still have on my shelves a two volume set of watercolor illustrations of Napoleonic uniforms totalling over 500 pages, and it doesn't begin to cover all the varieties of uniforms of the period!

And about Tier 0 US Army using 18th Century uniforms instead of 19th. (and with a wild variety of coats ). Is it because the most remembered images of Early US Army was one of Revolutionary War and not 1812 nor Wayne's Legion?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Well, no, but I’m sure it’s possible to come up with more than 26 unique palettes. Like, take ROYGBIV, then account for distinct variations for all those colors (burgundy/pink/hot rod red, etc, instead of just “red”) then multiply what number by itself to account for the secondary colors and presto.

Even if you have 4 leaders with a primary color of “red,” one could be Red+Orange, another could be Red+Teal, another could be Pink+Cream, another could be Burgundy+Lime.

From having spent far, far too many hours hunched over little metal miniature 18th century figures painting them, I can tell you what combinations make distinctive and even attractive combinations, because they were all used by one unit or many in Europe: For a primary color of Red, for instance
Red - Dark Blue
Red - Light Blue
Red - Dark Brown
Red - Light Green
Red - Yellow
Red - Black - BUT black and white seem to be reseerved for Minor Powers in Civ VII, so it's probably a no-go in the game.

Other primary (uniform) colors were:
Dark Blue, Light Blue, Gray, White (BUT see above, probably only for Minors) and medium Green

Contrasting ('distinctives') colors most used were:
Dark Blue, Light Blue, Red, Yellow, Brown, Light Green, Dark Green

Less often used, because the colors were so 'fugitive':
Orange, Lavender, Pink, and the orangish-brown color called by the French 'Feuille Morte' (Dead Leaf), which they used on uniforms and flags when they ran out of combinations of primary colors.

Even without subtler distinctions of shading like mauve, maroon, magenta and such, that still gives us enough combinations to distinguish at least the Civs/Leaders on release.

 

[AriochIV]

Civ6 had a reasonably effective two-tone teamcolor scheme, but in what I've seen of Civ7, although there are hints of a secondary color in a few cases, for the most part the teamcolor is dominated by a single color. In a game in which the lighting changes dramatically depending on whether there's a cloud passing overhead and battle kicks up dust and smoke to make even seeing the units difficult, subtle changes in color are not very noticeable. In the Exploration livestream I was having a tough time telling the Isabella and Confucius' units apart because their yellow/orange teamcolors were too similar.

And as for hot pink is a suitable teamcolor for historical military units, well... I'm not quite sure what to say about that.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Civ6 had a reasonably effective two-tone teamcolor scheme, but in what I've seen of Civ7, although there are hints of a secondary color in a few cases, for the most part the teamcolor is dominated by a single color. In a game in which the lighting changes dramatically depending on whether there's a cloud passing overhead and battle kicks up dust and smoke to make even seeing the units difficult, subtle changes in color are not very noticeable. In the Exploration livestream I was having a tough time telling the Isabella and Confucius' units apart because their yellow/orange teamcolors were too similar.

And that someone thinks hot pink is a suitable teamcolor for historical military units, well... I'm not quite sure what to think about that.

'Hot pink' or other bright reflective colors were never an option, but rose pink seems to have been considered quite acceptable - at least, a couple hundred years ago.

The requirement for contrasting, easily-distinguished color combinations is why I posted the combinations used by dozens of military units IRL between 1700 and 1815 - they were all designed to be easily distinguishable in the clouds of black powder smoke, dust, noise and confusion of an 18th century field battle. They should work equally well on a computer screen provided the computer is not also belching black smoke . . .

 

[sTAPler27]

View attachment 712577
Here are those gun elephants. They are in the Siamese civ.

Hope they get bonuses for having ivory, same think if we see mounted camel units