I have to agree that the winter seems to be more an annoyance than a serious concern to prepare for in the game. Stealth_Hawk has some great ideas there, though I think we would need to be certain that winter doesn't kill you off, otherwise there really isn't much point to a strategy game if the end is from a freak weather event. I have enough issues with global warming in the real world without dealing with a winter that covers the entire globe all at once. (There's no hemispheres on Auriga)

When I read the game's design documents, I thought that winter was going to be much more harsh, so when I was playing the game for the first time I was surprised to find winter relatively easy to deal with. Count me among those who agree that winter should be more difficult. To that end, I agree with Stealth_Hawk's suggestions, though I think that Dust Dredgers and things that deal with rivers shouldn't stop working entirely, but probably have significantly reduced (maybe 50%-75%?) efficiency for the duration of winter. People could reasonably break up the ice or find ways around it (like ice fishing), but things wouldn't be as smooth as it would be in the summer.



Also, I think winter has to be reasonably simple to understand, otherwise the player is going to have a difficult time trying to figure out what it does. It'll probably be a bit overwhelming if the game suddenly throws this thing onto the players and it's a big whack of modifiers contained in a tool-tip or something.

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.

I agree with having units take some damage during winter, unless they are parked in a city.



I do not think construction of things like districts should be completely prevented during winter, though I could see a serious construction penalty slowing down the process. Keep in mind there will come a point in long games where it is endless winter with no more good seasons coming.

Winter monster attacks also seem natural because wolves at the door in winter is a racial memory kind of thing.

My first two hours of play. I'm a Civ V nut and I'd LOVE to see this game be better than (the recently fixed) Civ V. It certainly show that promise. Awesome, awesome start.



My very first constructive comment was to be about winter. It's neat, but it seems so anticlimactic. It's so short, for one thing. Shouldn't it be kind of grueling? Shouldn't we have to shovel and scrape our way through it a bit? Shouldn't some of our troops freeze if we don't have enough resources? I like all the other ideas about winter very much, and I would only add that, this being a magical fantasy setting, maybe winter should be kind of mystical in some regard - spirits roaming the land, or something like that? Anything to give it more life. Maybe there are some decisions that have to be made specifically during winter? I'd much rather call it something besides winter, really - Icefall, or the Darkening, or something . . . It's a very dramatic touch to the game, very unique (first thing my wife said was, "Wow! Civ does NOT have THAT!"), but it leaves me feeling flat.



Offered in the spirit of brainstorming only. I'm absolutely THRILLED with the game thus far.

I agree with a lot of the other sentiments so far, that winter just seems like an annoyance at the moment. (Like the 50% fleet reduction event in ES) Most of the Era 1 techs give you the buildings required to 'survive' winter quite painlessly. The attrition thing would definitely be an nice touch to an army, but I'd say you'd have to add some sort of means to counter some if not all of the effect at some point. Nothing would turn me off more than to be making a trek to an enemy city and have winter hit while I was still 2-3 turns away and being forced to either conquer something nearby quickly to 'hide' in for winter, or get to their city with my army already at 75-80% of full health.



Not to mention, that sort of attrition would have zero effect on the Broken Lords, as they could simply pay to heal up to full before the fight starts. Where every other faction has to heal up over time.

I like the ideas about wandering monsters that only appear in Winter. It's a way to make it more dangerous without drastically affecting game balance with things like unit attrition (which is also a good idea, but maybe tough to implement). There could be giant ice worms, yetis, packs of dire wolves, all sorts of Winter-themed beasts. Maybe a good candidate for G2G votes.



If Winter is a "rejection of terraforming" rather than a true axial-tilt season for the planet, then it also provides an explanation for where these monsters come from. They're the remnants of the original fauna, the ones that were able to hibernate during warm periods, then wake up and feed in the Winter. Maybe there could be a tech you could research that would give a chance of revealing their burrows during the summer, so you could destroy them and limit their numbers next Winter.



Wandering Winter monsters could also tie into the ideas about reduced resource exploitation, where they would affect the area they're in, unless you clear them out. It would be more of a randomized local effect, rather than a worldwide impact on the economy and production.



It's more work for the devs to design and animate new 3D models, so it would probably have to wait for a later expansion, but I think it's a great idea to increase the impact of Winter without messing around too much with other factors in the game.

Unit attrition, strategic resources cannot be harvested,trade is cut.Some sea areas freeze and are unpassable.A NPC race appears from the sea and starts invading.

Atepa wrote:
The attrition thing would definitely be an nice touch to an army, but I'd say you'd have to add some sort of means to counter some if not all of the effect at some point. Nothing would turn me off more than to be making a trek to an enemy city and have winter hit while I was still 2-3 turns away and being forced to either conquer something nearby quickly to 'hide' in for winter, or get to their city with my army already at 75-80% of full health.



Not to mention, that sort of attrition would have zero effect on the Broken Lords, as they could simply pay to heal up to full before the fight starts. Where every other faction has to heal up over time.

Though this is essentially what happened to both Napoleon and Hitler at the gates of Moscow. That is on a planet where we have a pretty good idea when winter is going to hit. In EL it should be worse. It should force you to abandon some campaigns. I agree that there should also be some ways of mitigating the effects.