RELIEF CLOCK
1:35
OPERATION
FIRST PUSH
0 of 6 towns open
100
50
62
Six towns are sealed. The clock starts when you take the front.
FRONT 1
THE KELD VALLEY · DAY NINE OF THE SIEGE
COLDFRONT
You are not a soldier, you are a weather front. Drag to place the low that drags the cold air with it, raise the surface pressure to deepen the front, and take each town hard enough, fast enough, to lift its siege before the clock runs out.
- Dragplace the low; the front follows it
- W / Sraise or drop surface pressure
- A / Dtrim the bearing by hand
- Spacecommit a surge
- Shiftbacking wind, and it costs
- Rrebuild the front on fresh air
THE FRONT IS HELD
Paused.
The clock, the cold air and the valley are all exactly where you left them.
FORECAST OFFICE · VALLEY BULLETIN
How a cold front is worked.
- The field is real
- Temperature and moisture are advected across a grid by a wind field built from pressure, then bent around the ridgelines. Terrain deflects and accelerates it, so a straight push rarely arrives straight.
- Drag to place the low
- The trough you place pulls the cold air after it. The front chases the low. Park the low and the front piles into it and stalls.
- Pressure and depth
- Raising surface pressure deepens the front and makes it run, and drains the pressure store. Drop it to coast and recover, and the front goes shallow — and a shallow front lifts nothing.
- What lifts a siege
- A town fills its gauge only while the front over it is deep, sharp-edged and moving. A stalled or washed-out front does nothing at all, and warm air slowly pushes a partial gauge back down.
- Water and ridges
- Cold air crossing the river picks up moisture and bites harder, but the water drags on it. Ridgelines turn it. Use the gaps.
- Later
- A second front comes off the northern wall, then a warm sector opens from the south-east. Q swaps which front you are steering.
THE FRONT BROKE
The siege held.
The clock ran out.