I think there should be more options regarding what Winter's role in the game is. Some players may like the challenge of preparing for it while facing other threats, while others see it as an annoyance. I don't know if it could be outright removed as an option because I think it's been said some faction will have some sort of relationship with winter, but it's severity should be customizable.

I agree that there should be attrition on units during winter - say 10% a turn unless garrisoned in a city. But I also think that there should be a warning that winter is approaching, whether you call that warning 'autumn' or not. That way an attacking army has to make the decision on whether it can conquer a city before winter arrives and garrison there or turn back home and try again after winter.



Winter should be a time not just of surviving but of reorganization. Once units are healed up, they can be swapped between various cities and prepared for action when winter ends. I think that winter should be short, but movement penalties should not be enforced - so in reality a turn in winter actually represents a longer period of time than a turn in summer. Perhaps races that are better adapted to winter could have their movement points increase to reflect the increased time period.

+1 for harsh winters



When I played first time, I though there will be some food storage mechanism and you would gather food during summer and eat your supplies in winter - and summers will get shorter and winters longer.



+1 for idea with damage for units during winter - or maybe cumulative debuff - -10% attack/deffence for every turn outside the city (up to 50%)

+1 for harsher economic penalties - I don't like an idea to make winter siege like - but maybe there should be bigger food penalty?

+1 for idea with winter specific items (furs etc.) with worse combat stats but good protection.

+1 for racial specific ways to deal with winter. Maybe also make some minor factions have some unique ways, which would be shared when assimilated?

+1 for winter animals/beasts and maybe make all neutrals more aggresive during winter?



Maybe add some random inpassable tiles during winter - currently maps are very interesting, creating maze like terrain - it could be possibe to cut of some lands during winter. There should be technology to bypass such obstacles, becouse of never ending winter.

Here is the problem with the idea of not being able to do anything productive in winter. Towards the end of the game (100-200 turns) winters become longer and more frequent with summers becoming mere blips, and as someone else mentioned, at some point past turn 250 the winter becomes permanent. If players were unable to do anything in the winter then effectively at whatever point the permanent winter came into place the game would end in a stalemate. While it is possible to win the game via conquest at a point earlier than this, it leaves most of the tech tree unexplored. (something that actually seems rather inbalanced at the moment, if they intend the average end of game to be the 200th turn, players should be able to get to at least the beginning of the 4th age relatively easily by that point, and considering they are adding 2 more ages, that would actually be age 6 that should be achievable in the 200 turns) Further it would make it really boring for 5-15 turns while you just click "next turn" hoping your cities don't starve by the end of it. Furthermore, production, food growth, profiteering, etc are not impossible activities in the winter, they are merely difficult. Corporations choose not to undergo any outdoor winter projects largely due to the increased costs, rather than because it is impossible. If you were in a civilization facing harsher, longer winters all the time you would have no choice, but to find ways to remain productive in the winter or else die, perhaps technologies and structures should reflect that in-game, perhaps a -1 to production on tiles or something like that (they already have a -1 to food and gold), armies already have limited movement, about the only thing that could be added would be a range limit for the armies wandering outside the region, as it would be harder for supply caravans to get to them, but armies in real life have to endure harsh winter conditions all the time, just look at Russia, sure the armies have to be prepared, sure it would be great if some techs, hero abilities, or buildings reflecting this, but altogether preventing army activity would also be a bad idea. Quite simply I think you guys just all like clicking the next button, because that is what all of your suggestions would amount to for the duration of winter.

@BobertTheThird



You make some good points, though you have come across as ranting toward the end there



Certainly the game should not be lost in a never ending winter where the only thing you do is click "Next turn". If that happens the game is a failure and I'm sure the dev team wont let that happen.



Just so we all understand here... this is an Alpha release. There is no variation on the difficulty level, no altering of game mechanics such as winter/summer, along with other options. Once these are active the feel of the game will alter and so will the way an individual will want to play it.



Hence my suggestion for the game set up to cater for the variable "harshness" of a winter with individuals to alter as suits their taste. That's certainly not a click next turn scenario till the end of game.



