Storms and speed

[Tigertony]

Not a bug but definitely an issue.

Storms in the game do not appear to slow down surface vessels, but they do in real life.

In a game about the war in the Pacific, I would expect the weather to affect ships movement (just as terrain affects troops on land). Perhaps storm hexes should cost an extra +0.5 to enter (so a normal 18 hex move becomes 12) and severe storms cost an extra +1 (so 18 becomes 9). Or perhaps +1 and +2, reducing 18 hex moves into 9 and 6 hex moves respectively.

This should have two effects: first, naval forces might not arrive on time because of bad weather delays, and second, players will sometimes move to skirt around storms. Both of these are realistic.

Storms should not affect silent subs. Thus, silent subs will be able to move slightly faster when submerged than when on the surface, encouraging players to submerge their subs in bad weather. This is what actually happened, so you will get another realistic outcome.

[Torplexed]

The way storms at sea work now in Strategic Command is that they strike a hex randomly based on a percentage set in the scenario causing reductions in morale and damage to naval units sometimes.

Which probably works fine for a strategic game of this scale. Nobody had satellite, GPS or NAVTEX technology in the 1940s, so pinpointing where a storm track was on the vast ocean ahead of time to dodge it was down to the luck of a ship or plane radioing its location and possible course after running into one. Even then given the length of a game turn that storm might be long moved on or dissipated by the time a following fleet gets there.

[Tigertony]

Bottom line is that storms slow ships down, but in StratCom they do not.

On this scale, where one turn is 10 days, losing a day or two to just one storm should impact how far a ship can get. For example, if a ship has 9 calm hexes then enters storm hexes and if each storm hex costs an extra 0.5 to enter, then the remaining 9 movement points are used to move only 6 hexes and the ship ends up 3 hexes short of where you want it to be.

Furthermore, storms occur more frequently in some places and/or at certain times of year, which impacts when and where naval operations take place.

If you can place a ship exactly 18 (or 36) hexes from a port anywhere anytime because you know with absolute certainty that it can get there next turn, the game has lost something.

Good planning allows for and can accommodate unexpected events. Consequently, one should have to allow for the potential effects of bad weather when planning, which means that in the above case, a good planner puts his or her ship a few hexes closer to the destination port to allow for unexpected delays caused by bad weather.

P.S. Ships had wind gauges and barometers, so they did know about approaching storms in advance.

[Happycat]

Interesting perspective on storms; I have played and/or tested virtually everything in the SC series. I don't feel that a day or two would matter that much in such a strategic level. OTH, it's interesting that ice caps expand and sometimes trap ships and subs for a full turn or two. So it points to a discrepancy in the design overview. If I was going to speculate, I would think that we might see something in the new Pacific chapter that addresses this.

[Platoonist]

If possible, a monsoon weather region would be nice addition. Basically, a map area with mud plus conditions. In Burma and parts of India during the wet season, and depending on the terrain, land movement was almost impossible due to mud, torrential rains and the large number of swollen creeks and rivers. Air missions were severely curtailed as well.

In some areas of the Pacific bad weather could be a major hindrance for air campaigns. Jet streams in particular proved a serious impediment for the B-29s doing conventional bombing over Japan. At least until the firebombing tech arrived.

[Patrat]

Jet streams in particular proved a serious impediment for the B-29s doing conventional bombing over Japan. At least until the firebombing tech arrived.

If im not mistaken, "fire bombing tech", didn't involve much more than bombing at night at low altitude, stripping the bombers of defensive armament, to save weight, and cram a whole lot of incendiary bombs in.

It was basically a change of doctrine rather than a change of technology.

Forgive me if I'm being pedantic.