needed - house rules for weather

[gwgardner]

next game I play I would like to try some house rules to simulate weather effects. Not sure what they should be yet, however.

Possibilities:

1)at beginning of German turn, the player rolls a dice, refers to month and weather possibilities for that month - informs the other players
2) rain/storms - no air, no amphib
3) mud armor/mec reduced to one hex move
4) snow/ice - movement halved, no air or amphib

of course such movement penalties would have to be on the honor system.

Then of course there is the regional effect. Could break that down into Mediterranean countries and others. med countries only experience clear and rain/storms.

better ways to simulate weather in this game?

[cpdeyoung]

At the scale of this game your effects strike me as too extreme. I know of no month in which the Red Air Forces did not fly because of snow/ice, for that matter the Germans adjusted, and flew many, many missions during the cold of the Stalingrad campaign. Eisenhower found a window of opportunity during a very threatening period to launch Neptune/Overlord. Even the Battle of the Bulge did not have a whole month without air, and when it came the Germans felt the lash. I believe ToW has more weather effects built in, but it has weekly turns in every season.

It also adds a huge variable, a luck factor, which makes campaigns vastly different from one another. Weather in RtV is consistent, the Russian winter comes in 1941 and each player is dealt the same hand. One can evaluate SuD, RtW, Crossroads, HalfAgain, Reprise, and EiF without having a big unpredictable factor to contend with.

I do not think that at this scale any but very minor weather effects are appropriate, and I don't think I would enjoy the game as much with weather added, which is not to say it would not be just the ticket for someone else.

Chuck

[gwgardner]

I should have said by turn, instead of by month.

It doesn't bother you in RtV that seasons don't matter? One might as well start a campaign in February as June.

Have you ever in RtV taken into account that the turn is two weeks long rather than one, or four? As a sub for weather effects? Only in relation to passage of time, rather than any seasonal effect.

[cpdeyoung]

The scaling by number of weeks in a turn does mean that a unit can go four times as far in a June week as a January week, you just have to notice the compression. You also get to make four times as many attacks. Putting any more "weather effects" upon this would compound the situation.

I am pretty sure the designers saw this as a neat way to handle seasons, but as players we do not notice the time, because we think turns, not weeks.

[Uxbridge]

I see that your opinion differ here, but if you want to lessen the impact of air units between, say December and Mars, the first player can easily open the consts.csv file before playing the December turn and locate the following lines:

#Basic Action Points for air units (int);;;;;;;;;;;;
#Air division;Air army;Strat. Bombers;;;;;;;;;;
2;2;2;;;;;;;;;;

By changing all the "2"s in the third line to "1", air units can't perform more than one mission/turn. This way no one have to remember the rule itself, the game take care of that. Come the first turn of April, player one again open the consts.csv and change the figures back to "2".

[gwgardner]

Awesome, and I presume the same could be done for land units. But I'd be willing to do this on a turn by turn basis, to make it more random during the likely mud and snow turns.

[Uxbridge]

Action points for land units looks as follows:
 
#Basic Action Points for land units (int);;;;;;;;;;;;
#Land warfare doctrine level;Infantry div;Infantry corps;Mot. Division;Mot. Corps;Pz. Division;Pz. Corps;Airborne div;;;;;
0;3;3;6;5;7;6;3;;;;;
1;4;3;7;6;8;7;3;;;;;
2;4;3;7;6;8;7;4;;;;;
3;5;4;8;7;10;9;5;;;;;
4;5;4;8;7;10;9;6;;;;;
5;6;5;10;9;12;11;6;;;;;
 
The first figure at the left in each line is the Warfare level. The following figure is the infantry division, followed by the Infantry Corps, Motorized division, etc. It's a bit more complicated to alter this, but an easy way would be to create a complete set of changed figures and simply alter between them. The entire set could be pasted in and out as the seasons progress. As an example, the solution below would make the infantry move slightly slower while armour is more heavily punished and motorized moves as leg units:
 
#Basic Action Points for land units (int);;;;;;;;;;;;
#Land warfare doctrine level;Infantry div;Infantry corps;Mot. Division;Mot. Corps;Pz. Division;Pz. Corps;Airborne div;;;;;
0;3;2;3;2;4;3;3;;;;;
1;3;2;3;2;5;4;3;;;;;
2;3;2;3;2;5;4;3;;;;;
3;4;3;4;3;6;5;4;;;;;
4;4;3;4;3;6;5;4;;;;;
5;5;4;5;4;7;6;5;;;;;
 
I would be very careful to lower the figures to much, since this can mean that the units can't move at all because of ZoC.
 
