and one more with a darker Italy which I think is nicer. Good greens are hard to get right.

http://tinyurl.com/kwejwto

How would the darker colors look on the small map (where there aren't the white borders around the text)? They also make the border lines harder to see.

The dark navy and darker grey of Germany might be hard for some to distinguish, especially in the second set that you posted.

Also, you have be careful of red/green and other color blindness issues. Even though the colors may look quite different in hue, they can look virtually identical to some that is color blind if they have similar saturation. That being said, the current palette isn't that great for color blind people anyways.

There are some nice resources on the web for choosing color palettes, some taking into account colorblindness issues:

http://colorbrewer2.org/
http://blog.mollietaylor.com/2012/10/color-blindness-and-palette-choice.html
http://safecolours.rigdenage.com/palettefiles.html

Thanks a great point about the small map. It definitely needs the lighter grey and the lighter red.

http://tinyurl.com/poty3ss

It is interesting that the mollie taylor blog includes reds and greens that are distinguishable that are quite close to the Italy and lighter Austria in Set 1. That makes me wonder if the Germany grey is distinguishable. (I actually find those pallettes pretty damn ugly for the most part)

Advice from anyone with colorblindness would be awesome

FWIW, I have trouble distinguishing between the colors of Germany and Austria, especially the text, so a color change would be appreciated at least by me. I think it would be pretty easy to change Germany to a slightly different brown and get rid of the issue.

I found a cool colorblindness simulator that will help

http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/

Redblind version of the above map: http://tinyurl.com/pn9w8av
Greenblind: http://tinyurl.com/nwkfrab
blue blind: http://tinyurl.com/nhyanp7

INterestingly, it is the blue blind, which is really rare that is the issue for the Turkey/Austria pairing.

yeah. I can't really tell Russia and Germany apart on the small map, myself

I am colorblind and I find the color options available in vdiplomacy.com to be very helpful. I suggest that webDip pull the colorblind options from vDip, and then if people want additional color options for aesthetic reasons, they can be developed.

Which ones in particular. I poked around a little and it looks like the same color schemes as here, which makes me think I'm missing something

What did you think of these two:

http://tinyurl.com/poty3ss
http://tinyurl.com/kwejwto

Shortly after I joined the site (less than two months ago) I raised this issue with the owners and am pleased to see that something is likely to be done about it.
My Daltonism is that experienced by about 5% of the male population.
I particularly like the palette employed at ( http://tinyurl.com/poty3ss ) (except only that it will be particularly difficult to read Russian message sent white on white) It remains difficult to read the writing on most of the backgrounds.
As with many problems of this type, the solution may not lie where we are looking for it, for example:
[a] the two 'ready' buttons are barely distinguishable. [How about one tick and two ticks?]
[b] the 'pause' symbol is easy to confuse with the 'NMR' symbol. [How about an extra exclamation mark?]
[c] the armies and fleets are barely visible and, when visible, barely distinguishable. [How about a rectangle (fleet) and a circle (army) in the assigned national colour, rather than the present more elaborate symbols?]
I recognise that a solution to my issues may create problems for others but I admire the skills of computer programmers. I am sure they would find it easy to provide on the 'settings' page a set of 'buttons' or options for the colour schemes, so that users can choose the scheme of maps which best provides for their colour acuity.
On a related theme, it would also help if there could be provided (possibly in the table which now gives names, bet, worth, last seen, number of SCs, number of units and votes) [A] a list of the SCs owned by that power, [B] a listing of the location of each of that power's armies and [C] a listing of the location of each of that power's fleets.

That's a great point about white writing for Russia. Perhaps Russian messages could show up in black?

Also, I'd agree that the change in graphics for armies and fleets would be good. They're hard to tell apart in the small map.

"I am colorblind and I find the color options available in vdiplomacy.com to be very helpful. I suggest that webDip pull the colorblind options from vDip, and then if people want additional color options for aesthetic reasons, they can be developed."

