Random weather not random???

[morvael]

First two turns of June 1941 are guaranteed to have no mud.

What I want is random weather not be significantly different (for worse) than non-random weather.

[morvael]

Non-random weather:

[morvael]

Old random weather, has the following rules as well:

No Mud in June 1941
Only Blizzard in December 1941 and January 1942
Only one Mud allowed in December-February, converts to Snow (or Blizzard)
Only one Snow allowed in December-January, converts to Blizzard
Only one Mud allowed in June-September (20 June-9 October), converts to Clear

[morvael]

Planned updated new random weather tables:

(change to rule #4: Europe zone will not be forced to have at most one Snow in December)

[morvael]

...so main weather type from non-random for given month gets 90-95% in the updated table (80% in current), and all types from old random are present for given month.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

OK, thanks morvael. Strange though, it happens pretty much every game, mud in 3/4 zones 41, mud 0/1 zone 42. I don't recall a game with weather outside those parameters.

Yes its very non random

The old code was the same way turn 3 or 4 center zone has mud 80% of the time completely screwing Germany as ALL armor is in this zone.

Only game I ever played and turns 3 or 4 were not mud was vs Chaos.

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

@ Loki - I'm not sure what you mean by a 'high chance' of mud on T3 but it is not the case that mud is likely somewhere on T3 or any given turn. You have to look at the probability of all zones being clear and subtract that from 1 (or 100 if using percentages). The chance of mud is 1:11 or 9% The probability of all 4 zones being clear on any given summer turn is therefore 69%. If you ignore the north ( which is irrelevant in the early turns, the probability of the other 3 all being clear is 75%. The probability of all 3 being mud in the same turn is 1 in 1331 or 0.075%. 1 in 1451 if you add in the chance of north being clear.

As you say, once there has been mud somewhere, these probabilities change even when the probability remains constant for any particular zone.

should have been clearer, what I meant was 'by' T3. I think you need to use Bayesian logic (to be far too technical) in that at the game start (T1) the odds of mud by or on T3 in one of the 4 zones are 2 (ie either T2 or T3)*4 (ie 4 zones)*base odds (currently 9% of mud in any one turn?). So 2*4*9=54% chance of mud in any of the zones in or before T3?

No mud in June - in the weather rules somewhere so T3 is 1st chance and completely stuffs the Germans when it hits all 3 relevant zones. 1 is unfortunate, 2 is coincidence but 3 is enemy action. By enemy, I do not suggest my opponent of course[:D]

As you say, there seems to be a particular issue in the south, but never in the north for some reason...... it doesn't seem truly random

[sillyflower]

ORIGINAL: morvael

First two turns of June 1941 are guaranteed to have no mud.

What I want is random weather not be significantly different (for worse) than non-random weather.

Then I suggest no mud in june or july (or even October) '41, but there again my preference is for fixed weather anyway

[morvael]

Fixed weather is much better for the side on the offensive. Way more clear weather.

[sillyflower]

I'm not sure why it was ever 20% as random weather table in manual says 1:11. Taking mud down to 'only' 10% as you suggested earlier still leaves it as higher chance than in manual,and therefore a higher chance than in later years unless the actual probabilities then are also incorrectly stated in the manual.

[morvael]

Manual is not updated, weather tables changed in last patch and they are in the patch notes.
Currently there is 20% chance for mud. It was 9% before 1.08.05, and it will be 5% in 1.08.08.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Manual is not updated, weather tables changed in last patch and they are in the patch notes.
Currently there is 20% chance for mud. It was 9% before 1.08.05, and it will be 5% in 1.08.08.

this is becoming a bit of a mess - laying aside the suspicion that many have about the south and guarenteed mud in the south on T3.

Basically we are talking about 13 turns (T3-T15) as if I understand the manual then T16+ is not 'protected' ~ ie mud may happen even if it has already occured in that zone.

So do you think that on average, each zone should get one mud instance? If so you need to set the base rate > x*13=100, ie 8. Anything below 8 means that (even ignoring the random per turn element) you are saying there is an under 100% chance of any mud at all in that zone. Your proposed 5% actually gives 65% chance of mud in a zone. So you are saying that in 1 game out of 3 a given zone should have no mud at all.

The 20% not only pretty much guarenteed an instance of mud in a zone but also front loaded it, hence the problem of people seeing T3-T4 mired in mud.