As for what the dev team are thinking before release here is a thread by Lt_Miles: /#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3570-g2g-endless-legend-s-list-of-community-feedback

I agree with others that the siege mechanic should be activated during winter.

I also like the idea of quests that depend on the season.



I would also like to see season options in the game setup:

- Random or set length winter

- Random or set winter harshness



Lastly, I would also like to see spring and fall seasons with varying effects on resource generation (i.e. luxury resource and food harvests that peak during certain seasons).

Well, for one thing, improvements shouldn't be able to be built during winter, especially city extensions. Seriously, there's a reason why regions with bad winters don't do any winter time constructing. Because its next to impossible and highly inefficient. As of the last time I tried building an extension/founding a city it worked during winter just as well.



So a ban on building extensions during winter and a serious penalty for building improvements would be nice.



some other thoughts about winter:



-Units should gradually take damage during winter. There is no living off the land, so how are they supposed to survive? The consequences would be devastating if armies weren't within X tiles of a city, watchtower, or mine. Like the Napoleon in the 19th century and the Germans in WWII found out, invading during a harsh winter is a bad idea.



-Settling cities would also be next to impossible.



-How about not being able to build minor faction units during winter? (except in the city they are adjacent to) Considering the harsh winter, the last thing a village would want to do is send their men a long way in bad conditions just for you to train and equip them.



-Frozen rivers: Dust dredgers really shouldn't work during winters, nor anything else relying on running water.



-High ground advantage during winter is pretty extreme if you look at some winter battles in days long past. Standing on a hill hitting an enemy below whose feet are on slippery footing usually ends pretty badly for the unit on low ground.

Why don't we simply apply the siege mechanic to winters, as well? No harvesting outside city limits, no mining, no dust-gathering, nothing. That would make placement of districts on high food-tiles doubly as necessary. As well as putting all pop to gather food in a vain hope of cultivating enough, indoors, to survive?

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
Well, for one thing, improvements shouldn't be able to be built during winter, especially city extensions. Seriously, there's a reason why regions with bad winters don't do any winter time constructing. Because its next to impossible and highly inefficient. As of the last time I tried building an extension/founding a city it worked during winter just as well.



So a ban on building extensions during winter and a serious penalty for building improvements would be nice.



some other thoughts about winter:



-Units should gradually take damage during winter. There is no living off the land, so how are they supposed to survive? The consequences would be devastating if armies weren't within X tiles of a city, watchtower, or mine. Like the Napoleon in the 19th century and the Germans in WWII found out, invading during a harsh winter is a bad idea.



-Settling cities would also be next to impossible.



-How about not being able to build minor faction units during winter? (except in the city they are adjacent to) Considering the harsh winter, the last thing a village would want to do is send their men a long way in bad conditions just for you to train and equip them.



-Frozen rivers: Dust dredgers really shouldn't work during winters, nor anything else relying on running water.



-High ground advantage during winter is pretty extreme if you look at some winter battles in days long past. Standing on a hill hitting an enemy below whose feet are on slippery footing usually ends pretty badly for the unit on low ground.

(Bolded point) One of the Tier III(?) techs implies that the minor faction also comes to live in your city, so I'm not sure this restriction would match the lore all that well. I rather like all the other options, though.

I like all your ideas, and they are within the scope of the game

Varadhon wrote:
(Bolded point) One of the Tier III(?) techs implies that the minor faction also comes to live in your city, so I'm not sure this restriction would match the lore all that well. I rather like all the other options, though.

That's a good point. I've been through era III four times now but I still haven't researched that one I don't think. Is it referring to the city that's adjacent to the village? If so the exception should cover it.



Some other ideas I forgot to mention:



-When snow gets really heavy, as in above 3-4 meters, it can cause some serious damage to infrastructure. So maybe during late game winters there could be an extra building maintenance cost.



-Unit preparation: Thanks to the brilliant unit design system, what if the players could prepare their units for winter by giving them better armor, or even some supplies via provisionary accessories?



