Summer gets brown too quickly

[Feycat]

Halfway through Summer the grass and leaves are already brown/red, whether I'm in temperate or warm climate. I hate it, can it please stay green til fall? Would also be great if I wasn't standing in a half-block of snow in the middle of fall!

[Streetwind]

You have to keep two things in mind -

One, this is a pre-industrial world. It is colder than our heated-up present day.

Two, while VS models climate bands, it can't offer a full global climate simulation with details like sea climate versus continental climate, major ocean and atmospheric currents, and other such things. For this reason, all areas of a VS world are effectively deep continental climates, which are unaffected by any outside influences. So when you look at the VS "temperate" start, that's a latitude of roughly 47.5° north. In Europe, that's southern Germany and central France... but, Europe's winters are kept gentle by the Gulf Stream. Rather, look at other areas at this latitude, which are far away from all coastlines. And you'll find southern Canada. You'll find northern Mongolia, and parts of Russia. That's the kind of climate you should expect; the kind of winters you should expect. A minimum of four months of continuous snow cover is par for the course, especially in a pre-industrial world.

You could set your world starting climate to "warm" when you create it. That puts you near 30°N. That'll be comparable to northern India and Pakistan; central China; but also for example the western parts of Texas, and the Mexican border. You will experience a lot less winter down at those latitudes.

 

(That said - even I have noticed before that the leaves change color fairly early in VS, no matter where you are. Don't really have a solution to offer for that.)

[Deaderpan]

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

You have to keep two things in mind -

One, this is a pre-industrial world. It is colder than our heated-up present day.

 

im not gonna get political with this "but aktually" (nerd face emoji) pre industrial Europe was quite warm. more northern climates where warm enough to grow grapes and large buildings like cathedrals where built to cool people down rather than keep warm.

furthermore the industrial era got super cold aswell, there was a period called the little ice age where most rivers in northern europe in industrial towns would freeze over, so the cities would be black from coal burning but the rivers bright white from being iced over.

so my point is this, nothing, i just want an excuse to not do work so i wrote this instead

[idiomcritter]

4 hours ago, Deaderpan said:

large buildings like cathedrals where built to cool people down

oh, the opposite of a green house, this could be useful, in the warmest climates...

like in rl, its bitter sweet to see the browning of the plants before summers finial days.

but wait, where is the tl that will transport to the tropics 

[Feycat]

10 hours ago, Streetwind said:

You have to keep two things in mind -

One, this is a pre-industrial world. It is colder than our heated-up present day.

Two, while VS models climate bands, it can't offer a full global climate simulation with details like sea climate versus continental climate, major ocean and atmospheric currents, and other such things. For this reason, all areas of a VS world are effectively deep continental climates, which are unaffected by any outside influences. So when you look at the VS "temperate" start, that's a latitude of roughly 47.5° north. In Europe, that's southern Germany and central France... but, Europe's winters are kept gentle by the Gulf Stream. Rather, look at other areas at this latitude, which are far away from all coastlines. And you'll find southern Canada. You'll find northern Mongolia, and parts of Russia. That's the kind of climate you should expect; the kind of winters you should expect. A minimum of four months of continuous snow cover is par for the course, especially in a pre-industrial world.

You could set your world starting climate to "warm" when you create it. That puts you near 30°N. That'll be comparable to northern India and Pakistan; central China; but also for example the western parts of Texas, and the Mexican border. You will experience a lot less winter down at those latitudes.

 

(That said - even I have noticed before that the leaves change color fairly early in VS, no matter where you are. Don't really have a solution to offer for that.)

I mean, I've lived in Michigan (basically southern Canada lol) since the 70s and it stays green most of the summer. We don't start getting brown until October, depending on when the snow first starts.

Also even on "warm," the grass and leaves brown by mid-summer. Spring is SO lovely and green, it would be nice if we could keep it for most of the summer too. VS doesn't have to model pre-industrial world climate, just raise the amount of time it gets brown. I'd love to wait til fall for it to get brown and winter til it snows.

[Thorfinn]

I have no idea what the weather is like in Austria, but on the Great Plains, things often start browning up in early summer once you get west of the 100th meridian. Particularly if you let the grass go to seed. By l late summer, fire risk is always at least High. USGS has a great page on fire danger if you care. https://firedanger.cr.usgs.gov/viewer/index.html

As you can see, Michigan (and probably mid-Canada) are still in low fire damage, into early October. I'd think regional climate would be an interesting addition, but it's not a big deal (to me) at this point in the game's develiopment.

I get the feeling that you are talking a personal aesthetic taste rather than realism, though...

Edited October 9, 2024 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

Seems like something that could probably be tweaked by taking the latitude and rainfall of the area into account. I don't mind the colors though--I like seeing vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows before it all turns into brown for winter.

[StCatharines]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

...on the Great Plains, things often start browning up in early summer once you get west of the 100th meridian. Particularly if you let the grass go to seed. By l late summer, fire risk is always at least High.

You aren't kidding. The 85°F days and 20°F nights, back and forth, sure don't help things, either! The representation of seasonal cycles in VS have seemed very realistic to me.

[Vytautas Saulė]

Well in my country, Lithuania, we are joking that there is no summer it's a spring till June end, and then the fall starts... You can see it nature all the grass if uncut looses it's green colours gradually and trees starting to get yellow and brown leaves especially if there is not much rain at that time. 

That said: I do love VS climate simulation although it has some space to improve more, making weather patterns more related to the landscape and to the wind direction, taking in account ocean or large body of water overall. For example I live by a lake and cold is two weeks later in my place, and even when it snows for the first time, snow melts like 50 meters from the lake, and beyond that line it starts to build a layer after layer. So having small climatic pockets of warmer, dryer or somewhat different climate would be interesting.

[ArgentLuna]

On 11/24/2024 at 7:33 AM, Vytautas Saulė said:

Well in my country, Lithuania, we are joking that there is no summer it's a spring till June end, and then the fall starts...

An Australian variation is there is no winter, just Autumn, Spring and 6 months of Summer

[Maelstrom]

On 11/25/2024 at 1:48 AM, ArgentLuna said:

An Australian variation is there is no winter, just Autumn, Spring and 6 months of Summer

So there's two seasons there?  The hot dry season and October (aka spring)?