Thanks. I appreciate your honest feedback.
You are right, there is no UX improvement. But that was not the goal. The new design adds more colors and a bit of contrast and makes the game more visually appealing. At least that is the goal.
But you mentioned UX improvements. Is there anything specific in the current game that you think should be improved from the UX perspective?
There's really nothing to improve for UX -- it's a simple UI and does its whole job perfectly. My preference for the first design is strictly a matter of taste. The original monochrome line drawings are, well, presumably AI, but decent and quite a different presentation from every other game out there. Your first draft is a fresh way of presenting its problem. I think having more colors doesn't improve anything because the colors don't add information. I don't know whether you play Paradox games but they have lots of under-the-hood complexity that *could* be presented in plain, flat maps, but they junk it up with animated marching soldiers and rippling oceans that make my cpu run MUCH too hot *for no reason*.
I'm someone who likes minimalist presentations. Your first pass had the decorative frames and stuff... but stopped there! So nice! Not raytraced toons pretending to battle! But I'm also pretty extreme in my minimal direction and there's no reason you need to listen to me. Make it the way that looks best to you. That will be the best way.
