X2 (Every Colour Scheme Ever Colour Scheme) Colour Scheme

Ashtagon

Deviantart link is here: (1.53 mb, 822 x 8321 pixels) link

This is the colour scheme that I use for my (alternate) history maps. Each row's primary (3rd column) colour is unique. There may be some duplicates among darker and lighter shades.

This is still a draft version. Rows where the final column is not shaded green are rows that I am currently unhappy with the listed colour.


  • Paler: Intended to be used for protectorates and areas organised under martial law.
  • Main Colour: Intended for the core part of the nation, plus conquered territories not otherwise organised.
  • Darker: Intended for autonomous regions, territories that are (nominally at least) scheduled for later promotion to full statehood, and self-governing dominions.
  • Darker Plus: Intended for "territories of dominions".
  • Paler Plus: Intended for unorganised tribes of the general culture group (where that colour is not otherwise represented), or for maritime claims.

How is this different from existing colour schemes?


  1. I've tried to integrate ideas present in every existing colour scheme. In theory, all but the most exotic of timelines could be represented by this.
  2. No colour is repeated, although some do have double duty when expressing different conceptual fields (e.g., Kingdom of Sussex doubles with Camelot). This may be important in more complex maps.
  3. It includes fantasy and SF options.
  4. RGB values are listed for each colour and its variations. Additionally, the numbers are in black or white depending on the perceived brightness (see here and here) of the colour. This can be useful if placing text on top of a coloured region.
  5. In order to optimise historical and convergent a-h maps, I have adjusted some colours to increase visual contrast with their expected contemporaries (e.g., USA has been made bluer to contrast better with republican Russia).
The image below is a thumbnail. The final version will be reformatted into two or three columns.

So.... your opinions?
 
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shiftygiant

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
I was blocked by Chrome from looking at the link, it's harmful apparently. Better link if anyone else can't look at it.

Immediate issue: No clear distinction between continents or Nation types on the chart itself. On closer inspection, a lot of them, especially in Africa, are the same color.
 

Ashtagon

shiftygiant said:
I was blocked by Chrome from looking at the link, it's harmful apparently. Better link if anyone else can't look at it.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I edited the link in the top post.

Immediate issue: No clear distinction between continents or Nation types on the chart itself. On closer inspection, a lot of them, especially in Africa, are the same color.
Click to expand...
The (232,237,233) colour that you see for a lot of African countries (and a few U.S. states) is my "minor state" colour. It's acting as a place-holder for those countries that I want to have a colour but don't yet have any good options for. There's a few countries (mostly island nations) that have been missed off the list too, that I need to add (and will probably have this "colour" too).

I'm slightly undecided as to whether every small modern nation should have its own colour. The "minor nation colour" should have a reason to exist.

The list is organised into sections, but for some daft reason lost to my subconsciousness, I temp-removed them from the list before converting it to an image. The next upload version will have them restored.

I've also noticed I seem to have "refuge" state (in the SF section) listed twice. The darker one is the one that should remain.

theDisciple said:
Beautiful. My new standard color scheme
Click to expand...

Thank you :)
 

Ashtagon

Based on immediate feedback, I've made a couple of edits...

1. I've added section headers so it's a bit easier to find things. The order is unchanged, and generally goes as Europe - Africa - Asia - Oceania - North America - South America.

2. Countries whose colour is not finalised are in pink in the last column. Finalised countries are in white on that column.

Link: deviantart. (1.62 mb, 822 x 9441 pixels) (same URL as above: I replaced the old image)
 
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Chicxulub

Chicxulub

Banned
This color scheme has a slight problem that most others do. The color of Hungary is 54,54,54, and the border color is 51,51,51. It is nearly impossible to tell the two colors apart. I suggest that you make the borders darker, perhaps 17,17,17.
 
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Ashtagon

Sketchy Fan said:
This colour scheme has a slight problem that most others do. The colour of Hungary is 54,54,54, and the border colour is 51,51,51. It is nearly impossible to tell the two colours apart. I suggest that you make the borders darker, perhaps 17,17,17.
Click to expand...

You're half-right; Hungary is (0,54,54), not (54,54,54). It's still quite similar to the border colour, and Upper Volta and Malaysia have the same issue. I chose (51,51,51) for borders because that is used by TACOS, although personally I'd want something darker if doing it from scratch. My goal was to rely on precedent for colour choices unless there was a good reason not to. I suspect, however, this counts as a good reason not to.

Change made to my master file. Upload will happen some time later.
 

Ashtagon

PiratePartyist said:
I love this scheme and will adopt it, especially for this map game.

The most glaring needs that I noticed were separate colours for the Korean versions, and the need for an "Ideologies and Religions" section.
Click to expand...

I know I need to add Korea colours. I'm undecided on what those colours should be just yet.

