The CK3 case those were separate wars that could be occurring in the same location at the same time. The level and scope of the war needs more clarification.
How??? Please teach me your eldritch ways!
I can see where you’re coming from, and I even agree that in this specific instance flag occupations convey more information than stripes. However, I also think this is one case where the information being conveyed isn’t as valuable. Whether it’s the Netherlands themselves or the Dutch East Indies, the occupation is still effectively under Dutch control. Here’s a video of the Anglo-Burmese wars which I think illustrates my point:
An excellent way to show why we hate the flag occupation so much.
Except, again, it's not a good way to show this. Because it's not a good use case for any differentiation in occupation graphics in the game.
I think you're missing my point. Flag occupation requires pre-existing knowledge of the countries flags. Obviously people aren't going to have any issue figuring out what's going on when they see the Stars and Stripes invading Mexico, but let's say you see two African countries, that you've never heard of, fighting each other. The only things visible on the map are their color and names, so the only good ways of visualizing who is occupying who would be either their color, or writing their name on top of the other country.The thing is, striped occupation fails in EU4 and Vic2 as well, not just CK. It can be very difficult to tell what country is occupying where if two countries have very similar colors, or if a separated territory like an island is being occupied by a power that isn't right next door. It's telling that the supposed counterexamples supporting striped occupation graphics are always extremely simplified and would be unambiguous no matter the visualization, like those here:
and not the situations that might actually come up in-game such as those I mentioned that designers do need to take into consideration when visualizing data. It's also telling that these examples never use actual in-game showings and only use again very simplistic and highly contrast colors with no texture overlay as you would see in the actual game, nor do they ever use the zoomed in Vic3 overlay of the living map. A better case to analyze would be something like in EU4 a Scotland and Castile occupying each other's colonies in the Caribbean.
It says a lot that with just looking up Victoria 3 screenshots on google, you can immediately tell this is a Scandinavian occupation before you even figure out where in the world the screenshot is taking a picture of. That's simply not something you can do with striped occupations and shows the relative ease of visualization of the flag occupation.
As a Scandinavian I don't recognize that as a Scandinavian flag, most likely because it is an imaginary flag, as are many other flags used in Vic 3. It is even missing the one symbol which is used in the flags of all Nordic countries. I don't even recognize the flag as an experienced Vic 2 (and various other Paradox games) player since no other game uses it afaik. Your example is an excellent example of why flag occupation is terrible at providing information at a glance.
I guess it's a good thing it's never the Netherlands or the Dutch East Indies doing the occupation. According to the wiki they have the same flag...
