http://tinyurl.com/pddm87z
Good but does it work with units and arrows?

http://s4.postimg.org/w7fr6dsd9/Yebellzscheme_zps756b04d6.png
Too many reds. Unlikely to work with the arrows.

The deleted one had a bunch of errors in it. Yebellz3 is the correct one

I will it together a good summary for everyone in the morning. It looks like we have a dark palette and light palette and a low saturation palette and two "historical versions".

@ogion
This is a great bit of work you've been doing. I think you may now have got to the stage where you can hone it down, by posting, say, half a dozen of the colour schemes (including all arrows and units against all of the backgrounds) and inviting contributors to rate on two dimensions:
Visibility: (Clear, difficult, indistinguishable)
Artistic merit (Beautiful, uhuh and yeugh)

Sorry, Ogion.
You'd reached the same conclusion independently, while I was typing my last posting.

ok, here they are. There's something of consensus on Austria, Italy and TUrkey I think

1) http://tinyurl.com/LighterALternative1 (Lighter England and Germany)
2) http://tinyurl.com/DarkerAlternative1A
3) http://tinyurl.com/LowSaturation

The historical two are simply shuffling these same colors to different countries, really, except with the pink UK in Hellenic's version and the unworkable black in Yebellz'

Hellenic: http://tinyurl.com/HellenicScheme2
Yebellz http://tinyurl.com/YebellzScheme4

@Ogion
The links worked before but have stopped working now!
Do you want us to rate them on a three point scale on each of: Visibility and Aesthetics?

Hmm. They seem to work for me. Not sure

Yes, comments on legibility and aesthetics is good. I notice I forgot to change some of them move arrows to the darker red

1) http://tinyurl.com/LighterALternative1 (Lighter England and Germany)
I get an error message with this one, whether I include the words in brackets or not.

2) http://tinyurl.com/DarkerAlternative1A
This is aesthetically pleasing, but the German colour is very difficult. I think this might well work if the grey was scaled down substantially.

3) http://tinyurl.com/LowSaturation
Strangely, I find this less aesthetically attractive, even though it is much easier to read (mainly because of the use of the lighter German grey). Toning down the German grey even further would be helpful

4) http://tinyurl.com/HellenicScheme2
I like the bold yellow at the centre of this map. It works best for me. It would work even better if the German grey were toned down (ie lighter).

In all cases, though, (sorry to repeat myself) I can see the ovals around the fleets, but the tanks are almost invisible.

Thanks for the feedback. I think the lighter German grey is generally popular (2WL and I like the dark but I think that's it.)

Try:
http://tinyurl.com/LighterALternative1

That green is too bright and luminous, I think. I like the rest of 'my' scheme, though.

http://tinyurl.com/LighterALternative1
still won't work for me.

Great bit of work, Ogion!

Try this one:

http://tinyurl.com/lighterAlternative2

It has a toned down green for Italy as well.

http://tinyurl.com/lighterAlternative2
I like that one very much. I would like it even better if the grey were lighter still and the tanks had squares encasing them! :-)

I have a friend, Patrick Hofmann, who does the cartography stuff for Google Maps. Maybe I should get him involved this project? He's an expert in map legibility. :)

I like http://tinyurl.com/lighterAlternative2 a lot.

This is what it would look like to someone with Red-Green Color Blindness (Protanopia): http://bit.ly/AlternativeColor-BlueGreenColorBlind

This is what it would look like to someone with Yellow-Blue Color Blindness (Tritanopia): http://bit.ly/AlternativeColor-YellowBlueColorBlind

That'd be great if Patrick is up for commenting and giving advice. And thanks for the check on the color blindness. I was planning on doing that as a next stage, but there are clearly some issues with Alternative 2 with Germany v Austria and England v Italy.

I am puzzled and amused by your latest posting, Ogion. For me (red-green deficient) the difference between (1) Germany and Austria & (2) England and Austria is as clear as it can be. If that map causes problems for normal sighted people, it reinforces the point that users should be offered a range of options on the settings page.
The "color-blindness.com" website is great for showing normal sighted people how colour schemes look to colour-blind people, but it makes no attempt to show to colour-blind people how things look to normally sighted people. :-)

correction (* (2) England and Italy *)

Thats's interesting. Looking at the images posted by jmspool, in the first one I'd think Germany and Austria would be hard to tell apart.

Maybe you are colour-blind and unaware of the fact. Or maybe some types of colour-blindness make it easier for colour-blind people to distinguish certain colour combinations which, for normally sighted people are problematic.
If that is so, your task (of catering to both (or all three) populations is well nigh impossible, without providing for a choice under the settings menu.