Regarding "ideologies and religions", that's unlikely to happen. I'd be inclined to make the existing colours do double duty according to the regionally-dominant religions in real life (eg India would do double duty as Hinduism; Saudi would do double duty as Islam). My full "religion" list was:


  • Localised Paganism: Use appropriate country for the specific type of paganism (e.g., Greece for the Greek mythos, Mexico for Aztec mythos).
  • Abrahamic:
    • Christianity: E. Roman successor (216,216,82) ███
      • Catholicism: Vatican (255,255,164) ███
      • Protestantism: Pennsylvania (177,180,177) ███
      • Eastern Orthodox: Greek successor in Anatolia (127,79,127) ███
      • Mormon/other radical Christian: Utah (148,174,229) ███
    • Islam:
      • Sunni or all Islam: Saudi Arabia (0,153,0) ███
      • Shi'ite: Iran (236,175,44) ███
      • Ibadi: Oman (223,115,255) ███
    • Judaism: Israel (11,111,119) ███
  • Zoroastrianism: Azerbaijan (206,181,97) ███
  • Bahai/Babism: Balochistan (112,255,112) ███
  • Hinduism: India/Delhi (162,91,255) ███
  • Sikhism: Khalistan (255,178,127) ███
  • Taoism/Confucianism: Yunnan (197,108,255) ███ (this will probably change)
  • Buddhism: Tibet (255,226,147) ███
For ideologies, again, I don't plan on having specific colours for "non-nation-specific" ideologies. However, many countries do have nation-specific ideology colour variants (Russia being the most obvious example with four, and many US states double as US ideology colours). Many "exotic" political ideologies tend to be sufficiently dysfunctional to result in what amounts to no organised state though. For the more functional versions, it tends to be more meaningful to highlight the nation first rather than the ideology first.
 
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Ashtagon

More changes:


  • Equatorial Guinea colour finalised
  • Tuareg (Sahara) colours finalised
  • Improved group labelling
  • Added place-holder entries for every Caribbean and Pacific Island state and territory. This is mostly to help in confirming that no country has been missed (e.g, as a check-list for researching historical maps).
  • International border colour changed to (17,17,17) as per earlier discussion.
I think I'm happy with the idea that many of these minor countries (e.g., Wallis & Futuna) will never have a colour. They are, after all, what the "minor country" non-colour is intended for.
 
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Lord Hastur of Carcosa

Lord Hastur of Carcosa

Wow, there's really everything, it's the Ultimate Color Scheme for Alternate History (though RCS still works better for OTL).
You even got Sentient Dinosaurs, Machine Empires and Undead.
Oh, and I misread "Vermont" for "Voldemort". :)
You don't wanna be outside in the U.S. State of Voldemort after dark.:p
 

Ashtagon

I finally found a set of Korea colours I am happy with. I sent and researched all the historical Korean kingdoms for this. The modern period is relatively simple, since there are just two. But going into ancient history, there's quite a large number, almost (but not quite) putting the English heptarchy to shame. Ultimately, I decided the best approach was to aim for where the nation is ruled from, which broadly falls into "south east" (surprisingly rare), "south west" (most of Korea major historical states), and "north".

The attached image covers the states I researched, along with related colours for most of them in the X2 colour scheme.

related wikipedia maps:



Deviant Art upload: link. In the description column, a dark pink indicates I have no plans to create a country-specific colour. Light pink means I do have such plans.

Koreas.png
 

Ashtagon

Question: I kind of like the Korean red, and am tempted to make it do double duty as both "south east Korean state" and "unified monarchist Korea" (which would cover the period 918 AD to 1910). Opinions?

Edit: I just noticed that the northern Korea colour is almost indistinguishable from the unclaimed colour. Back to the drawing board on that one. Probably go with UCS for teh main north/south Korea colours.
 
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Ashtagon

Imperator Frank said:
I have a question; what color would you use for Caesar's Legion from Fallout: New Vegas?
Click to expand...

Bear in mind that everything know about that game and that faction in particular is from this wiki. I'd probably go with Roman Empire colours for the imagery self-identification they use. CSA (N Carolina) colours might also be appropriate, given the political aspects of Caesar's Legion.

With any post-apocalypse scenario though, a lot depends on the geographic scope of the map. On a world-level, Rome's colour might be needed for an Italy-based state, and Caesar's legion might not even be big enough to merit being more than a minor state.

I think the essential key with ASB scenarios is that for any given state, pick one of geographical location, political similarity, or iconography, to determine what colour to use. Ideally, use the same metric for all states when adapting a colour scheme to an ASB scenario.
 
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Ashtagon

ToixStory said:
Is this still active? Really love the color scheme so far and would love to see it completed. :)
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It is still active. I've been posting an update on deviant art every few days (over-writing older versions; sorry to all those scholars intent on deducing my reasoning from intermediate versions) since this thread started. The last update was today in fact.

If you've suggestions for what direction you think I should take this, I am all ears.
 

Ashtagon

I have a problem with the current Guyana colour. It is far too similar to the current Peru/Inca colour, which creates problems in ATLs where those two (or their likenesses) have expanded to meet. Which of these should I use?

(For those who care, proposal A is average HSL for Peru and UK. Proposal B is Peru, with ×0.75 saturation and luminosity.)

South America.png
 
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