When playing two or more multiple games against the same opponent simultaneously, it would be easier to be playing the same colour in each of those games.
Hi kayjax99, welcome to Hexfray! It’s not possible at the moment. Since blue starts first (and map authors design maps with that in mind) the ability to pick one side might give some players advantage before even starting a game.
One option to overcome that would be to have perfectly balanced maps, that doesn’t sound very realistic but would be nice. The other would be to show you as always the same colour to you while maintaining original colours for other viewers, this however works poorly when spectating games (I am hoping to make that a bigger aspect of the game) and might complicate other features too (say, a statistic “how many times I played red on this map”).
I don’t want to rule it out, it would be a nice feature but it’s not something I am looking to implement in a foreseeable future.
This was repeatedly proposed and discussed. The problem is, you can’t really balance a map if the starting colour is random. You can’t balance the map properly at all, but the “blue starts first” idea at least brings some certainity and map makers can adjust maps accordingly. We have discussed other methods of balancing the gameplay (different starting credits, different starting movement points etc.), but these would be extremely difficult to balance out.
I think you can do both. The problem is that there are 2 separate issues that are being jammed together. One thing is the first turn(FT) army and the second is the display colour of an army.
If these were not treated as one and the same, a solution can be designed.
For map creators, blue is the player with FT. Map design can be balanced for FT advantage.
Also viewers of games and maps also see FT army as blue.
But while playing a game the player is always blue.
Very easy to implement, all on the client. If an active game or the viewer is one of the combatants, their units are blue, to all others FT army is blue.
From a coding point of view, I think it is easier to think of armies as FT or non-FT. (not blue or red)
Then for display, thinking from point of view of the observer, do they see FT or are they a participant .
For Ondrej’s issue with game history, it would not be how many times I played a colour, but how many times was I FT or non-FT.
If you wanted to help fend off confusion you could have a second colour set for map creation and viewers (non-participants) say green for FT and yellow for non-FT.
Then when you see blue, they are always your units, red always the enemy.
Just had a thought. When one goes into a game there is an initial sense of disorientation due to not knowing which side/colour you are. Often I find myself clicking the wrong colour for some reason. Then I look at the players names to see who I am. I have been trying to train myself to look at that as soon as I enter a game, but old dog, new trick…
So what if, in the lobby there was an infantry man beside each game, in the colour of your army? Then when you click the game , you enter it knowing what colour you are.
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