Weather changes during battle

[Red Harvest]

Deja vu all over again...same basic problem as in MTW/VI. Since I started fighting in the northern half of the map I've noticed that on clear days it almost always starts raining halfway through or late in the battle. Since this is the space of less than half an hour it seems WAY overdone. I didn't notice it much at first, because rain is so muted graphically. Often the early rain is happening with a sunny sky (panning up to see only a few scattered high level clouds while it is raining is rather amusing.) Anyone else noticing this? I've seen it in several recent campaigns.

Like a number of other things, this looks very suspiciously like recycled MTW code. That's not necessarily bad...if the admitted issues with the older code are fixed. Seems like it would be a good idea to have some rather high probability of unchanging weather during a battle--or at least see the sky cloud up before the rain comes in. Would be cool to have storm fronts blow in...but I would really just like to have weather make a bit of sense.

[Parmenio]

Welcome to Britian. :)

[solypsist]

the half hour time limit is an abstraction for gameplay. the battles last longer than 30 min. (it's actually rated for a daytime to dusk time period), but for playability you only have a half hour - imagine how slow and boring this game would be if playing a battle really took all day long. you need an abstract system for games - it's the same reasoning on why it takes 6 months (1 campaign turn) to move a fleet from Italy to Sicily.

anyway, so the weather changes occur at intervals (abstractly) over a day or half-day.

[Tricky Lady]

I have a feeling it always starts raining when I bring archers (both in MTW and RTW) and less when I start a battle without archers...
But that's probably just me and my fantasy...

[Slaists]

actually, on higher resolutions and with anti-aliasing the rain effects are quite profound :)

[Red Harvest]

the half hour time limit is an abstraction for gameplay. the battles last longer than 30 min. (it's actually rated for a daytime to dusk time period), but for playability you only have a half hour - imagine how slow and boring this game would be if playing a battle really took all day long. you need an abstract system for games - it's the same reasoning on why it takes 6 months (1 campaign turn) to move a fleet from Italy to Sicily.

anyway, so the weather changes occur at intervals (abstractly) over a day or half-day.

Yes and no. I know where you are coming from. There is some disconnect in the abstraction. For example: Units are supposedly moving in a real time speed. The graphics match this as well as the fighting graphics. However, the blows being struck are far more effective on average (factor of 10 would probably not be too far from the mark.) Of course, unit scale is an issue, because the units are about 1/10th scale...but the movement rates are not, and kill rates are even faster. It gets pretty confusing after a bit... Units get winded in reasonable periods of time when running/charging or climbing steep inclines. They also rest in reasonable time. However, the battle timer doesn't really match this.

The Sun and Moon and stars in the game actually move at normal time. I've tested this a bit--there is an actual constellation map being used and phases of the moon--very nice touch, too bad we can't see it in the campaign game. (I didn't check for precession of the pole over 2400 years.) Perhaps the sky should be moving at about 10 times the game speed. I have wondered why CA didn't include a "time of day" display. I don't think many of us would be too upset by nightfall forcing battles to a close (it would actually be quite historical.) The problem with the current battle timer has been the brevity coupled with no obvious reason why the battle must be concluded.

The predictability of "its going to rain/precipitate every single clear day" in the northern half of the map seems a bit out of context, regardless of the time scale. (Same for the perfect weather in much of the south of the map.) Can't call this a bug, merely a confusing aspect of the game.