Morale
 

I just lost a battle cause my troops decided to run away in the moment of Victory, and as this just felt very wrong i was thinking about the Morale System.

As i understand it, the morale of an Unit just goes down until it routs. As this can even happen in the moment of victory maybe you should get a bonus to the morale, if your troops are standing on the enemies half of the battle map (as if to get there, they had to defeat the enemis army).

My Army had a quite low morale, so it is not the problem that she decided to rout, but that she decided to do so when the enemy was defeated (just some [about 50] archers and unconcious mages left, while i had still about 150 troops left).

Re: Morale
 

Throughout history, forces which have been in a winning position have crumbled due to bad morale. I agree that the morale system has problems, but in this case I think all you need is a bit of sermon of courage to keep topping up the morale of your troops and to see them through to the win.

Re: Morale
 

I love the morale system.

There is nothing like a battle of hundreds of troops coming down to one commander. That one pissant inde commander charging the massed enemy as all your troops run for home. With one kill he routs their overwhelming force. When the turn is over he is the only man in the province. A true hero.

I try to keep a pissant in the very back just for that reason.

Re: Morale
 

Yeah, I actually think the morale system is very good, seems like one of the strengths of the game to me. The whole combat system is pretty amazing in fact. I was having a little think earlier today about how Johan must have programmed it. My conclusion was Johan is a genius. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Morale
 

The combat system is good. It has a realistic feeling to it for the most part.

There is the occasional time how ever when the morale system leads to silly behaviour. Such as when infantry spends a few rounds charging archers, taking a few casualties in the process/. Then when they finnaly get to the archers and everything is a sure win,they decide to turn around and run, taking more casualties in the process.

Re: Morale
 

To my mind the biggest problem with the morale system is that it makes milita even more useless, since you auto rout once you reach a certain number of casualties. In the Skaven mod I made a workaround for this, because real Skaven soldiers aren't supposed to care if the slaves die.

It is suggested in the game text and in the manual that such cheap troops make good arrow fodder, when actually the reverse is true, since their casualties are just as likely to rout your army as losses to your elites, who are better protected.

Re: Morale
 

Morale is one of the least observed factors in the game and it is completely ignored in most computer games. It took me a while to get used to it, but once you look at your units in a broader way, you see it as another strength or weakness, just like armor or weapons. You then have to cast spells to buff what you think is important.

Also, you can directly attack morale. The fear causing items can turn battles that look like easy victories. Is it possible the mages had hit you with some of that before they passed out?

Re: Morale
 

Besides that, there are also various monsters with fear aura. It can really wreck your troops' morale. Ever tried Prince of Death with dominion 9-10 (for Awe) and high death (for increased Fear)? Knights with 5 morale are a pitiful sight.

Re: Morale
 

I dont say that the morale system is bad. But as i understand it, there is except from spells no way to get your morale up again, maybe if you kill enemys, you could get morale from that action so that you dont rout while you are winning.

Re: Morale
 

What about that banner/standard bearer ability? Can't that boost your morale?

Re: Morale
 

IIRC, banners don't boost morale, but make it rise to the original again. That is, they negate negative effects (Panic spells, people dying from the squad), while you'd need something like a Sermon of Courage to actually increase morale.

Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Wouldn't mind seeing some refinements, 'tho, ex...

- immortals taking a serious morale hit outside of their own dominion, because now... they might actually *die*

- units getting a morale bonus when retreat is not an option

- possibly, units having a -1 modifier if they fled a battle in the previous month (note: a +1 for victory would be easily abusable)

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Banners and stuff increase morale and may even raise it a bit above original lvl. Morale tries to return to original morale level, a bit each turn. Brave soldiers loose their bravery if far from the banner, and frightened soldiers regain their lost morale if their squad is not subject to attacks or spells.

As someone said there is also an armyrout rule that makes the whole army rout when a certain amount of troops are dead or routed. Even if there are just 50 archers left they seem to have done us incredible harm, best not attack them!

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Does the armyrout rule just count the death troops, or does a death War Minotaur count harder than a death meaenad?
Or asked otherwise, throwing lots of chaff into the grinder might actually hurt you?

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Yeah. So don't lose too much of your cannon fodder - they're expendable, but not that expendable.

Perhaps the developers need to create some kind of "morale point" system for different units. Say, a commander or an elite sacred unit might be worth the equivalent of 5 other units, while a militia/thrall/manead might only be worth 0.5.

