Climate

[SsSam]

....perhaps I'm just missing it when I'm looking for it.

I know Caelum has units in ice armor where the protection is better with a colder conditions. Late Atlantis has some of the same units.

I know that supply and tax revenue are scaled by the distance the climate is from what you prefer.

and T'ien has an era where its units power supposedly scales by the spring and summer.

Is there some morale bonus (or some other reason) why your troops might want to fight in your climate on the battlefield? Any reason for a Middle Era Jotunhiem with cold X2 scales to cast wolven winter before sending an army into Abysia in the summer?

[Hrum]

Someone around here can probably answer your question better than I can, but I believe in addition to the strategic map effects you mention, there's an encumbrance effect on the battlefield.

I believe units that have the appropriate (frost/fire) resistance are unaffected, but for anyone else fighting in a climate raises their encumbrance. For example LA Mictlan guys (prefer Heat +1) fighting in a province with Hot3 suffer more encumbrance per round of melee and casting than they would otherwise. I think the encumbrance change is the only battlefield effect of non-ideal climate for units, unless they have cold/hot power (more stuff affected) or resistance (nothing affected).

[RadicalTurnip]

Originally Posted by Hrum

Someone around here can probably answer your question better than I can, but I believe in addition to the strategic map effects you mention, there's an encumbrance effect on the battlefield.

I believe units that have the appropriate (frost/fire) resistance are unaffected, but for anyone else fighting in a climate raises their encumbrance. For example LA Mictlan guys (prefer Heat +1) fighting in a province with Hot3 suffer more encumbrance per round of melee and casting than they would otherwise. I think the encumbrance change is the only battlefield effect of non-ideal climate for units, unless they have cold/hot power (more stuff affected) or resistance (nothing affected).

If the scales are cold-3 and you have heat-3 units there, they're going to fatigue out pretty quickly. This is a good thing for you (of course)

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by SsSam

Is there some morale bonus (or some other reason) why your troops might want to fight in your climate on the battlefield? Any reason for a Middle Era Jotunhiem with cold X2 scales to cast wolven winter before sending an army into Abysia in the summer?

Cold reduces the effect of the heat aura. And increases the effect of the cold aura. So you would want to cast woven winter to cancel the abysian heat aura.

[Gregstrom]

In cold 3, heat 3 units fatigue out no faster than cold 2 units. Cold resistance is what makes the difference, rather than a unit's native temperature.

2 factors affected by climate have yet to be mentioned, I think. Cold-blooded units get an encumbrance penalty anywhere the temperature scale is cold, and this penalty cannot be negated by giving the unit CR. Also, pretty obviously, Cold Power/Heat Power get affected by climate.

[SsSam]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

In cold 3, heat 3 units fatigue out no faster than cold 2 units. Cold resistance is what makes the difference, rather than a unit's native temperature.

By implication this would lead to Caelum wanting a province to go cold 3 because they have cold resistant troops and abysinia does not.

So no matter what Caleum's dominion scales were, it could be to his benifit to cast Wolven Winter to get the climate of a province to Cold3 because his Blizard Warriors with cold resistance would fatigue less rapidly than Abysinian troops?

[Bananadine]

Wow, three years with this game and I somehow never knew--you really can cast, say, Cold Resistance in a very cold province, and the mage's encumbrance will drop by a couple of points, right there in the middle of the battle!

Originally Posted by SsSam

So no matter what Caleum's dominion scales were, it could be to his benifit to cast Wolven Winter to get the climate of a province to Cold3 because his Blizard Warriors with cold resistance would fatigue less rapidly than Abysinian troops?

Maybe not much to his benefit--even a slowly freezing Abysian is a tough fighter. But yeah, seems like it could be.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

Maybe not much to his benefit--even a slowly freezing Abysian is a tough fighter. But yeah, seems like it could be.

Not that tough, Iirc each 10 points of fatigue decrease the defense by 1. In a cold 3 province almost all the EA Abysia units have at least enc 8 for example. So each round of combat reduces their defense by 1. And after 3 rounds (above 30 fat) the units are prone to critical hits, halving their large protection value to normal unit levels.

Wierd... In a EA Abysia test game, cold 3 didn't reduce the Heat Aura. (Or it didn't reduce the number after the Heat aura, I think the combat effect was reduced). My heat 3 unit only produced 2 squares of heat aura. (One on the guy himself, and one next to it). I don't know if Heat 1 only affects the base square or one additional square. And I don't have the time to test it all intensively.

[Bananadine]

The manual claims that temperature also affects the likelihood that burning or freezing units (where "freezing" is the state that turns a unit blue-white, I think) will stop burning or freezing in a given round.

And the difference between ice elementals and water elementals is occasionally very important.

None of that has anything to do with a nation's preferred climate though. And mechanically, the Caelian ice armor, and Strength of the Spring, and everything else I can think of that has to do with weather, is independent of a nation's climate preference. Illwinter probably wouldn't add an Abysian unit that uses ice armor, but a modder could, and I guess the game wouldn't complain. Is it really true, then, that the only direct effect of the nation's preference is on supplies and taxes?

[Fantomen]

Your strategy and magic access also relates to what temperature you want. Like if you plan to use undead and encumbrance tactics you probably want extreme temperatures. Does your mage have water or fire magic? If so they can cast cold or fire resistance to deal with the scales.

Take LA Agartha for example. You have no national preference or resistances. But you'll be using undead summons, skelespam, rigor mortis and have fire magic on all mages. Plus I tend to take a light earth bless and plan for Lamia queens. So heat 3 fits nicely there.