Please vote: Slight change to northern / eastern weather

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We got reported a game between Neil and Morris where Morris as the Axis made a major offensive in April 1941. That's a time where the chance of fair weather was almost non-existent, but he had been lucky with the dice rolls and had build a huge army with 12 armor and 7 mech. Such an early start meant he got past Stalingrad and into Caucasus before the bad weather started late 1941.

So we had a second look at the northern / eastern weather and noticed the weather chances are too similar to the central weather. We therefore propose the following.

1. Severe winter chances
a. Severe winter chance for October: 0 % (was 10%)
b. Severe winter chance for November: 25% (was 33%)
c. Severe winter chance for December: 75% (was 66%)
d. Severe winter chance for January: 100% (as before)

You only check for 2 if 1 didn't happen, 3 if 2 didn't happen and so on.

With these changes you will not have a very early severe winter, thus a similarly early end to the winter. Most of the time the severe winter started in December, but it could start as early as November. We think the above values will simulate the historical weather a bit better.

The Germans can now afford to fight a few turns in non-fair weather because the severe winter will most likely happen later.

2. North / eastern weather probabilities
a. October: 25% mud, 25% winter, 50% fair (was 15% mud, 10% winter, 75% fair)
b. November: 50% mud, 50% winter 0% fair (was 50% mud, 25% winter, 25% fair)
c. April: 50% mud, 35% winter, 15% fair (was 50% mud, 25% winter, 25% fair)

With these changes we will have the northern / eastern weather have slightly more non-fair turns and that means the Germans will have to fight a turn or two in winter or mud before stopping for severe winter. That means the can finish off weakened Russian units and kill left behind garrisons in cities, but not expect to roll up the Russian main defense line.

Knowing that the severe winter will most likely start in December means the Axis player can plan a bit better for when to stop attacking. In 1941 you actually had 19% chance to have severe winter start in October (1- 0.9*0.9) = 19%. That was a bit too excessive. You have only 1 November turn and that will now be 25%.

Please vote for these changes. They can all be done in general.txt and won't require any code changes (thus risk for bugs).

[rkr1958]

Yes.

Also, these changes will prevent the change of an Axis fair weather turn followed by the on set of severe winter. With these changes severe winter can only happen in a non-fair weather turn.

[Schnurri]

Yes

[KingHunter3059]

Yes

[PionUrpo]

Yes.

EDIT: Actually I'd probably take away the fair chance for April altogether. While I don't have any solid info on hand, I remember reading somewhere that the ground was rather wet as late as May '41. Maybe someone more knowledgable can confirm/disprove?

[gerones]

I like the idea of removing severe winter in october. I kind of dislike the idea of to reducing fair weather chance in northern Europe from 75 to 50 and to completely remove fair weather chance in november in the same zone. Doing this the germans will have less chances to properly weaken the soviets in 1941 campaign and the russians will become even more confident about a foreseen bad weather than now are.

[pk867]

Yes to the change

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I like the idea of removing severe winter in october. I kind of dislike the idea of to reducing fair weather chance in northern Europe from 75 to 50 and to completely remove fair weather chance in november in the same zone. Doing this the germans will have less chances to properly weaken the soviets in 1941 campaign and the russians will become even more confident about a foreseen bad weather than now are.

There isn't a rule forbidding the Germans from making attacks during winter weather. They can easily do a lot of damage upon weakened Russian units. What they can't do is to make big holes in the Russian lines.

Many good Axis players stop attacking as early as October 1941 regardless of weather in November because they want to regain some efficiency before the severe winter hits. That's a good way of preventing major losses during the severe winter.

The real Germans actually fought in not so good weather in the east. E. g. Operation Typhoon started on October 1st in fair weather, but the second half of October was mud so the offensive halted. It changed to winter in the beginning of November and the Germans resumed the offensive. On December 5th 1941 the Russians counter attacked because severe winter had begun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow

In GS you can certainly make some attacks during the winter and still inflict damage. Up to now players attacked when the weather was fair and quickly it went from fair to full severe winter. With the latest changes you get a more gradual change of weather.

I don't think this will affect the German 1941 offensive very much. Actually getting the severe winter a bit later will help them keep the momentum a bit longer, despite ending up with mud or winter in October / November in most turns.

I live in Norway myself and I can tell you that there is no way you can have fair weather in Norway and even less in Russia in November. Fair weather means that the ground is dry and you can move at full speed. Usually it rains a lot in October and November is either mud or it gets so cold so you get winter. You can have fair weather for quite so time in October, but you always have a risk of mud. Before you even got snow during October. I remember the average first snow date in Norway when I was young was about October 15th. Now the first snow usually comes early November. If we look at the climate over time we see that the climate was more severe during WW2 than now.

If you e. g. look at photos of Operation Weserubung you see snow from all photos from Norway. So the chance of fair weather in April was not so high. This year all snow didn't go away in Oslo until April 10th. Then the forests and fields were quite wet from melted snow. Inland we still have some snow now. This year was colder than usual, but not if we look 30+ years back in time. After 2000 the snow usually melts late March and it dries up during April so end of April is usually fair and first of April is usually mud. But during WW2 then snow started to melt a few weeks later and the snow wasn't completely gone until about May 1st.

The climate in Oslo is definitely not more severe than in Russia. I've been in Moscow late March a few years ago and then it was still below 0 degrees there and deep snow. I've been in Siberia in January and average temperature was about -30C. I think you have to experience the severe arctic climate to understand how different it is compared to the weather we have in central Europe.

I remember I visited southern England in late February 15 years ago. We left Oslo with lots of snow and -5C and came to London with +10C and already the fields were about to become green and leaves on the trees had started to appear. Then I realized that the climate we have in Norway is very different from e. g. England.

So trust me when I say that the latest weather percentages for the northern weather is more accurate than it used to be. Before e. g. the November weather was the same in the north and central. That has given us weird examples of fair weather in north and mud or even winter in central. Not very historical.