Couldn’t white pieces be made more visible by changing the color of the map?
Yes, a colored background can be used to bring out white, but if it is strongly colored enough for that to happen, the map becomes visually too loud – other map elements have to be strongly colored as well or they won’t show, and the map becomes just too visually strong: everything shouts “LOOK AT ME!” People look at game boards for hours at a time; you really want it to be restful looking. Strong colors should only be used in spots and only for important things. The most important things are the pieces, so they get the strong, high-contrast colors. One more thing to consider is that white shows minor manufacturing imperfections and dirt too easily. After a few games, the French might have a pretty good idea what the Austrians were doing.
