New Panzer Campaign Graphics

[Strela]

For the most part I really like these changes and I'm looking forward to them.

I do however have a few nit picks and reservations:

The PzC obstacle/entrenchment proposal while a decent idea looks (to me at least) to be too hard to read and tell the difference between things at a quick glance. I much prefer the style Phillipe uses in his mods, or even the Jison style.

More contrast is needed between PzC primary and secondary roads, and I prefer the black/white "dashed line" style railroads myself, because they are easier to pick out.

I really like the fact that the Niehorster symbols are being adopted as standard.

I agree with Xavier that something should be done about the German counters. Gray or gray-green for the Heer, and darker gray for the SS are my preferences. (I'd like to see black/white SS myself, but I do understand that white symbols would be hard if not impossible to do without provision for another "symbols" file.) Months back I asked a question as to why every Tiller game shows Germans in a blue-gray/light blue shade, and nobody seemed to know. Just tradition I guess. Easily modded anyway.

All in all though, I'm really looking forward to the graphic changes. It's really good to see that things are still evolving in a positive way. In the end it looks like anything we don't like the looks of will be able to be modded to our individual tastes, and that's a good and thoughtful thing too.

Guys,

I'm taking note of everything, but wanted tackle the 'I want my SS on black counters' request now.

All icons NATO or Graphical comes from the 2DSymbolsXXX file. Currently the NATO Icons are black in colour. This symbol set is overlaid over ALL counters. If someone can suggest another colour that will work I'm all ears, but if you look at traditional wargames the SS are normally printed with white fonts and nearly every other nationality is black.

As they say a picture tells a thousand stories. See below (right click for full size);


Screens 1 & 2 are the existing colour template showing with divisional marking on and off. Screens 3 & 4 are with SS 'Black' counters and the icon font left black. Screens 5 & 6 are using white font that essentially doesn't work with anything (to my eyes).

For those wondering where the Wehrmacht colour that JTS has traditionally used was sourced I believe from the blue/green in the Europa series, but I may be wrong there.

For those hoping that we might get two different 2DSymbolsXXX files, I don't expect that to happen when we have alternatives such as using a grey rather than a black counter for the SS.

Sorry for sounding negative on this, but after a decade of trying to work within some pretty tight restrictions in terms of colour palettes that give the widest range of outcomes, I will look to enterprising modders to give the SS their rightful colours.

I will respond to the other questions and criticisms in due time.

Thanks,

David  

PS Also note I have posted this image as a PNG file and it should be clearer than the ones in the blog post that were compressed JPG files.