Think Longshanks from Braveheart - "Send in the Irish, they're cheaper than arrows." No offense to any Irish folk here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Wadda ya' think, can we have that ready for the next patch? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

> Think Longshanks from Braveheart - "Send in the Irish, they're cheaper than arrows."

An old classic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

It might be HP related, but most likely not.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Glad you enjoyed the quote Kristoffer (however inaccurate it may have been) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Relating moral to a unit's HP might be a start, but that doesn't necessarily reflect a unit's true worth, or "morale value" to the rest of the army. That creepy old man might only have a few hit points, but he might be able to kill scores of the enemy with a single spell - and on the flip side, his getting plugged early by an arrow might cause his fellow soldiers to get a tad depressed.

I know it might be a little much to expect major tweaks to the morale system like this in a patch, but you guys might want to consider it when contemplating 4.0. I guess I should post this in the 'wish list' thread, but since I'm here now...

At a minimum, I think a pretender death should cause an automatic moral check by all units, or more likely an automatic rout by the entire army. After all, you've just seen your god die in front of you. That's got to be a buzz-kill http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

National vs indy diff, perhaps
 

...or perhaps national / non-national troops.

Although, defining national troop is slightly tricky when you take spells and mods into consideration.

Ex. --
- anything directly recruitable by the nation definition
- anything recruitable from a home magic site
- anything sacred (incl indy priests?) ?
- anything summonable by this nation but not all others?

Re: National vs indy diff, perhaps
 

I have to say that I'm opposed to the automatic morale check by all units in case of pretender death. Immortal gods die quite a bit, and it's not much of an issue there.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Personally, I've found that this rule provides some strange efeects in practice. If you have a really solid SC but a big disadvantage in terms of armies, you end up forced to keep your SC alone, since bringing any troops whatsoever raises the risk of "automatic whole-army rout" when your troops die off in droves.

I've often seen this rule produce strange tactical requirements if you're fighting with thugs and SCs. You end up needing to keep your chaff protected!

Basically, I think the "army casualties -> army rout" connection is problematic. Let squads rout individually, don't force that Gorgon to rout just because Maenads are getting chewed up by spells.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

I would just like to agree with Ewieri 100% here. I have been winning alot of battles but my army has routed just because the chaff got slaughtered. I now place my chaff at the rear of the battlefield on guard commander/hold and attack orders. Its only there to siege castles...and suicide at some opportune moment (thus save me the upkeep), its usually the free militia/flagellants from random events.

I have found this to be a huge problem with Pangaea and maenads as well. You can't put quality units in the same army with maenads, as the maenads die so quickly your army routs at 50% casualtys. Then your quality troops are in danger as they retreat off the battlefield. Also its a huge mircomanagement pain putting the army back together again.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

In my Skaven mod I have skaven slaves which, using a sort of fudge of the way units work, only count 1 death in army routing for each three that die.

It works fine and they are actually useful as chaff, unlike normal milita.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

Perhaps an easy fix for SCs and thugs would be that commanders who are not leading troops are not subject to automatic routing.

So you can bring your Wrym, commanding no units, and a commander with chaff to soak up some lances or something. The chaff gets killed on the lances, and the commander routes because he was commanding units. But the Wrym sticks around to fight (still subject to normal morale checks, but not automatically routing).

Or here's an even easier fix: just get rid of the automatic routing at 75% troop casualties, or whatever the limit is.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

One time I have found the 75% casualties useful is that it is the only way an undead army will route.

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

One might call this useful, but I don't think it makes sense. Let the commanders make some morale checks for whatever reasons, and if they flee the army is screwed; but if 75% of your zombies have died, why should that slow down the remaining 25% of the mindless slavering horde?

Re: Morale\'s a reasonable element.
 

When 75 % of the zombies died their leader feels it's a lost cause and rout. THe zombies just stand there and dissolve as their leaders no longer care to keep them together.

The 75% rule is part balance thing, part thematic in the sense that the soldiers and the leaders of the army are supposed to percieve the battle as lost due to too much casualties. The 75% rule could possibly be a bit more dynamic, but we definitely need some ary rout rule, and as long as players know the deal (which wasn't the case in dom2) I consider it quite fair. As you know what you get you can try to compose your armies accordningly, and not include too much chaff.

In dom2 it was impossible to know why the army decided to rout. I had it explained to me several times by JK, but I could never visualize the math behind it so I always forgot. The current system is blunt, but works OK and is transparent enough for players to grasp what happens, and I have come to believe that that is quite important.