Seasons

[Lukew]

It would be nice to have an option to divide each year into four seasons (Spring, summer, autumn, winter) This would result in a much longer game (does that bother any of us? ) but it would also permit more realistic military movements in war time - Hannibal's march over the Alps could be repeated) Every fourth turn would now be a winter turn

[Southern Hunter]

It seems like this might have been an early trade off. Every 4th turn IS a winter turn (effectively) thus simulating a seasonal approach, but then 500 years better simulates the kind of changes we see over time

[Lukew]

A seasonal approach would address the issue someone raised on another post regarding the amount of time it takes to pull of Hannibal's march from Spain over the Alps. Perhaps make it a selectable option for gamers who want more detail at the expense of a much longer game. nd if it were possible to change this setting in game you could continue as present when at peace but change to a seasonal setting when at war. You could also have a campaign season/winter option as well as the four seasons

[devoncop]

A seasonal approach would address the issue someone raised on another post regarding the amount of time it takes to pull of Hannibal's march from Spain over the Alps. Perhaps make it a selectable option for gamers who want more detail at the expense of a much longer game. nd if it were possible to change this setting in game you could continue as present when at peace but change to a seasonal setting when at war. You could also have a campaign season/winter option as well as the four seasons

Variable turn lengths would of course be impractical for anything other than single player games as some would be at peace and others at war.

In any case there are very sound design decisions behind not having more than 1 turn a year which have been explained by the design team on the first few pages of the Empires forum thread if you wanted to read them.

[Lukew]

I'd be fine with having the option available in single player games. And perhaps even changeable during the game, Night even be a useful feature in any future smaller campaigns covering for example the 3rd Century Crisis (now that would be a challenging situation for the Romans) the Roman conquest of Gaul, Britain, Dacia, Marcomannic Wars etc

[jimwinsor]

I don't see how turning a 500 turn game into a 2000 turn game is going to be viable. 500 is already a handful.

What might be possible (and this is just personal theorizing on my part) is to have 2 kinds of turns: 1 annual turn, followed by 3 seasonal turns. The only actions that would be allowed during seasonal turns would be troop movement and diplomacy. All building selection, unit production, trade and Decision taking could only take place in annual turns.

In my experience, troop movement and diplomacy is not very time consuming, and can usually be plotted within a couple minutes or so. It's the building selection that I find myself mulling over the most, followed by production and decisions. If you limited these to once every four turns, you could have a seasonal turn game that could be finished before the heat death of the universe.

There would be the additional advantage that building and production based stats currently balanced on annual turns could be left as is.

[Lukew]

Perhaps an ideal solution would be to have a seasons option available (eg for times of war) but non mandatory. Hence it vould be possible for those like me who might want the option available primarily for the fighting of wars without having it on all the time or forcing it on everyone and massively increasing overall game length