re: colors

one thing to make sure of is you don't use bright or garish colors. for some reason they just look "wrong" in a wargame.

Luckless' suggestion of shades of green and red is another possibility.

If not using nation specific historic colors, red vs blue is the classic set of colors used.

your final choices may seem strange to wargamers. Germany is never red, unless you are blue. And the UK is never blue - unless its red vs blue. in "red vs blue", you're always blue (the good guys). it would probably be a good idea to try to follow the few conventions that do exist in wargames, so you don't alienate the only core audience you have to start with.

Its not a "classic wargame" like total war, europa universalis or Risk. It's just a game about war:) The colors is mostly for identifying ships (little icons) moving around in realtime in the ocean.

in that case you want colors that provide good contrast, are not garish, and match the overall palette of the game.

I cannot have red vs blue for enemy/ally since you (playing a privateer) can ally/do jobs for different factions

yes - red vs blue is only used for two sided conflicts. multiple factions requires unique-as-possible multiple colors.

The idea of germany being red and UK blue is since it's close to the color of the flags.

really its what looks good on the map that matters. for a military feel you would use a color scheme / palette with military colors: flat grays, greens, browns, and blacks, etc.

and no matter what you do, germany being red will probably seem weird to any wargamer! <g> kind of like making them pink.

Several people brought this up. But why is it so strange? The flag is VERY red after all:) And I use them (flag and symbol color) in conjunction in some places in the game.

its just a long standing convention in wargames.

USSR is red. always. nobody else. ever. if its red, its the soviets. period. any other color is up for grabs, but not red. red = USSR. its just one of those things.... <g>

germany is pretty much always black or dark gray or medium gray or light gray. never seen anything else.

never seen USA as anything except olive drab.

just take a look at whats out there right now, and you'll get an idea of the colors folks are used to working with.

if a convention exists, and you can use it to add familiarity to your game, you should take advantage of that.

so germany using a color that's often used for germany, as opposed to the color usually reserved for the USSR is to your advantage, the same way that using WASD+mouse as opposed to some custom input scheme can be to your advantage. the players are used to it.

But japan is sometimes red:) For example in axis&allies. And if Germany is grey (black doesnt work with the rest of the palette or the background), what color should the neutrals/unclaimed be? (i dont want two different kind of grey OR two kind of blue, it makes it seem they are related).

who should be what color is always an issue in wargame design. and yes red and white are both used for Japan.

as you can see, the problem is there are only so many suitable colors to work with, and its desirable to stay away from multiple shades of the same color. colors like pink, violet, electric yellow, and neon green, just don't seem to look right. unless its a neon wargame <g> (might be cool...)

in the end you usually have to compromise on one or two of the colors, like red for japan, or multiple shades of the same color, cause its the lesser of all possible evils, and there usually aren't enough suitable colors to go around.

The smart thing to do is make it easy to change the colors in case you come up with a better color scheme later.

then just come up with the best color combo you can, and run with it. if you think of something better later on, you can mod it, if not, oh well. what you have must not be that bad cause you haven't been able to think of anything better by the time you finish building the game.