Empires now fly their own colours on the map

The Old Light galaxy map looks different today. Every empire shows up in its own colour now, that colour fills its territory, and you see the same thing in the game and on the public map.

Every empire has its own colour#

The old map sorted empires by relationship. Your empire was warm, every other empire was purple, and the AI empires were grey. That told you who you were, but it couldn't tell two rivals apart. A player on one side of the galaxy looked identical to a player on the other.

Now the colour comes from your banner. Whatever crest you set in the banner editor is what paints your territory. A crimson banner gives you crimson borders, a cyan banner gives you cyan. Every empire on the map is its own colour.

The colour is taken from your banner's inks in order, primary first, then secondary, then the emblem, using the first one that's bright and saturated enough to read against the black background. Two cases worth knowing:

• If your whole banner is dark or grey, there's nothing readable to pull, so your empire falls back to amber and rivals fall back to violet. Nobody ends up invisible.
• AI empires are always grey. Their banner is ignored, so they never grab a bright player colour.

The colour fills the territory#

The border line isn't the only coloured part now. The whole area inside it carries a soft tint, so you can see how far an empire reaches without tracing its edge. Big empires are big blocks of colour. A crowded corner of the galaxy looks like a patchwork.

Two empires that sit right next to each other don't share an edge any more either. Each border is pulled in a little, leaving a thin gap between them. Even when neighbours are packed tight, you can see where one ends and the next starts.

The same colours everywhere#

It's not just in the game, either. The public galaxy map, the one anyone can open without an account, now uses the same banner colours you see in the game. An empire is the same colour whether you're running it or scouting it from outside.

How borders work#

New to Old Light? Every system you own colours the hexes within two of it, and those hexes are your territory even with nothing built on them. That's how one star turns into a visible patch of empire, and how neighbours end up sharing a border. The borders guide covers the rest, including who holds a hex when two empires meet.

If you want a different colour, open the banner editor and pick a brighter ink. Your territory updates to match.