[Freeciv-Dev] Re: minimap city colors?

[Robert Rendell <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thue wrote:
} BTW, why aren't the players real colours used in the minimap? That would be
} much nicer and more usefull.

Unlike the paycivs, Freeciv doesn't appear have a single colour for each
race, but rather a map image.  It would be neat (but probably tricky) if
the game could assign a unique colour to each race in the current game,
perhaps by picking the most prevalent colour on their flag, although
three-colour flags like the French or Roman wouldn't work.  You probably
couldn't simply statically assign the colours by hand in the race ruleset
files, because there are going to be too many clashes between all the
races.

Another option might be for players to be able to use a colour picker to
assign a colour to a given civ.  Players could set their own civ's colour
(subject to restrictions, so they can't have ocea- or grass-coloured cities
on the minimap :), and that is sent to the server and forwarded out to the
other players.  Alternatively, each player could assign their own colour
scheme, and it could stay entirely client-side (but then re-starting a game
becomes a problem).

SMAC-style borders (which I think would be a really nice feature to add)
would be another place where a race's colour would be needed.  The
alternative would be to have little flag images planted on either side of
the border at regular intervals, which would probably look cute, but might
clutter up the main map display.

                                                        Have fun,
                                                         Rob R.
                                                          \((/
                                                          ~oo~
                                                          /))\