I pulled the trigger and killed off the serif tileset. I'm sorry. I worked hard to polish the sans-serif 9x9 and it's shaped up into something quite legible (for its size) and simple. I also went back to Tocky and my earlier tilesets to try to bring back some of the more artistic flourishes that were unnecessarily killed off. I just can't get a serif version to a comparable level of polish. There's too many tradeoffs. I went back to the 10x10 serif and I don't like that one anymore either. I changed to 9x9 for readability to begin with and this feels like a natural consequence: serifs just don't make much sense IMO on a pixel font of this tiny size. If this proves controversial, I can resurrect it. On the plus side, the current sans-serif 9x9 is much, much easier to read (in my opinion) than the old 10x10 serif ever was.
Sans-serif is the legible, simple tileset. Arabic-inspired is for tiny, artistic detail. Cyrillic-inspired feels like a compromise between the two (and is a nice nod to Vherid's work). Serif just doesn't have much reason to exist in comparison.
With this I'll just be supporting 3 artistic fonts and 1 traditional font, with double-sized versions of each.
I liked that the 'taffer' color palette's black isn't entirely black and also, with my new IPS monitor, pitch black dark can get on my nerves due to IPS glow (which I've tweaked down as much as I could, but still). Lighter blacks minimize reading discomfort for me along with keeping me from feeling depressed during gameplay.
I restored the black colors to where they were.
I've gotten so used to 'Heretical'/'Artistic' 'Damascus' tileset nowadays that I can't quite tell which is better or worse, I feel confused is all. All I can say is that the tiny blocky tundra/snowy bits feel odd. I can imagine a snowing map and all I can see is not snow but ice cubes that are supposed to be snow.. it's, in a word; confusing.
I changed those tiles back, at least for now. I might compromise and add the new glacier tiles to the artistic sets and keep the traditional look for the traditional tileset, but that doesn't help in your case. I haven't really decided yet. Thanks for the feedback!