I have noticed that the winter effects we pray for are permanently added to all successive winters and not just the one winter after the praying phase. This is something that I've experienced in the closed beta, but had initially thought it was a bug. Is it intended for effects to be permanently added to winter, once voted for?



There are pros and cons to it. It would make voting incredibly important and strategic, and will give an edge to the Allayi permanently altering winter (ad eventually becoming immune to it). At the same time, it makes winter slightly less dynamic and different from one to the other. It also makes it quite punishing to those who neglect the pearl race, which can be seen as both good or bad, depending on your point of view.



Personally, I am leaning towards it being a good thing, but I need to know if it's intended so we can adjust to that.

I assumed that was intended. Pre-Shifters, winter effects were cumulative. Each winter season would add one (or more?) new penalties, and each new penalty would apply to every winter for the rest of the game. I figured the new system changed how the penalties were chosen, but the other aspects remained.

I've noticed that the first 3 winters so far in my game have been 8 turns long...I thought that the number of turns was variable and grew longer over time.

Not sure but I think I had had pre-Shifters games where I had a longer / harsher winter followed by a shorter / milder one ... or was it just my impression ?

icarus86 wrote:
Not sure but I think I had had pre-Shifters games where I had a longer / harsher winter followed by a shorter / milder one ... or was it just my impression ?

Honestly, I'm getting the feeling that winters have become shorter and more uniform in terms of duration as well.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
Honestly, I'm getting the feeling that winters have become shorter and more uniform in terms of duration as well.

OK, I played some more since the patch.

It seems the early winters are definitely shorter overall than what they're used to be, and the transition to longer winters is smoother.

Again, it might be my subjective impression ...

icarus86 wrote:
OK, I played some more since the patch.

It seems the early winters are definitely shorter overall than what they're used to be, and the transition to longer winters is smoother.

Again, it might be my subjective impression ...

I think you are right. My current winter is now 11 turns. Up from 8 in my last 3. So my evilness will now last longer.



Question: Do longer winters mean more pearls?

Slashman wrote:
Question: Do longer winters mean more pearls?

Winter length has no effect over the quantity of Pearls spawned at the beginning of Winter (and that is the only moment when they spawn), if I recall correctly.



Maybe Winters have become more uniform due to multiple Winter intensity settings available to us? Personally I have not noticed any changes to winter length consistency, but I wasn't paying much attention before. Maybe that's the deal in general, that we started paying attention to Winter now and we desperately search for some patterns but nothing really changed



Regarding the continuously recurring Winter effects for voting: I would be glad if the possible effects would disappear from the list once they were there for two seasons (first time when they appear and second time when they lost the Prayers casting) - this would give us more variety over possible effects



Obviously, the stacking nature of Winter effects having already occurred in the previous Winters is intended, just for clarification.