Portugal: Here we go again

[wilcoxchar]

Again, the entire point is that the blue is NOT similar to the French blue

Then the entire point is wrong. It is too similar. You might be able to distinguish them easily, but others can't and the game should be made accessible to them too, not just to you.

You start your argument by claiming that Portugal ought to be made Green, since it would get confusing if it bordered France. You are shown that Portuguese and French blue is distinct enough, and then you change your argument that Portugal should be green because it DOESN'T border France? I'm sorry, what

You're the only one making stuff up here. I only said Portugal should not be blue, I never said Portugal should be green. And then you go and make the ridiculous nationalist statement to "give Portugal its color" as if countries can own colors.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Actually the more that I think about it, the more purple fits as the best color for Portugal. And looking at some maps of the colonization of Africa, a lot of them agree with me and depict Portugal as purple in order to clearly identify them. The other color I'm seeing commonly used for Portugal in these maps is orange, which would work for a historical map but for the context of Victoria would be too similar to the Dutch which probably will become a colonial player more often than not, and would likely make Portugal proper too similar to Spain's yellow. So purple is really the best option.

 

[PedroLuiz]

Actually the more that I think about it, the more purple fits as the best color for Portugal. And looking at some maps of the colonization of Africa, a lot of them agree with me and depict Portugal as purple in order to clearly identify them. The other color I'm seeing commonly used for Portugal in these maps is orange, which would work for a historical map but for the context of Victoria would be too similar to the Dutch which probably will become a colonial player more often than not, and would likely make Portugal proper too similar to Spain's yellow. So purple is really the best option.

Purple is reserved for Byzantium/Rome for historic reasons, and Orange is only for the Dutch

 

[Delterius]

Pretty sure Twin Sicillies and Bulgaria were purple while Persia was orange. Personally I wish Portugal could be white without breaking ten thousand map making conventions.

 

[PedroLuiz]

Pretty sure Twin Sicillies and Bulgaria were purple while Persia was orange. Personally I wish Portugal could be white without breaking ten thousand map making conventions.

oh yeah I forgot about Naples and persia

 

[wilcoxchar]

Purple is reserved for Byzantium/Rome for historic reasons, and Orange is only for the Dutch

Then that's good news for purple Portugal because Byzantium doesn't and shouldn't exist in Victoria.

Pretty sure Twin Sicillies and Bulgaria were purple while Persia was orange. Personally I wish Portugal could be white without breaking ten thousand map making conventions.

Two Sicilies was only purple in a mod, in the regular game (and on the Victoria 3 map it looks like) it's a shade of green. Bulgaria I think was purple but they're on the other side of Europe and unlikely to get in the colonization game so it should only occasionally be an issue.

 

[PedroLuiz]

Then that's good news for purple Portugal because Byzantium doesn't and shouldn't exist in Victoria.

A Greek state that doesn't LARP as Byzantium isn't a Greek state I would like to play, same with Italy and Rome

 

[Belph]

I really hope they leave Rome and Byzantium out of Vic3, their presence in HoI4 is already awful.

 

[Delterius]

I really hope they leave Rome and Byzantium out of Vic3, their presence in HoI4 is already awful.

'What do you mean my xdmeme mod with queen victoria wearing a toga and ruling over byzantium romanorum is an awful addition to an 1800s game?'

 

[Xary Moft]

Actually the more that I think about it, the more purple fits as the best color for Portugal

 

[Borgratz]

I was expecting a precautionary "portgual is definetely underpowered and needs buffs!" thread.

 

[Xary Moft]

Here is my take on this.
I love purple and it's a good color, but the idea of "purple Portugal" because you will be able to differentiate between other countries more quickly is a bad one. That's simply going too far. You can't prevent it, if I as Spain get a treaty port from Qing, I now have very "similar" yellow provinces at the map, I need to pay a bit more attention to differentiate/notice the diference between the 2. Does this mean we should change Spain color to pink to make it easier? No. Does this mean we should just say "fuck it" and choose any color and suffer with too many countries with the same color scheme? Also no.

What we should do is a balance approach, where we take the historical colors that represented/associate said country and display on the map that color (its called political map mode for a reason), if it's too similar or the same to a neighbor country, you can "change" it, like the tone of the color... (that's what happens)

So purple for Portugal is a bad idea. While a great fix to make it easy to tell "HEY LOOK, IT'S PORTUGAL OVERTHERE", It has no historical bases where you see Portugal identity being associated with Purple. It's too radical of a approach.
It's a really random color too. It's like going to Bavaria and changing it to purple because its "your blue is too close to France". Or going to green Italy and change it to pink Italy, since green ottos are too close, despite them being 2 really different tones of green, this literally sounds: "they are too similar and I have to spent 1 more second to noticed a diference".
C'mon, that's just being picky and silly.
If your excuse/reason/worry is because blue Portugal is "too close to France", I can present you around 5 different countries of how green Portugal is "too close to them" and other countries in a similar case. It's simply a really weak argument, since it's more than obvious Portugal would be using a really different shade of blue of France so you could tell the diference.

Once again, I will remind everyone here, blue Portugal is only for monarchist Portugal, not something permanent, since if the monarchy falls, Portugal would turn green.

