2D icons

[Jace11]

I really can't get on with the current set of 2D icons. By trying to display 2 or even 3 mini icons on 1 counter its looks to me cluttered and confusing. The first priority for me should be that at a glance the unit formation and direction is clear. Unit type can be incorporated INTO this instead of needing separate icon on the counter. This is accomplished in the new gold Civil War Campaigns where Cav line and column are different colours and shapes to Infantry. Other stuff I consider superfluous if it is displayed in the unit info box.

I've been trying to adapt the ACW game icons to Nap Waterloo, given that they are so clear etc. Its currently a WIP, and only the highest resolution is done so far. Doing the others will take longer than I thought (scaling down creates issues, all need to be done by hand individually).

Feedback welcome - particularly with regard to playabilty issues I may encounter / break.

It is my hope that something like this is their long term intent for the Nap series, but if not then they are going down the wrong track for me. The ACW series currently has the best presentation of all the titles IMO, making it playable in all nearly all zoom modes. I'll continue with this for the time being.

[-72-]

Interesting comment about the resizing, but it doesn't have to be done by hand - not for the symbol set that is being used - just grab any of the Civil War Battles upgrades (assuming you don't already have a set handy).

If you don't have a set- grab Peninsula - off of the JTS site, it is about a 64 mb download and will get you a set of those to work with.

Lift it off of the relevant size and put it over to the file that you want in NB - done.  Basically there is hardly any process to it at all. In theory they should have been cleaned up when put into the Civil War files. Sure there might be a different background colour from one file to the next. It shouldn't be any different than having done it for the Mag sized.

They definitely don't have to be done individually.

Gameplay-wise, personally, I want to know what types of units are what- as heavy cav, light cav, and irreg cav are significantly different in impact -that it does actually make a difference (it doesn't in Civil War Battles as they don't have something like that).

[Jace11]

Yeah, I get the scaling, I meant that I couldn't use the finished large bitmap (768x1480) and then just resize the whole thing (down to 384x740), the compression algorithms for photoshop cause blurring etc that ruin the alpha or the simplest one (called nearest neighbour) causes artifacts. Instead each file has to be constructed individually, but I did do what you suggested and ported each icon over 1 at a time, using a resized bitmap as a template to align them.

As for unit types, that information, is currently not displayed in this mod (other than differentiating cav, inf, art, skirmishers). I'll have a think, perhaps colors, perhaps line thickness, or resorting to letters might work, but space is limited.

Some other things I noticed while testing...

All cavalry use mounted symbols all the time (most can't change formation - so thats fine) i.e. half the cav icons on the sheet are never used - but this is true even for dragoons that can dismount. I added a dragoon line symbol in case it is changed later in the engine but at the moment it isn't used.

Unit facing in the Napoleon games is towards hex corners, in ACW it is towards hex facing. No symbol sets I have seen account for this, including the new default ones and the old ones, and all point at 45 degrees and leave the player to interpret it correctly - which is fine I guess. 45 degrees makes for neat, tidy icons though.





Nearly done with a first version:

Mag:


Large


Small


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UPDATE:
Ok, I guess the draft version is done (v1.0), repurposed most icons from ACW series, made a few new icons too. Download and extract to your MAP folder (of course, backup your original files too). Currently the objective flags are for Waterloo, but will work with several others campaigns that feature Prussia, Russia  and Austria (I think so anyway, I only have NAP:Waterloo, so I can't test it out thoroughly).