 

[cpdeyoung]

What are you trying to simulate? The war was fought in all weathers and climates.

If you do this to both sides you will pretty much be putting the war on hold in winter/mud season, but to what gain. You can simulate this by both players agreeing not to move or attack in Jan-Feb, but to what end. Why bother swapping unit values?

I really do not think you are going to introduce any extra value with more weather effect. You can aready move and fight at 1/2 to 1/4 APs in the "short" months. If you place your rules in effect in 1941-42 the Red Army will be even more handicapped in their winter offensive. In fact "winter offensives" will be rare.

Chuck

[Uxbridge]

I'm not trying to simulate anything, just gave gwgardner some advice if he fancied doing that. We're not using any weather rules like these ourselves, but are satisfied as it is. But I do agree with gwgardner about some winter effects. The ability to make mechanical warfare in adverse weather conditions should be lowered in winter. Yes, you could still fight, but movement would be affected by snow and very low temperature, especially so in areas with underdeveloped road networks. Game-wise there's no big deal wether you have these effects or not, RTV is to crude for it to matter and the longer/shorter months can dictate speed of progress, but it would be nice to have the feel of time: that most major offensives were conducted during spring/summer/early fall.
 
PS  Something just occurred to me. If you change something in consts.csv, this file must be replaced in all player's scenarios. It doesn't suffice to just changed figures in the curent players file.

[cpdeyoung]

The question was directed to Gary, but I have a new idea. Since the home front in the various countries should not suffer the penalties, why not just Quadruple the production in one turn months, and double it in two turn months. Give me a winter with "normal" production and I guarantee I will come out roaring in the Spring, of course we will have to quadruple strategic bombing, quadruple speed of units in non-seasonal areas, make special adjustments to allow all troops in the Med to make four attacks in the one month turns, and ...

Or maybe not change the rules at all. The Russian Winter is handled as a special case. All winter turns are already 1/2 or 1/4 combat unit effectiveness. It may not "feel" like mud, snow, ice, whatever; but the rules for "seasonal effects" are there. Try this. Position your ten L4 panzer korps 20 hexes from Moscow, and give the Soviets 3 L1 Infantry Divisions to defend it on June 1, 1941. Your orders are to occupy Moscow given one month of combat ops. Now try it in January, this is called RtV "weather effects". Does it feel like mud/snow'whatever - nope. Does it stop the panzers short of their goal - yep.

Anyone can play any "house rules" that all players agree with, but I think there is a seasonal model in place.

Chuck

[Mike Parker]

I know you guys have done ALOT of work on this game.  I think though in this case your overthinking.  During incliment weather time moves more quickly, this seems to me to be a fix that lowers operational tempo for all units.  So the effects of winter and mud and rain are dealt with in a single system.
 
By adding additional restrictions your risking overly penalyzing Armour/Motorized and Air forces since they are already penalyzed with everything else when a turn takes a full month.
 

[gwgardner]

To me, this is all a matter of 'look and feel' of the game. Right now, with compressed time in winter, there is zero look and feel of winter. So what, it's a shorter month. Could just as easily shorten a summer month, with the same effect on 'look and feel.' When I play a historical simulation, I like it to look and feel 'realistic'.

Let's say we're playing a Napoleanic era game, for instance the 1812 Russian campaign. How much of the flavor of the historical campaign is lost in a simulation that has no winter effect on movement or attrition or supply, other than just making the turns represent one month vs. one week.

I'd rather have RTV or the new game do 1 week turns year round, with real weather effects. I'm certain I'm not going to get that, thus the need for house rules to create the proper look and feel.

[James Ward]

Bad weather most effected attacks so perhaps a winter effect could be done by reducing attack factors based on a weather roll. 