 

[Xary Moft]

Now, I do love hoi4 vanilla blue Portugal, but it isn't necessary to be that blue, here is a example of another type of blue Portugal:

This Portugal is from Kaiserreich Mod (HOI4), in this mod the bad excuse of "Blue Portugal is too close to France" in theory would be a bigger problem, since there are 2 Frances in that mod. BUT BEHOLD, not only you can tell the diference between the 2 Frances pretty well (the blue in africa and the blue in the mainland) but you can even tell the diference of Portugal and these 2 blues. (Who would have guessed that you can have multiple tones of blue??)
Of course, I don't know how that blue would look like in Victoria paper map style...wait a minute....

Well, Ecuador is just proving my point.
It's up to Paradox at this point, It's going to be really a big disappointment if in the final version Portugal still ends up with a green color.

 

[Belph]

Speaking of “Portugal would be too close to France” can we talk about Brazil, Portugal, and Sokoto basically being the same color? Feels like PDX doesn’t consider color similarity a valid reason to change colors.

 

[eva3071]

A game that doesn't allow you to restore the Byzantine Empire/Roman Empire is a game I will never play.

 

[Leducky]

I have a question; whose answer to I might have read at some point and this is why it is in the back of my mind, but is not the reason that many geographical maps eschew blue is that blue is reserved for bodies of water? I suspect that might have been problematic a few centuries ago as getting many shades of blue for your ink might have been expensive and that the tradition carried on to today.

Kind of similarly, the reason Great Britain is red could partially be explained by its own hegemony; hence it would produce maps that coloured other countries arbitrarily so as to preserve the clarity of what her colonial holdings were (hence Ottoman could not be red) but also where her sovereignty extended. All this to say that I feel the colours assigned in any maps to any country are pretty arbitrary and based on webs of competing agencies.

I think accessibility and functionality should prevail at the end of the day. In the HOI4 screenshot it is difficult to tell what blue is attached to which political entity (as well as to tell Portugal apart from the water) at a glance. I had to read the text to determine political ownership, which defeats the purpose of colours... I can see a world where individuals with variable levels of colour blindness might struggle. This does mean that some countries might have what is felt to some as being 'the wrong' colour, but since the colour choice itself cannot be truly neutral, maybe there cannot be a solution that pleases all?

For fun I would love a map that challenges our pre-conceived notions of what the 'proper' colour of a given country should be!

 

[Xary Moft]

For fun I would love a map that challenges our pre-conceived notions of what the 'proper' colour of a given country should be!

Here, enjoy this cursed map.

 

[Nostalgium]

I have a question; whose answer to I might have read at some point and this is why it is in the back of my mind, but is not the reason that many geographical maps eschew blue is that blue is reserved for bodies of water? I suspect that might have been problematic a few centuries ago as getting many shades of blue for your ink might have been expensive and that the tradition carried on to today.

Kind of similarly, the reason Great Britain is red could partially be explained by its own hegemony; hence it would produce maps that coloured other countries arbitrarily so as to preserve the clarity of what her colonial holdings were (hence Ottoman could not be red) but also where her sovereignty extended. All this to say that I feel the colours assigned in any maps to any country are pretty arbitrary and based on webs of competing agencies.

I think accessibility and functionality should prevail at the end of the day. In the HOI4 screenshot it is difficult to tell what blue is attached to which political entity (as well as to tell Portugal apart from the water) at a glance. I had to read the text to determine political ownership, which defeats the purpose of colours... I can see a world where individuals with variable levels of colour blindness might struggle. This does mean that some countries might have what is felt to some as being 'the wrong' colour, but since the colour choice itself cannot be truly neutral, maybe there cannot be a solution that pleases all?

For fun I would love a map that challenges our pre-conceived notions of what the 'proper' colour of a given country should be!

Historically, blue and red have been among the cheapest colours to obtain. This is why they're so prevalent in uniforms, in heraldry, and in structures. Need to uniform a whole army? Red or blue. Many geographical maps left the ocean blank, unless they were decorative murals or of fine quality, in which case cost would be less of an issue, since... well, they were decorative or of fine quality.

You're pretty much right in that colour was mostly arbitrary, though, and largely chosen based on what colour was patriotic (see again uniforms, heraldry) and easily recognizeable in ways that served the cartographers' intent. Most maps seem to choose their colourings mostly based on immediate neighbourhoods - one of the first hits I found on googling for a historcal map from the 1800s had Portugal in yellow, Spain in pink, France in green, German federation in yellow again, prussia in green, and Russia in yellow once more.

PS:

Here, enjoy this cursed map.

Oh, god. I'm not enjoying that. I'm not enjoying that at all.

 

[Woifee]

I have never understood why people care so much about what colour a country is on a map. I mean, the USSR turning red makes sense but it wouldn't really functionally change anything if it didn't.

(But fortuitously, I am not the Arbiter of Permissible Things to Care About, so carry on.)

It's a huge part of immersion.

 

[wilcoxchar]

we humans associate certain colors with certain countries

Except, here's the thing. We really don't do this. Countries come in tons and tons of different colors across maps. There is no standardized color for any country. The only real standard is making countries different enough colors so that you can tell bordering or nearby countries apart from each other.