So what do you think should be happening. A small chance of mud in a particular turn and a reasonable possibility of no mud at all in a zone over the summer? Or a reasonable chance of mud in a particular turn and a near certainty of mud in a zone at some stage? The proposed 5% is clearly working on the first bit of logic, but I'm not sure if that is a deliberate interpretation of the weather records and game design choice or if its just a number being used.

Also should the mud event be random across the entire summer or front loaded into July? The higher you set the variable > 8% the more you are setting up this situation.

What I'm saying is the old 9% is pretty much on the sweet spot, a reasonably chance per turn and near certainty of one event in the summer period. But the possibility of none (which I sometimes saw in 1.07).

[Bozo_the_Clown]

I dislike the random weather system. The old one and the new one. It's just too disruptive. The Axis needs to advance as far as possible in the first 17 turns and the Russians need a chance to recover during mud. If you mess with that you are mostly just destroying games.

In my opinion random weather should only extend or shorten the season by one turn. So mud could come one week early or one week late and snow could come one week early and one week late. This could even be extended to the blizzard, especially if people play with severe winter rules. The odds of that happening should be fairly low (maybe 20%).

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: loki100
A small chance of mud in a particular turn and a reasonable possibility of no mud at all in a zone over the summer?

This, because non-random weather has no mud at all from 20th June to 9th October.

[Callistrid]

I belive the germans need clear turn during summer.
I don't know how was coded, but better to set clear weather on july-august, and the randomness could start on september.
The first 12 turm must be clear, or the mud impact the german effort to harsh.

[Manstein63]

ORIGINAL: Bozo_the_Clown

I dislike the random weather system. The old one and the new one. It's just too disruptive. The Axis needs to advance as far as possible in the first 17 turns and the Russians need a chance to recover during mud. If you mess with that you are mostly just destroying games.

In my opinion random weather should only extend or shorten the season by one turn. So mud could come one week early or one week late and snow could come one week early and one week late. This could even be extended to the blizzard, especially if people play with severe winter rules. The odds of that happening should be fairly low (maybe 20%).

The flip side to this is that non random weather give a godlike advantage to the attacking side because you know with absolute certainty what the what the weather will be in the next turn and every turn thereafter & there is no chance factored in to the equation. It would have been better not to have differentiated between random & non random weather. The weather should have been fixed but with a random change built in for example

In June there would be a 95% chance of the weather being clear & a 5% percent chance of rain 2 or more consecutive turns of rain would lead to a mud turn.

By September the chance of clear weather would drop to 90% with a 10% chance of rain

By November clear weather would be at 30% with a 50% chance of Rain & a 20% chance of Snow 2 or more consecutive turns of snow would lead to a blizzard turn


There would also need to be more weather zones & the chances of blizzard would increase the further north you went & the lateness of the year.
Unfortunately this will not happen in this incarnation of WitE though I am lead to believe that WitW does handle weather better & by definition WitE2 will as well.

Manstein63

[loki100]

WiTW does several things that will solve many problems. First it separates out how wet the sky is from how wet the ground is. That matters as the reason the spring mud season was worse and more consistent was that the ground was frozen, on the surface water melted (=pools/mud) and that cycle didn't cease till the ground had dried and thawed. The autumn muds are weather driven, ie rain on poor surface = mud.

So really the spring mud season is fixed in that once it starts it has only one end. The variations are the possibility of a cold spell seeing a return to night frosts and how long it all takes to dry out.

The other advantage of WiTW is that it models the amount of decent transport links below the game scale. So you could see Russia around Leningrad-Novgorod as far worse transport links than say the Smolensk-Moscow region.

Speaking purely personally, the only reason I don't like fixed weather is the extent that utterly distorts game play. See MichealT's numerous axis AARs or one where Oshawatt as the Soviet player really exploited the fixed spring mud-clear routine.

I'd be happy with a compromise using yours and Bozo's idea. Say no mud T3-T9, a chance till T15 and then the possibility that the main weather blocks start or end a week earlier or later than expected? But I suspect this is a long way outside the current patching process.

[morvael]

As a compromise I can propose no mud in June and July 1941, rest as normal.

[Callistrid]

[&o]

[Bozo_the_Clown]

As a compromise I can propose no mud in June and July 1941, rest as normal.

E-Adolf is very happy with this change. No more mud on T3. Time for a happy dance.