NewTroski said:

This is going to sound like a stupid question, but does anyone have any links to the effects of ice cold on something like culture so I could translate that into game features?

Coming from a very warm climate (it's sunny about 320 days a year) I have never seen snow, or really don't know much about cold weather - so it's hard to relate.

froo said:

Where I am it is going to get down to 23F tonight.  So personally, I think this isn't a real question on your part, so much as a way to BRAG.

I don't have a specific source, but I have read that one reason the Norse mythology was so fatalistic was in part due to the dreary weather.

I went to school in a place where you pretty much didn't see the sun from October-April.  The school counseling center had special UV lamps because some people become badly depressed when they don't see the sun for an extended period of time.

From my experience in living with places with a lot of snow: It can be fun to go sledding/skiing/skating/etc. but overall the snow is a pain in the rear.  You want to go to the corner store?  Go start your car then take 5-10 minutes to de-ice it.  That's assuming you already shoveled out your driveway.  This doesn't translate directly to WH of course, but doing stuff when it's really cold and snowy takes extra time, since you have to put on the proper clothes before you go out and get the snow out of the way.  It also takes more effort, since you're wearing more stuff, you're pushing through the snow, and everything becomes soaked/ built up with ice.  It's also more expensive, since you have to buy more clothing, you might need to convert your coach to have skis instead of wheels, and that stuff really isn't useful at other times.  So yeah, snow = more time, more effort, and more money

People native to a cold climate like that usually can't take the heat - over 90F and they start whining about how hot it is.  My dad used to say, "You can always put on enough clothes to stay warm, but you can't take off enough clothes to stay cool."

Aye, the suicide rates in Scandinavia attest to the fact that awful weather leads to awful things.

Take a look at this article and scroll down to the section about seasons (just under a map of the US of A) -  emedicine.medscape.com/article/288598-overview

In part this is already in game - those awful Norsemen, raiding the sunny southern countries, driven to desperation and madness by living in such mind-blasting conditions (and I don't mean just the weather).