Red/Green Colourblind problem

Can't tell what's what on the treaties page

from GalCiv2 Forums

Being red-green colour blind I cannot tell who is at war with who on the treaty page. The two red and green colours aren't sufficiently different in intensity for someone like me to tell them apart.

This is something I periodically have to mention to game devs - and this is a common problem with using red-green indicators in games. With 8-10% of the male population having some sort of colour deficiency this is not an insignificant problem - and is a well known phenomenon in interface design. Doubly surprising is how often this problem crops up given the increased odds of people spotting this during development with largely make dev teams.

Past iterations of Civ have included specific colour sets for colour blind users (the majority having issues with red and green) and I can only hope that something can be done to tweak GC2. Heck, it's as simple as say replacing red with white or blue or gray or something like that. Stick to the primaries and it's even easier.

I've only seen the problem on the treaties page so far but it's early days and I've no idea if this situation arises on any other pages.

Anyone else having trouble with this?
5,198 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Thats one of the reasons we put a text box in the treaties screen, to give a more precice rundown of the current relations information. However, if I remember correctly, green indicates ALLIANCE, so there's no reason we can change that to purple or something

But yeah, for the time being, check that text window in the upper right corner of the window...it should help

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

You can change those colors in the prefs.ini file, which is located in My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2

The relevant lines are here:

[ForeignTreatiesWnd]
LineColorAlliance=-16735745
LineColorWar=-65536
LineColorTrade=-2778349
LineColorTeam=-16711936

The colors are in D3DCOLOR_RGB format. Open up a paint program that allows you to mix your own colors and find the values of R, G, and B that create a color that you can easily distinguish.  R, G, and B are integers between (inclusive) 0 and 255. Then get out your calculator.

This is the formula for creating a RGB number:

(255 * (2  ^ 24) ) + (R * (2 ^ 16)) + (G * (2 ^ 8)) + B

Also, in case the 2 ^ 24 notation isn't clear, that means 2 to the power of 24.

You can also change the tech category colors and the TradeWnd's accept/reject colors in the Prefs.ini file.  When I get the mods folder working, you'll be able to even change the various race colors.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Awesome - I'll look into both of those. You guys are doing an amazing amazing job.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Am I tight in thinking you've maybe tweaked the green a little bit in this patch? Just that I kinda found it easier to pick the colours when I was last looking at the screen in question, or maybe I'm making it up.