Fear?
 

How exactly do your various Fear/moral check causing spells (like Terror or Panic) work? I swear, I've never seen any unit rout because of them.

In the manual, it says that units rout as entire squads (p.80). Does that mean a fear inducing spell needs to encompass the whole squad to have a chance of effectiveness? So they're basically worthless against large squads then?

Or can they cause individual units to rout (not that I've ever seen that - but then again, I'm not very observant)?

What am I missing?

Re: Fear?
 

Fear spells like Terror or Panic will lower the morale of the soldiers they effect... not the squad. However, it is my understanding that a squads' morale is basically an average of the morale of all the units in that squad.

Therefore, several units with reduced morale will drag down the rest of their squads' morale... think the first few units turning to run, and then the rest of the squad joining in.

Likewise, boosting the morale of several individuals in a squad (or just having several high-morale individuals)) will raise the morale of the squad as a whole.

Re: Fear?
 

I have seen lots of units run because of Frighten. I used it as the basis of my early expansion as LA T'ien Ch'i against a lot of high level independents that I just couldn't recruit enough troops to beat fairly.

Re: Fear?
 

Do they force morale checks, or do you also have to do damage to have a chance of breaking the squad?

Re: Fear?
 

They force morale checks, I think. I'm pretty sure I've frightened off units which haven't taken any casualties.

Re: Fear?
 

Ctissian sauromancers spamming both raise skeletons(to hold the enemy and occasionally hit them) and terror can rout most troops with morale below 15 and probably higher(only used against 15 morale or less).

Re: Fear?
 

Well, for example, Frighten is supposed to cause a "Fear +15 attack". But what the heck does that mean?

Says nothing about lowering anyone's moral. I know a squad forced to make a moral check needs to beat a "fear roll" (p.80), but again, that's for the whole squad. If your spell only hits part of a squad, does the whole squad have to pass the check?

The mechanics are a bit confusing...

Re: Fear?
 

> They force morale checks, I think. I'm pretty sure I've frightened off units which haven't taken any casualties

Correct.

> If your spell only hits part of a squad, does the whole squad have to pass the check?

In the case of 'Frighten' and other single target fear effects- no.
In the case of all area fear spells - yes.

Re: Fear?
 

I think the whole squad has to take a check, against the average morale of the squad (which is lowered because some of its members have lowered morale - you can see this if you right click on them). But I don't know what the +15 means.

Re: Fear?
 

I don't understand, I thought moral rolls were only checked at the squad level. Only whole squads can route, so how does a single unit making a check differ from a squad making a check? Presumably a failure routes the whole squad, right?

Also, I read somewhere somebody claiming that a fear aura effectively stacked with awe because it lowers moral, but that doesn't fit my understanding of how it works. Do the mechanics of a fear aura work the same way (forcing a moral check to people within the radius, but not effecting moral itself)?

Re: Fear?
 

Carrying on from Baalz point above .... well, slightly .... I am having a somewhat frustrating time in a game at the moment trying to make use of the fear effect of False Horrors (Fear 0+).

Trying to rout some particularly low morale troops without any success. The False Horrors fly in and then get trampled by elephants with minus something (-5 to -1) morale. No more False Horror and unrouted elephants trampling their merry way deeper into my rather thin ranks of fliers.

Does the fear effect have to work on a significant chunk of a squad to yield a morale check or is one individual in the squad enough ?

Re: Fear?
 

I don't think we've actually gotten anywhere in understanding this.

If frighten doesn't cause the squad to make a morale check and doesn't lower the morale of the units hit, what does it do?

I was under the impression that fear etc reduced morale and caused a check - if they don't actually reduce morale that seems sort of crappy.

Re: Fear?
 

(Hopefully I won't add to the confusion,) but frighten will lower the morale of the units hit and then other events (such as dying comrades) will cause a morale check and you get your payoff. And in the case of false horrors against elephants, making them skittish is good, but you need to be able to hurt them some as well to push them over the brink and into full rout.

Re: Fear?
 

A few days ago I sent my 200 men strong pythium army consisting of the Hastatus (sp?) unit against a AI tien´chi army consisting of the Master with iron crutch (ethereal, spamming a AOE fear spell) and 30 units of random trash.

My entire army routed into enemy occupied territory http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif and that was with one enemy spamming fear. Right now I am preparing a little surprise fear attack against my friend, lets see if it works as well against him.

One noteworthy things is that I lost zero units so fear must be doing something with your moral.

Re: Fear?
 

The manual seems to state pretty clearly that a squad that is exposed to fear then takes a morale check. It's listed along with a squad taking casualties (or wounds I think I remember it being termed).

I have used frighten in the past and you can really make your opponents morale drop but you have to make them take a morale check for them to rout. My understanding was that Terror causes fear - so in theory you could frighten to lower morale and then cast terror to generate a morale check.

My understanding was that fear yields a morale check and False Horrors have a fear aura or whatever its called.

Re: Fear?
 

Don't forget Digress that in the midst of those elephant hordes are Strategoi commanders with morale enhancing standards. That helps a fair bit too I think.

Re: Fear?
 

Correct. Fear lowers morale and forces a morale check. Frighten is a special case and it only lowers morale of the target, but if combined with a morale check (from casualties, fear spells or a fear aura) it is useful.

'Rat Tail' works like frighten. The unit struck by it has morale lowered significantly.

Re: Fear?
 

Are you sure about 'Frighten' Kristoffer? It is an AOE spell, just AOE 1.

Re: Fear?
 

Yes.

Don't use false horrors against things that can trample them. Or armies with lots of arrows, as they ignore defense and can mass thier attacks easily to break ethereal.

Re: Fear?
 

In my example I didn't really need them (the false horrors) to stick around very long - kept spamming them hoping to generate more morale checks. At least one a Horror - assuming that morale checks are carried out BEFORE melee combat.

I guess the Strategoi standards are stacking and helping in the battles I lost.

Should you see the effects of the standards in the battle replay ? The units further away from the standards seem to have the worst morale but even the units near the standards have pretty poor morale.

Re: Fear?
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif No, I'm not sure. I didn't know it was AoE1. I still think frighten is a special case, but I'm not sure anymore.

Hmm, after checking the code I'm starting to change my opinion. It might actually induce a morale check. which would make it quite powerful with regards to its low level.