Re: Just an idea
 

That would probably fall under the AI bonus multiplier (none/low/medium/high).

All you've gotta do is decide on what a reasonable bonus factor is for each level.

Re: Just an idea
 

Chewy, I agree on the lower morale and higher for peaceful & pacifists type races, They would have more of tendancy to lose or gain morale when going to war or losing a battle, especially the pacifist. I would think peaceful would start low but gain faster then pacifist types. I forgot neutrals, hmm have to think on them. In regards to warriors, berserkers, etc, my opinion only, they should start at 1-2 levels higher in beginning due to their racial trait. I'm just concerned that in human vs AI play and with AI not being all to brite sometimes, that an imbalance could happen. I think the ideas are excellent and I'm all for them. If you could discern the difference between AI & human this might help offset any advantage a human would have over AI. We might have to set up some type of system that breaks the traits into seperate areas and assign different morale & experience modifiers for each type. Like
1 peaceful, 2 warrior, berserker, etc, 3 neutrals, 4 pacifists, etc. I'm not a modder so I don't know if this could be done without hard code changes. Like I said, I think the ideas would be excellant additions to the game.

just some ideas mac

Re: Just an idea
 

If I remember correctly in Caesar 2, the AI armies had morale as well, but I am pretty sure it was reset with every new battle that took place, which was not so for the player. That's not a realistic way to go about it in SE4, but what about a natural decay rate or rather increase rate in bad morale for the AI. Something along the lines of the natural anger decrease that is in the game already. That way it would be modable. This certainly should not be the case with Human empires though.

Either that or as mentioned, the bonus. Maybe both. And the reverse should be true that the human empire's morale drops dramatically when the computer destory's its ships.

Another thing, and this pertains mostly to the math that would support all this. I really like the idea that SJ mentioned earlier, where a long war between two empires would grind down morale. In order for this to happen, the plus/minus ratio would have to be on the side of the minus. I guess what I am getting at, is say if you destroy one of your opponent's ships and he destroy's one of yours, both of equal value and without a computer bonus, will your morale go down, or even out?

Just more blah...

Re: Just an idea
 

What a great thread!
Morale is such an important strategic component of real politics & war, and yet almost no strategic games include it!

If any or all of the ideas mentioned so far could be included, that would be great. I especially like the idea that destroying ships with legendary status would affect morale more... destroying key enemy ships (like the Bismark, WWII?) should definitely affect morale. This would greatly increase the importance of precision strikes and sneak attacks through cloaking, etc.

A morale rating should definitely affect the likelyhood of ship mutiny. Whether each ship gets it's own rating (taking into consideration things like shore leave and supply levels) or there is an empire-wide rating doesn't even matter, if the morale is high, why would they mutiny?

The only thing I would really add to the discussion is the concept of "civilian" morale. If a tiny planet/low population planet is captured by an enemy, there should be some degree of change in the empire-wide morale (presumably a negative effect). If a heavily populated planet is captured, there should be a much more significant morale change.

If on the otherhand a planet or system is glassed by an opponent, there should be a very significant change in morale! If 2 billion of your citizens are utterly vaporized in combat, I think that would result in a change in moral. Perhaps this type of genocide would act to increase the morale of the defenders' empire! (incensed by the atrocity?)

Just some thoughts.



------------------
-Jimbob

Re: Just an idea
 

as for glassing planets affecting morale, i think that it should raise morlae. Only because when one planet is glassed it usually means a few others are going to follow bc new systems are usually not as well defended. This should raise morale in the fact that it would give the troops a rally cry or something like that. However, if a homeworld is glassed then morale should be lowered a lot. And if capital facilities are ever put in for system capitals then their glassing should lower morale as well. But that wouldn't happen any time soon.

Re: Just an idea
 

You have a point Chewy on raising morale on planet bashing, but I would like to see where this would or could affect other AI players as far as attitude towards anyone who wipes out a planet, but especially towards one who uses a star destroyer wiping out a system. The exception would be those races who are xenophobic, berserkers, psychotics, and warriors. This would increase their attitude towards you. The more planets/systems you wipe the worse they feel towards you up to the point of declaring war on you Therefore your morale would go up for winning but it would have certain consequences attached forcing you to make decisions such as capture or wipe clean.

Another aspect of this, would be those races including yours that are peaceful or pacifist, that when you glass a planet or how you do it ie; plague, would cause your race morale to drop even if your ship morale goes up, this in turn could escalate tht the more its done, the chances of revolt on your planets go up, more so on any planets that you have captured from the same race as those you made into parking lots. Something on these changes would have to go to hard coding I would think, so unless a lot of the players like the ideas, I don't see it happening....

just some ideas mac


just some ideas mac

[This message has been edited by mac5732 (edited 05 October 2001).]

Re: Just an idea
 

I too think that a morale rating for ships would be a wonderful idea. Morale for planets is already sort of in there as happiness. It goes up or down based on different things that happen. Though an enemy glassing someone else's planet isn't one of those. Losing your own planets will affect happiness in the rest your empire though.

Morale for ships though sounds like it would be a lot of work to implement. What if we could get the experience to act as a variable to defend against crew insurrection or the ability of boarding crews. This wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it might be a lot easier to do, and thus might be more likely to happen. What do you think?

Geoschmo

Re: Just an idea
 

geoshmo, If it can be done that way, i'm for it, SJ earlier in thread had a good idea tying the experience & morale with percentages. The hard part would be to come up with a workable variable so as not to imbalance the game in human vs AI game. The AI, no offense, is so-so at times in using what it is given to use. So a balance would have to be looked at carefully and tested. It sounds good to me,

just some ideas mac

Re: Just an idea
 

i think it would be fine if it were linked to experience. After all the more experienced someone is the more confidence they will have hence a higher morale or at least will be less likely to be affected by things since they've "seen it all" and yeah if exp could affect ship insurection i guess that would be acceptable. But if they can do that, then happiness for planets should effect the PPP success or other intel projects like that too.

Re: Just an idea
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:
I too think that a morale rating for ships would be a wonderful idea. Morale for planets is already sort of in there as happiness. It goes up or down based on different things that happen. Though an enemy glassing someone else's planet isn't one of those. Losing your own planets will affect happiness in the rest your empire though.

Morale for ships though sounds like it would be a lot of work to implement. What if we could get the experience to act as a variable to defend against crew insurrection or the ability of boarding crews. This wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it might be a lot easier to do, and thus might be more likely to happen. What do you think?

Geoschmo<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree completely with you geoschmo. The second important new thing would be that the experience (= morale) can be reduced by events such as lack of supplies, loss of battles in the system, damaged components of the ship.