Tuidjy said:
You sound like someone who has skied for fun, always having a nice hot bath available if needed. A medieval soldier would not be very happy about risking half a dozen new ways of death, in order to campaign in winter.
I grew up in Northern Bulgaria, which is one Hell of a lot warmer than most of Russia and Scandinavia, and I can tell you that just having to sky to the outskirts of the village to check on my grandfather's sheep was a pain in the neck, and when I had to take tools and materials (to fix things) I preferred to walk. Some winters, the Danube would freeze, and wolves from Romania would be threatening the herds and flocks. I do not remember these winter nights fondly... camping on the move must be a lot worse than huddling in a shepherd's hut.
I don't know your history or your physical condition, but your argument here is overemphasizing many things, and forgetting a lot of others. Your experience does not erase the fact that people have done what you describe and harder things on top of that for a good while before anyone had the luxury of an immediate hot bath. If winter lasts for 5-6 months a year then everyone has to know how to ski. Otherwise you can't get around, and you sure as hell aren't going to survive the winter without help, because summer is short and you need to hunt for food.
We have records from the 1800s when this was still practiced in parts of Northern Fenno-Scandia and Siberia. Men would gather together during february or march, and assign who was to be chasing and spearing the deer, and who was to follow with a sled (pulled by either a man or a reindeer) to come up and skin and chop the carcass. The spearmen would try to surprise the deer and give chase until the deer collapsed in the snow, or the hunter caught up and killed it. They kept warm by staying on the move and drinking soup from a flask, and hunted from dawn to dusk (meaning around 8-10 hours depending on the time of year).
After they stopped they dug a pit in the snow, made a large fire, cooked, and hanged their clothes to dry and continued in the morning until they had enough meat to last for a while. A spearman would continue to do this several times every winter until he wasn't fit for catching up to the deer, and was then assigned for just following the others and skinning and chopping the prey. Usually this would happen around the age 35-50, depending on health. All of this was done in deep snow, because otherwise the deer wouldn't tire fast enough.
In addition to this, even softer modern people use skis for hunting, and every Nordic military has sking as part of the training. We carried around 50kg of gear while sking 30-40 km per day, and that's what you'd expect from just a regular scout, specialists have it harder. Staying isn't an issue if you can make a fire and/or have any spare clothes, you're not going to get cold if you don't just stand around and remember to drink.
Honestly only wolves have a reputation for getting hunters killed by sweating and getting cold afterwards, because you had to chase it a lot longer than a deer, and were often too exhausted to set up camp by yourself.
A good pair of ski would have been expensive to make, difficult to maintain, and a lot less durable than modern ones are.
This is simply false. People made backups and skis were thicker and longer than modern ones, sometimes the other one was padded with fur so you could kick more speed with it. Durability isn't an issue unless you're an incompetent skier.
Also, different terrain would be quite treacherous to specific kinds of skis. Are you going to be restricting yourself only to roads? Are you going to have your army advance in a file or in a line? Both have their issues. You will be moving in unknown terrain, over unknown debris.
Forget it. There was a reason that there was very little raiding in winter, and practically no warfare. Yes, I can think of three famous winter marches. There is a reason that they are famous. I can also think of quite a few winter disasters.
I'm not aware of any pre-modern skis that couldn't have been used in deep snow. There wouldn't have been any point for modern sport-skis because all the roads were covered in snow. The ones we used in the army were wide and semi-long forest skis, historical skis were even longer so you wouldn't sink in the snow. Either way a regular forest ski is suitable for most environments.
I do agree that melee battles on skis sound ridiculous, it's simply too clumsy and impractical. They are and were used for moving around but I don't think that's enough to justify putting skis into the game. I'm not arguing that medieval warfare would have happened during the winter, I'm simply stating that raiding wouldn't have been impossible at all.
Lord Brutus said:
No one is exempt from the ravages of winter. That idea is ridiculous. You begin a march with 120 troops and after two days you have 80 because the rest deserted. Let's hope they stay close to reality in this case. I am in favor of the player doing things besides large scale combat in winter.
That is horse****.
