The war clock
The war runs 15 times faster than real time, so one war day passes in 96 real minutes. What follows the war clock, and what stays in your own time.
The war keeps its own time. The war clock runs 15 times faster than real time, so a whole day and night on the front passes in about an hour and a half of play. The things your own hands do, like aiming, loading and watching a shell fly, stay in real time. Everything slow and wide, like the weather, the front and the trains, runs on the war clock.
War time and real time
| War time | Real time |
|---|---|
| 1 war minute | 4 s |
| 1 war hour | 4 min |
| 2 war hours | 8 min |
| 1 war day | 96 min |
The clock sits at the top right in both views. It shows the day of the war and the time, such as Day 12, 06:42, and whether time is running at ×15, at half speed or paused.
What runs on which clock
| On the war clock (×15) | In real time |
|---|---|
| Day and night, weather changes | Shell flight (25–60 s), recoil, impacts |
| Front movement, supply, decay, regrowth | Soldiers' visible movement, charges, grenades |
| Train travel | Aiming, loading, the camera |
| Warnings, letters, operation timers | Radio messages and the interface |
So a shell still takes most of a real minute to land, and a charge still runs at a soldier's pace. But while you bracket a target, the best part of a war hour can pass, and in one evening of play several days and nights go by. See The shot and Seasons and weather.
Travelling by train
Train travel runs on the war clock: about 1.5 to 2.5 war minutes per km, a realistic 25 to 40 km/h. In real time that is about 6 to 10 s per km, so a 10 km trip takes 15 to 25 war minutes, or a minute or two of yours. The times on a route are war-clock arrivals. See The rail network.
Warnings
When the enemy masses to attack a place with an open key story operation, the radio and the map warn you, and a countdown pin appears. In normal difficulty you have 2 war hours, which is 8 real minutes. On the relaxed setting you have twice as long: 4 war hours, or 16 real minutes.
Rustcoats massing at Brennhof. 1 h 52 m.
Letters and dates
Letters and promises are kept on the war clock too. A request to light up the sky on the 14th means the 14th by the war clock, and that night comes whether Old Marta is nearby or not. See Letters.
Pausing and half speed
You can pause anywhere with P, or play at half speed with Shift. A paused clock is easy to spot: it is the one time the war clock lights up. See Controls and Accessibility.