Rectangular unit counter symbols

[satchel]

This mod changes the shape of the square military unit symbols into three-quarter proportioned rectangles, more similar (than the default graphics) to the traditional wargame design. These shapes are for land units only (I experimented with changing the sea unit shapes, and was displeased with how they looked.)

Please see the attached sample picture, for more detail. (The screenshot shows my personal game configuration, which has elements that this mod will not change. This mod will neither change your countries' unit colors, nor install the roundel unit-country-identifying symbols.) The sample has infantry, artillery, garrisons, a small garrison, an armored train, and a fighter plane squadron. I've changed the symbol for small garrison (it is now a smaller version of the garrison's plain rectangle, in the shape of a simple stockade, following the traditional method of deriving such symbols). The only other significant change is making armor more of a caterpillar-track shape, to match the traditional armor symbol, as opposed to the game's default oval shape.





Here is the file, hosted at Zippyshare. It's about 0.35MB (one-third of one MB) in size.

Comments, questions, and suggestions welcome.

These unit counter graphics are .png files which go into your Commander: The Great War directory, into the folder \data\graphics\units and please back up your original files before you install these. To back up your files, copy-and-paste (to a new, separate location) the corresponding files from the \data\graphics\units folder (or, simply back up the whole units folder, by copy-and-pasting a copy to a new location, it's about 27MB in size).

[Current NATO Joint Symbology (APP-6(C)) endorses the square frames for some uses (notably for neutral elements), but the U.S. Department of Defense Standard (2525C) universally endorses the familiar rectangle shape, which my own eyes prefer.]

As of 07 October 2016 I've uploaded a second version of these unit files. The changes are to the Armour and Armoured Train units, which I thought were not up to par.

[DonCzirr]

This is a great step in the right direction.

Most appreciated.

I will certainly be looking forward to installing this soon.

Thanks for your efforts.

[satchel]

Thank you, for the prompt feedback.

[Vokt]

Both the roundels and the counters are really improved. Good job!

[satchel]

Both the roundels and the counters are really improved. Good job!

Thanks very much.

[Robotron]

I'd like to have a look at that personal configuration of your unit symbols with changed colours for each nation. I guess you had to replace the pictorial unit graphics with the re-coloured unit counters to make that happen, right?

Any chance to make it public?

[satchel]

I'll be happy to make the configuration and its method public, thanks for asking.

Changing the colors of the various countries involves modifying a game file called factions.lua which is found within the Commander: The Great War directory called data\scripts and this file can be opened and modified by using Notepad, Wordpad, or any text editor (I myself use an excellent free one called Notepad++).

The unit graphics files which appear on the game map are white silhouettes of the unit types, superimposed upon a colored block of the country's color. So there is no need to create individual country units, the colors are determined in the factions.lua file.

In the factions.lua file, all the countries of C:TGW are listed, along with some basic information about them. One of these pieces of info is their unit color, within the game. It is presented in the format (for example)

Code: Select all

color = {138, 116, 88},

where the three numbers are a Red-Green-Blue combination (each value goes from 0 to 255; so pure red is 255, 0 ,0 and so forth). To customize your country colors, change these numbers. There are graphics editing programs, as well as webpages (such as http://www.colorpicker.com), which will let you enter sample RGB numbers, to see how a certain combination of color numbers will appear (or you can pick colors, and see the corresponding RGB numbers).

Here's an example screenshot of this file's contents, with one of the relevant lines highlighted:

001.gif (3.65 KiB) Viewed 6184 times

I've attached my own personal file (as a .zip file, which seemed the best way), which matches the unit colors of the other screenshots I've posted: Germany is black, Austria-Hungary is light gray, France is light blue, Britain is light brown, Russia is brown, Italy is light green, the USA is green, Turkey is dark red, and so forth. Traditional wargame colors and country flag colors were my guide to choosing these colors. If you use this file, please back up your original first, by copy-and-pasting it to a new location. To use it, unzip it and place the resulting factions.lua file within your C:TGW folder called data\scripts. (This file has been "cleaned up" a bit, some redundancies and obvious mistakes have been removed.)

factions.zip

(897 Bytes) Downloaded 181 times

From one computer monitor and system color configuration to the next, these is often a great variance. It is difficult to come up with a color scheme that looks good on all systems and monitors. The colors of the countries in the factions.lua file I've attached may look good on your system, but it may not. The colors could be too dark, too light, etc. Please refer to the screen shots I've posted, in both this thread and the "Roundels" thread, as a guide, to whether the colors I've chosen will be acceptable on your home computer screen.

[Robotron]

Thank your for the infos, I've been wondering what that colour value was good for for ages.

With different unit colurs for every nation and your new counters and roundels the game really looks splendid!

[satchel]

I figured that you'd come upon these variables, you have a mastery of all the other aspects of these files.

Thank you very much, for recognizing my work!