I'm not the first person to post a "Winter recommendations" thread on this board (nor, I suspect, the 21st . . . ), but here's my take on winter.



I feel like this post from Saylawl last week sums up why disabling Winter completely is not really a workable option for Endless Legend:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3425-need-options-to-modify-winter-in-this-game



I appreciate the thematic relevance of winter in Endless Legend, and how it drives the narrative of "civilizations struggling for supremacy on a dying world." I also like the way that the threat of endless winter (and the aggressive 300-turn time limit) prevents the game from dragging on too long after a player has run away with the score.



At the same time, I'm aware that some portion of this board likes to play never-ending games on Huge maps and inhabit their empires as long as possible. This isn't the experience I'm expecting from Endless Legend, but they obviously feel differently.



Speaking personally, my first winter was an "Oh crap" moment for me, as my cities started hemorrhaging food and dust. I struggled a bit to keep things moving, and was quite relieved when the summer returned. I spent the next few winters anxious that by the end of the game, I'd be hard-pressed to keep my economy from flat-lining and my people from starving. (Anyone here who's played Fall from Heaven 2: remember how you felt when the Blight hit? Watching your best cities lose half their population from starvation over the course of ~25 turns can be quite an adrenaline rush.)



As it turns out, Endless Legend isn't a survival simulator, and the Dark Season is more annoying/limiting than terminal. I don't think I've ever had a problem feeding my cities during any winter in subsequent games.



But for people like me who would like a "crunchier", more thematic winter, and also as a concession to the people who want to play in a never-ending sandbox, here are some possible features:

• Game option: "Stable seasons" - Disables the late game "30-turn winter" / "2-turn summer" effect. Winters would either always be roughly the same length, or would ramp up in intensity/length until a cap around mid-game and then stabilize. Winter penalties would no longer accumulate after the cap was reached.
  
  
  
  
• Game sub-option under "Stable seasons": "Winter severity" - Slider to adjust the capped severity of winter and the winter-to-summer ratio.
  
  
  
  
• Some kind of game option to increase the severity of the penalties that players experience each winter? Possibly tied to game difficulty? Hopefully these penalties would be strong enough that the players would genuinely need to struggle to keep their cities fed and productive during the Dark Season.
  
  
  
  
• After turn 300 (or whatever the threshold is for a Score victory on your game speed), penalties for successive winters should increase dramatically (possibly accumulating every 10-15 turns, even mid-winter). These post-game winters should include potentially game-wrecking effects like, say, "-90% food on all cities" or "all armies take 20% of their hp in exposure damage every turn". Players who elect to "Continue playing" after turn 300 should be faced with the grim truth that the planet is entering an apocalyptic ice age and few, if any, of their citizens will survive.
  
  
  
  
• When a faction builds "Temple of the Earth's Core", the summer/winter cycle should reset to early- or mid-game, and winter should subsequently behave as per the "Stable Seasons" option above. Obviously this is only relevant to a player who wins and then opts to "Continue playing", but I like the idea of playing long enough to see the planet actually recover due to my actions.
  
  

I completely agree, you could modify quests to take away the winter aspect to them, and with the fact of unbalanced gameplay, that could be said about any other modifiable aspect of the game, like changing terrain to be more science or dust based.

Endless legend is ammmmaaaazzing, but the winter ruins it. The game is not fun when its winter for 20 odd turns and then summer for 2. Pls do something about this

I agree the ongoing, lengthening winters get a little grating.



My suggestion (reposting from here) sort of works like your idea, but with a bit more flexibility.



Basically, two dropdowns are added to world/game generation, for winter settings; Stability and Strength.



Stability determines the seasonal pattern, with the exact lengths being random but modified by game speed (slower speed = longer seasons?). Some example choices;

• Classic: The standard/current gameplay style. Season lengths shift towards longer winters and shorter summers as the game nears the 'end' turn for a Score victory, based on game length.
• Classic Endless: As classic, but applies the Endless Winter starting on the game's "end turn" as opposed to just cycling between long winters with tiny summers.
• Realistic: Season durations are equal and remain so for the duration of the game, varying only mildly. This could significantly devalue the seasonal predictive improvements though.
• Chaotic: Seasons come and go, and durations are unpredictable. During times of rapid alternation, debuffs accumulate more slowly (e.g. you can only get one winter debuff pass per twenty turns, so that a fruity streak of ultra-short winter/summer switches doesn't pile on half a dozen debuffs in rapid succession and ruin everything/one).
• Endless Winter: Hardcore mode. There is only winter, and it gradually gets worse, with a new debuff applying every so often.
• Endless Summer: Easy mode. You never have to face the rigors of Winter, but this could lock out certain special quest rewards too.
• Long/Short: One season is artificially long, and the other is artificially short, e.g. summers are thrice as long as winters. Two options, one for longer summer/shorter winter, and vice versa.

Strength determines the amount or severity of debuffs applied per winter season. Examples;

• Mild; Applies 1 fairly weak debuff per winter, ever. Tries to avoid stacking identical effects until the entire pool has been drawn, sort of like a deck of cards.
• Moderate: Applies 1 or 2 debuffs. Basically the current winter debuff behaviour?
• Severe: Applies 1 strong debuff, or up to 3 weaker ones. Cannot apply the same effect twice in one winter debuff pass, but has no qualms about hitting you with multiple food reduction effects over multiple winters (up to a cap, so you don't go into negative food production or something insane).
• Merciless: Severe, but moreso. Merciless will try to kill you.
• Mercurial: Sometimes it won't apply any at all. Other times it'll apply really nasty penalties. You can never be sure.

Having the Wonder alter the seasonal cycle could be interesting, too. Other ways for players to interact with it (ways of shortening/lengthening seasons, ways of inducing a small-scale winter effect on a part of the map as part of a siege, etc.) could be... Fun.

I agree with your ideas. It is important the player always keep the choice, in the game option creation.

I agree with your comment about agreeing with the persons ideas, also about the CHOICE thingy.