@CrazyAnglican: I didn't know that. Just checked on google... interestingly, pink was used as a printing compromise as close to the symbolic red, while remaining more legible.

I always thought it be interesting to completely shake up the colors, influenced by some historical/culture aspects. Here are some ideas:

Italy - Blue (House of Savoy)
Turkey - Turquoise
England - Red or White
Perhaps assign yellow to Russia (base color of the imperial standard)
Maybe green to AH (Hungary always gets forgotten when talking about this power)

England - Pink
France - Blue
Germany - Grey
Italy - Green
Turkey - Red
Russia - White
Austria - Yellow

Should really be traditional, I think.

Thomas, thanks for the input! I think the settings of "old" and "new" at minimum is likely to show up (although someone has to code it obviously)

So, here is Alternative C! It has the following:
a) little ovals drawn around fleets to help distinguish them from armies as a first pass
b)England has the the Alternative B "lighter" blue in the west, plus Portugal, and a "lighter BoSox" blue in Edin, Yorkshire, Norway and Gascony. Given the contrast with France, going any lighter will be hard I think
c) Germany: lighter
d) Italy has a "lighter still BoSox" green, except Apulia (original) PIedmont (lighter) and Tuscany (darker).
e) Austria has a "lighter" red and the "lighter still Bosox" red in Serbia and Greece.
f) TUrkey is lighter yellow with Goldenrod support arrow. Armenia is left as original to look at the contrast with Russia.

I know it's a lot to look at, but more opinions is better and maybe we can do a couple of polls for everyone when the team gets around to taking up these questions.

http://tinyurl.com/oewtzz3

@jmspool. I'll try that when I get back and post it (I'm just playing around in Paint, frankly)

Also, I like the idea of traditional colors, and it'd be interesting to look at historical flags.

Blue for Savoy (Italy), red for the Ottoman Empire, Yellow for Imperial Russia, for example.

Green could be Austria as that shows up in the Hungarian side, but France and England are tricky because they're, well, red, white and Blue as options. As a football fan, I'm used to seeing England in white. So france gets the light blue?

@hellenic riot, I'm not sure which tradition you are referring to. Care to elaborate?

I could roll with that, Ogion. The lighter hue on England looks good, the lighter Austria (Balkans centers) looks really good, and white Russia is still sexy as hell...

One more thing to ask, which I could probably do myself but meh - could you show the map in the S01 position with the neutrals? I'm thinking that maybe the neutral color could slide a little bit more in the direction of the color of Apulia on that last map. It might help with the contrast with Russia.

And the low saturation scheme for jmspool. Let me know if this is what you had in mind.

http://tinyurl.com/mxufmf2

(Personally I love the fully saturated colors, but that's not necessarily good design)

On all traditional maps, the British Empire was Pink, and France blue. Prussia/Germany were usually Grey. White Russia, of course, refers to the White Tsarists. Ottoman Red and Italian green are also the norm. That leaves Austria, which is a bit of an odd one as it was sometimes Red, sometimes Yellow and sometimes White. The Habsburg flag was Yellow & Black, though. So yellow seems good.

you bet! (I've got the system down so it's pretty easy for me to bang out new ones, so no worries. Also, this way I have all the images handy)

Spring 1901 with BoSox colors
http://tinyurl.com/obhfntj

SPring 1901 with BoSox colors, and darker neutrals (except Serbia, Norway< NOrth Africa

http://tinyurl.com/ld9hrns

Ah. Makes sense. I will do one of those, though I'd be inclined to use our Austrian red for England. Alas, that pink was what led me to want to change colors in the first place! :)

Ogion, what do you think of the options for dealing with colour issues on vDip?

Two more:

Yebellz scheme, but with the Ottomans as Red and a cool German scheme taht I don't think can be programmed easily.

http://tinyurl.com/YebellzScheme

And a stab at the Hellenic Riot SCheme

http://tinyurl.com/HellenicSCheme

I'm not super familiar with vDip's scheme. They have a settings switch that lets you choose a color scheme for your games (e.g., the colorblind options).

If we can code it I'd love that flexibility! (I like the sort order options, too.)

For the HellenicSCheme, Turkey and England have shades of red that are way too close.

oops I fogot to change Austria, so there are three red countries. The Anglo Austrohungarian Ottoman Empire starts with a bit of a lead I guess.

Also, the yebellzscheme is amazing.

Try this one instead

http://tinyurl.com/YebellzScheme2

Grr... Try this one

http://tinyurl.com/pddm87z

I think it'll look better if the white border lines wouldn't just be between German regions, but also on the borders with other powers,

ex. http://s4.postimg.org/w7fr6dsd9/Yebellzscheme_zps756b04d6.png

Ogion: Grey or perhaps a dark brown for Germany instead of pitch black is a no-brainer, ha ha.

@JECE, well, yes. That's why all the main variants have dark or light grey. (Brown is a little tedious) There's what we'd like and then there's what will work, because there are in fact 13 colors to balance (7 countries, neutrals, support hold, support move, move, retreat), not counting the oceans and the black borders.

You'll notice in the "Yebellz scheme3" Turkey wouldn't work with the move arrows, and Russia doesn't work with the support move arrows. Still, a pretty concept to start with if we wanted to tinker.

@Ogion:
re http://tinyurl.com/oewtzz3
Sorry to be thick, but I don't understand this mock up.
And thanks. The oval around the fleets is a great help (minor point, they are not centring up at the moment) But I still can't see the tanks.

http://tinyurl.com/mxufmf2
And with this shade of green, the Italian tanks disappear entirely. Is this another attempt to reflect history? (sorry, couldn't resist it!)

http://tinyurl.com/obhfntj
This is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. Does it work with the fleets, tanks and arrows?

http://tinyurl.com/ld9hrns
This is good, too. Does it work with the tanks, boats and arrows?

http://tinyurl.com/YebellzScheme
This link shows a message: 'this person deleted this image'

http://tinyurl.com/HellenicSCheme
England's colour too close to Turkey's.
Does the yellow arrow work with Austria?