Winter
Winter is the fourth (first in the Ambush and Sheltered scenarios) and one of the two deadlier seasons in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, alongside summer.
Winter is followed by spring, a more warm and welcoming season.
Weather
As one can very well expect, winter is the coldest season. The weather will start off with common flurries at the start of the season, but it will change to common snowing and occasional snowstorms as the season progresses. The cold weather does have one useful property however, it will freeze foods, making it very useful to preserve meat.
Plants and food problems
The biggest challenge in winter besides the cold weather is the extreme food scarcity, underbrushes won't provide any sort of food during winter, no fruits will grow, and even flowers cannot be picked during winter, making preserved, non-perishable and canned food much more valuable. Swamp creatures don't seem to spawn in this season.
Tips
- Warm clothes are a must for winter, this is advantageous in itself as warm clothing is typically thick enough to provide good armour as well as warmth.
- Clothes for leg warmth are a bit trickier to come by compared to upper body clothes, long underwear, compression shorts, or leg warmers can take the edge off by wearing them over typical pants until you can find army winter pants, ski pants, fur pants, etc.
- Because no fruits or vegetables can be found or farmed in this season, hunting is useful, as some animals will still spawn.
- Due to the extreme scarcity of the food it may be a really good idea to start eating non-perishable food.
- Try to maintain healthy diet or else your health stat will start deteriorating - multivitamins and Gamma globulin shots are especially useful for that.
- If worst comes to worse, cannibalism is an option to not starve, but not everyone will be able to go through with eating their friends.
- By this season, most monsters will have evolved into their more powerful forms, so make sure you're prepared if you're planning to raid cities during this season.