Spring RTS Engine

Those are logical but they aren't really "in-universe" like Zsinj said and don't feel World War Two. IMO something based on real military symbolism is better than a simple tank with a "NO" marking over it.

Found a "jackpot" of British WW2 map symbols. As you should note, these are not like NATO in that they're made for small-scale maps and are specific down to individual infantry weapons and vehicles.

http://www.mapsymbs.com/bms3a.jpg
http://www.mapsymbs.com/bms3b.jpg
http://www.mapsymbs.com/bms3c.jpg

These, added with the German symbols Yuritch found, should mean all we need is Soviet and American small-scale symbols...

The first and second images hold all you need, unless you really want fences to be pencilled in on the minimap...

How much will you simplify the British symbols? I think you can do away with some of them... such as horse drawn, but you may still have two score, and about thirty per side is a logical cap for the additional symbols we would have memorized.

Well, the main point I was trying to make was that you can have lots of different images to tell the difference, as long as they follow clear strands.

For example, in what I suggested, there were lots of different symbols, but there was a clear logic that could be followed in the 'evolution' of the shapes. So "Oh yeah, that is an infantry shape, and it's a little different, so it must be a heavy infantryman, like an MG or mortar point".
Equally, "Oh, that looks sort of like a similar progression that the infantry used, but it's being done with the vehicle symbols, so that must be a heavy tank, and that must be a light vehicle". Or, "I see; that unit is a vehicle symbol, but it has the same yellow-and-black lines of the infantry engineers. It must be a repair vehicle." etc.

I think it is important that if you plan to have lots of different symbols, they must follow a very logical progression.
Players really shouldn't have to sift through military training manuals to work out the symbols for everything.

In SWS, we are also considering putting the symbols in the background of the buildpics; perhaps you could consider doing the same.

I also wouldn't recommend having different icons for all the different units. Probably work yourself up a chart like I did, with all the roles you want to appear; and see how many roles you can merge or cut down.

I would potentially even consider making all riflemen and SMG's, etc "General Infantry", and all mortars, MG's and so forth "Heavy Infantry" or "Support Infantry", etc.

Do remember that the icons tend to run together when you have a lot of them, so in a mass of infantry you're unlikely to be able to pick out most of them, as well as the fact that while you're only dealing with infantry at the moment, you don't want to become to preoccupied in thinking that you are making an infantry-only game - you're still waiting on tanks and aircraft, and all manner of other things which will need icons too.

One thing to consider is that icon display isn't really at its best yet.

I just played a game of Balanced Annihilation, and the comm icon (a little dude) was VERY non-functional. It looked great zoomed out on the map. However, on the minimap, it was a fuzzy blob that made it difficult to tell whether and how many other units were near.

I think mono-color, compact icons would be the best.

I cannot find any mention of Soviet (RKKA) WW2 era symbols. There are modern Russian (Soviet) symbols though, I can dig up those if they will do. They probably haven't changed much (except for new symbols for things not present back then).
I have found some more German symbols: link to more German symbols. This time the comments are in English and German, no translation needed.
Edit: I have found (some of) symbols used by the RKKA (Soviet Army) from the 1938 Field Manual (I think that's what it's called in English). Link is here. I'm not sure that it haven't changed during the war, but it's the best I currently have.
That page details infantry symbols and a few different kinds of machine guns, no mention of tanks or other vehicles (except for horse drawn carts of which there are 2 types). I cannot translate it the way I did for Germans because all of the info (including text) is one big scanned image, so I cannot separate individual symbols. I can only give the translations for the text strings in the form Russian string - English string.

Well we're definately going to need some sort of Russian-speaking person! Otherwise, great finds!

Well we're definately going to need some sort of Russian-speaking person! Otherwise, great finds!

I wouldn't get too caught up with the idea of using real military symbols; they are unlikely to be customised for use by the average player, needing instant recognition amidst a bunch of other symbols, as well as a heap of other requirements that Spring icons need, but real military symbolism never quite had to deal with. Make sure it plays well first, and is realistic second. If they work together, great, but the former should always take precedent over the latter.

Oh come on, you must know by now that that's not the way we do things around here. You seriously have to stop campaigning for us to join the dark side of balance.

SpikedHelmet wrote:Well we're definately going to need some sort of Russian-speaking person! Otherwise, great finds!

You're in luck, then. Russian is my native language :). Translation of those strings will be probably done today (if nothing gets in the way).
Edit: translation done.


There was 1 cavalry-related word I could not find an English equivalent for, but cavalry is irrelevant for the mod anyway.

Let's just say I've learnt the moral message of your avatar

Rofl Zsinj

Thanks Yuritch! Also, "cavalry" was a term that was used also for armoured vehicles, particularly light and fast tanks ("cavalry tanks"), so thats what they probably mean. Unfortunately I don't see any mention of things like tanks or artillery in those lists, so there must be more...

Thanks for the translation!

In this context cavalry meant just this, the cavalry. The word in question means something like "the person who takes care of the horses".
Cavalry was VERY polular amongst pre-war Soviet high command, after all, most of them used to command cavalry divisions during the Russian Civil War.
I still can't find any mention of tank or artillery symbols from that era. I'm nearly 90% sure the tank symbol was the same as it is in today's Russian army and that is a rhomb (diamond), I have surely seen them on WW2 era maps.
There are some late Soviet (modern Russian) symbols:

Ahh that's brilliant.

As for the diamond -- US/NATO used diamond as symbol for tank as well. This proves absolutely nothing. Soviet Union could have adopted diamond from NATO sometime after the war... in any case, if we can't find any better, we'll just have to use post-war Soviet symbolisms.

I thought you had decided to go with a more standardised icon set?

Only because I hadn't been able to find symbols for the US, USSR and Germany. Now I have.

Btw Nemo, when you read this, how far have you gotten with that scripting stuff you were doing? I'd like to start doing that rather than working on more Brit infantry (as they'll just have to be changed anyway. More work).

yuritch wrote:

SpikedHelmet wrote:Well we're definately going to need some sort of Russian-speaking person! Otherwise, great finds!

You're in luck, then. Russian is my native language :). Translation of those strings will be probably done today (if nothing gets in the way).
Edit: translation done.

Spasiba moya tovarisch....
Ya gavaryu po rusky ne khoroshi.... just start learning

Russian military book and website are cool (But their kit model are crap unfortunately, even layest Zvezda model are became better)

You just made me cream my man-panties, maestro.