Another thing awesome about EL: The winters open the door for a ton of interesting choices.

Lots of great ideas here. I'd like to see the winters have more teeth - to the point where you're crippled if you're not prepared. Make them brutal, and dial back if they ruin the game. I was expecting them to be a little tougher, rather than annoying.



I like the siege idea as it is representative and uses rules already in the game.

You could add some monsters that come out at winter and unless you can fight them you should remain in your base. You need to make winter scary making the ability to predict the weather even vaguely really helpful. As it is now winter is more of an inconvenience that a time to be afraid or weary.

Also with the monsters lurking in the snow you could add a winter only quest were you have to leave the comfort of civilization that is safe from the monster to go out and make your way to a place for an epic item like a frozen sword or you could even add a negative part like "while we recovered the blade it unleashed a great evil and took the great General vanishing along with the winter" and you can have it continue next winter having your general come back as an enemy controlled by the spirit. You can create many quests with the scenario i gave you such as having to embark on another quest to save him and so on and so forth. You must make winter something frightening but making you want to go out and explore, being a different experience than summer but not something that just gives you some negative stuff but rather changing expirience while keeping the balance.

It would be really nice i think, if there was some sort of skiing unit that could move faster in winter, maybe a unique unit, maybe just a higher tier equipment.

I agree that winter needs a little more teeth. I think that siege mechanic on cities and some sort of damage over time effect on armies not in a city or a watchtower would add a lot of flavor as well as make winter much more dangerous.



It would be nice if one of the higher tech tiers had armor or perhaps an item/accessory that would mitigate the damage from winter.

tansalus wrote:
I agree that winter needs a little more teeth. I think that siege mechanic on cities and some sort of damage over time effect on armies not in a city or a watchtower would add a lot of flavor as well as make winter much more dangerous.



It would be nice if one of the higher tech tiers had armor or perhaps an item/accessory that would mitigate the damage from winter.

like i said before that should not be the way to go since that would just make winter just a major inconvenience rather than game-changing and scary, i think it should have it's own set of events that are more rare but harder to go through needing more preparation before you go out and giving bigger rewards.

Had a game in which after round 250 or so the winter was never ending... and I have to say that was pretty harsh - because all these "-1 or -2 Ressource during winter" sum up, and after 100 rounds of neverending winter I have to say: it definitly doesn't need more "teeth" on the city-level - because it would've killed me in the end (starvation was going on). But I would like to see more winter-effects on combat, like tansalus ideas:

I agree that winter needs a little more teeth. I think that siege mechanic on cities and some sort of damage over time effect on armies not in a city or a watchtower would add a lot of flavor as well as make winter much more dangerous.



It would be nice if one of the higher tech tiers had armor or perhaps an item/accessory that would mitigate the damage from winter

I was searching if this winter was intended to be never ending on purpose, but as I was searching through the forum this seem to have been a bug - but one I would see as a possibile feature.

Maybe tied to a specific era (caused by the industrial revolution) or some kind of counter (after round X, winter is eternal). Also, winter should be in the options, so you could adjust how hard, long, ect. - you would like to have winters in your game.

Some additions :

It could be worse and worse as time passes ?

New kind of monsters could start wandering (like the escaped specimen ?) ?

Some special quests could kill half of all your population unless you succeed at it before the end of winter ?

Some hexes could change their kind ? More arctic hexs as time passes.

this is a much different planet than Earrh, they may not have anything akin to spring and autumn.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Why don't we simply apply the siege mechanic to winters, as well? No harvesting outside city limits, no mining, no dust-gathering, nothing. That would make placement of districts on high food-tiles doubly as necessary. As well as putting all pop to gather food in a vain hope of cultivating enough, indoors, to survive?

I really like this idea. Seems like easy way to make winter more meaningful.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
this is a much different planet than Earrh, they may not have anything akin to spring and autumn.

I'm not sure by whom but it was suggested that those winters aren't really winters but planet rejecting terraforming which I consider extremely neat idea.