In the works, that's why I asked Oli to originally make the colorblind option.

I like Thomas' idea of the graphics being customizable. Those that like how it is now can keep it that way, those that want changes can change that in the settings. Then no one can complain about how the changes were worse than before or whatever. Not sure how difficult that would be though, so that could be a problem.

PlayDiplomacy has two options, both hideous, actually, so in principle it could be done. As Thomas points, out the one with light grey Germany and light Red Austria is distinguishable. (http://tinyurl.com/poty3ss) That'd be a decent approach for sure

more thoughts are welcome.

Right now the lead option seems to be this guy:
http://tinyurl.com/poty3ss

^That looks wicked nice.

Ogion, in that last set you posted, could England and Italy be a lighter hue of the same color so that it's easier to read the names of centers?

the big problem I see is it's very hard to see the red arrows anywhere in Austria.

If you make Austria a bit lighter and the lines a bit darker, it should be fine

ok folks, two more alternatives. What would help is for you to tell me which alternative is your favorite for each country (except France, which I haven't changed)

Take a look at Serbia, where you can see the contrast between the support move arrow and the Turkish color (yellow v goldenrod) and Austria for the contrast between Austria and the move arrows.

Alternative A: (lighter England, Italy, Austria, darker Germany, goldenrod Turkey)
http://tinyurl.com/qxqr9sm

Alternative B: http://tinyurl.com/mhfd8o7 (Darker Austria, yellow Turkey)

I'd be a help too if you could tell me which you prefer (if you have a preference) for each country, e.g.
England: Lighter (A)
Germany: Darker (A)
Italy: no preference
Austria: Darker (B)
Turkey: lighter (A)

as an example. As always, if you have other thoughts, let me know and I can play with it!

The white Russia is excellent.

England: Darker (B)
Germany: Darker (A)
Italy: Lighter (A)
Austria: Lighter (A)
Turkey: Lighter (B)

You definitely can't go darker with Austria, its too difficult to read the labels.

I like the concept, but the dark colours esp England, Germany make the labels almost unreadable IMHO. It seems to me lighter base colours for countries and darker colours for labels/arrows is more sensible. Could the colourblind issue be addressed in part with patterns?

Agreed, a lighter base is probably necessary. White Russia is good, France is good. Turkey could work but I like our yellow better still. Lighter Germany was far better to me than the darker one. Austria, Italy, and England need to be lighter still in my opinion.

I would like to see an option to use these colors too:
England = Navy Blue
France = Light Blue
Germany = Black
Austria = Red
Italy = Green
Turkey = Yellow
Russia = White

Option A is simply excellent, but may not suit people with normal vision or those with different types of colour-blindness to my own. I re-iterate my recommendation that the settings page, provides each player a choice among a small number of options.
Also, the pretty little tanks and boats are a hindrance. Keep it simple... coloured rectangle for fleet, (same) coloured circle for fleet (larger than at present).
Great work.

JECE, that is the scheme I was shooting for, but there were a couple of issues. With Germany of course, you can't see the names or the lines, so that's how I got to grey for Germany. As for Italy, Turkey and Austria, it is a matter of picking up the support hold, support move and move arrows against those back grounds, which is why I'm working with reds, greens and yellows that are sufficiently different.

In case anyone was wondering how this site wound up with a pink England, purple Russia, and brown Germany...

Most physical editions use the colors that Ogion suggested (E-Navy, F-Sky, G-Black, A-Red, I-Green, R-White, T-Yellow), and that seems to be overwhelming be the most popular choice.

However, there was at least one published edition that used an alternative color scheme:
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/2000208/diplomacy?size=large

This site's current colors seem to be based on that scheme, copying the pink England and purple Russia, while substituting the black of Germany for brown, presumably to make it easier to render a readable map. I'm not sure why that publisher chose pink and purple though, perhaps just to have a more colorful and contrasting palette?

England is historically pink on maps.