[Uxbridge]

To gwgardner:
 
The yearly sequence now reads as follows in the consts.csv:
 
#January;February;March;April;May;June;July;August;September;October;November;December;
1;2;2;2;4;4;4;2;2;2;1;1;
 
This means that November to January have 1 monthly turn; February to April and August to October have 2; with May to July each having 4. Changing this setting for:
 
#January;February;March;April;May;June;July;August;September;October;November;December;
2;2;2;2;3;3;3;2;2;2;2;2;
 
... will give the period from August to April 2 monthly turns each, with the more hectic May to July having 3. Of course, the winter effect in the original setting (absurdly effective) will have a longer duration.
 
 

[Mike Parker]

Look and Feel aside however the fact is the game already does what you want without changes.  So my point was (not made very well though) is if you make a change you need to make another change.  So don't have December be a 1 turn month AND limit Armour/Motorized to 1 hex movement.  If you made every month 4 turn months you could then impliment alternate rules for how weather effects things.  You would also need to do something for income since you would have more turns of income per year.

[Uxbridge]

Well, I don't advocate the change, just telling GW how it could be done. Basically the only things it will upset, though, is the Partisan and Winter effects, since these are triggered by the month being played. Production will be the same as the number of turns remains unaltered.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Mike Parker

Look and Feel aside however the fact is the game already does what you want without changes.  So my point was (not made very well though) is if you make a change you need to make another change.  So don't have December be a 1 turn month AND limit Armour/Motorized to 1 hex movement.  If you made every month 4 turn months you could then impliment alternate rules for how weather effects things.  You would also need to do something for income since you would have more turns of income per year.

RtV and the new game could have both time compression and other forms of weather effects. Take a look at Ageod's Civil War game.

[Evildan]

The more turns in Summer months I think only partially simulates weather effects.  Some have already stated above but some are missing the point that on the Strategic level one side is generally on the attack and one side is on the defensive.  Bad weather months did severely impact offensive strengths, mechanize or motorized movements, supply lines, and/or air operations.  Do you want to simulate the air situation during the battle of the bulge?  in bad weather air operations can be almost nullified, like the Germans enjoyed for a time, for this you do need to add weather effects on aircraft.  
I read that the Russian winter has a specific effect, didn't know that but this effect should be general in all snowy months.  In rainy months, mech/motor movement should be effected and supply lines reduced. 
 
The 1st thing I noticed this game lacked was a simulated weather effects.  The supply is done well, terrain could have more impacts (my opinion), I think weather can have more of an attackers effectiveness impact, pretty easily?
Remember shorting turns in a month doesn't help the defender strategically as it did in the real war, this only simulates part of the effects.
Let us not forget very bad weather would generaly void amphibious invasions on scales of this game. 

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: Uxbridge

Well, I don't advocate the change, just telling GW how it could be done. Basically the only things it will upset, though, is the Partisan and Winter effects, since these are triggered by the month being played. Production will be the same as the number of turns remains unaltered.

Well I wouldn't advocate changing to the 2,2,2,...3,3,3 method. If seperate weather effects are added by house rule, then the months should be equal # of turns and I think 4 would be good. Then the fix for economy would be I suppose to reduce the PP by the factor in which you increased the number of turns in the game.

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

ORIGINAL: Mike Parker

Look and Feel aside however the fact is the game already does what you want without changes.  So my point was (not made very well though) is if you make a change you need to make another change.  So don't have December be a 1 turn month AND limit Armour/Motorized to 1 hex movement.  If you made every month 4 turn months you could then impliment alternate rules for how weather effects things.  You would also need to do something for income since you would have more turns of income per year.

RtV and the new game could have both time compression and other forms of weather effects. Take a look at Ageod's Civil War game.

Sure they could. However if you did both you would have more of a problem balancing things to how they are now. Your complaints seem to stem from a look and feel aspect. That the game doesn't feel like winter. Then I would urge, remove the current RtV method of simulating Winter and give the winter months (and eveyr month) 4 weeks but then impliment the changes to Arm/Mot movement and restrict Air Ops. Just don't leave January with reduced weeks AND make Armour move 1 during snow its too much I would think. I also think Mud turns would be good to add also. And if your implimenting Snow and Mud weather you should have it seperated geographically.