The Trouble with Variable Weather
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2024 7:56 pm
History buff wargamers like to argue about how likely it is to snow in Minsk or Pinsk in October or November, but the basic problem with variable weather in Warplan and in every ww2 game I can think of is much more fundamental. Every WW2 IGO-YUGO game has a turn sequence that looks like this:
1. Start of turn
- weather determination phase
2. Axis player turn
3. Allied player turn
This means that the Axis player knows what the weather will be before the Allied player does. In particular, when on defense, the Allied player has to set up their defenses not knowing if there will be a sudden burst of good weather allowing the Axis to attack, while the Axis player when defending gets to know the weather which will apply during the upcoming Allied turn, and can choose to run away when the weather is good or stand when the weather is bad.
This represents nothing real in history, but rather is an artifact of the necessity of slicing time into player turns and the (perhaps too quick) game design decision to put the weather determination roll at the beginning of the turn like that. Sal Vasta's recent Unconditional Surrender Europe (a paper & cardboard counters in-person game) is particularly egregious in this regard. Our group solved it by letting the weather roll happen halfway through the previous turn, so the Allied player knows what the weather will be for the upcoming Axis turn. I don't think that is possible in Warplan.
Axis Empires Totaler Krieg handles this by having no variable weather at all - there are 9 turns a year and you know that it will be mud after clear in both Spring and Fall. This is a bit odd from a realism perspective but works together with the other systems, particularly TK's operations cards per season mechanic.
It seems to me that Warplan's 41 Winter Variant scenario is already a move in this direction. It seems fairly simple to go into the editor and set some weather results with 100% probability in most months, and create a mod. Once I have a bit more experience maybe I will do that.
1. Start of turn
- weather determination phase
2. Axis player turn
3. Allied player turn
This means that the Axis player knows what the weather will be before the Allied player does. In particular, when on defense, the Allied player has to set up their defenses not knowing if there will be a sudden burst of good weather allowing the Axis to attack, while the Axis player when defending gets to know the weather which will apply during the upcoming Allied turn, and can choose to run away when the weather is good or stand when the weather is bad.
This represents nothing real in history, but rather is an artifact of the necessity of slicing time into player turns and the (perhaps too quick) game design decision to put the weather determination roll at the beginning of the turn like that. Sal Vasta's recent Unconditional Surrender Europe (a paper & cardboard counters in-person game) is particularly egregious in this regard. Our group solved it by letting the weather roll happen halfway through the previous turn, so the Allied player knows what the weather will be for the upcoming Axis turn. I don't think that is possible in Warplan.
Axis Empires Totaler Krieg handles this by having no variable weather at all - there are 9 turns a year and you know that it will be mud after clear in both Spring and Fall. This is a bit odd from a realism perspective but works together with the other systems, particularly TK's operations cards per season mechanic.
It seems to me that Warplan's 41 Winter Variant scenario is already a move in this direction. It seems fairly simple to go into the editor and set some weather results with 100% probability in most months, and create a mod. Once I have a bit more experience maybe I will do that.