Fear mechanics
 

At the behest of someone on the irc channel, I just ran some tests.

I made a prot 40 fear 15 commander with 0 att no armour no weapons, enc0, morale 30. I sent him against indies.

1. The indies routed despite him not doing any damage, so fear causes morale checks.
2. Many of the indies had very low or even negative morale scores, so fear reduces morale.
3. Only the indies right next to him got reduced morale from the fear, so the radius formula stated in the manual is wrong.
4. Despite base prot 40 he took damage from broadsword indies on numerous occasions, generally in the region of 3 or 4 damage a time. It was something like every tenth swing or so that seemed to hit and do damage. This doesn't seem to fit with what I understood about protection.

Conclusion - The manual is very wrong about fear.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Why very wrong?

1. is in accordance with the manual.
2. The manual doesn't say anything about this, so I'm not sure if it is actually wrong or just omitting stuff.
3. No it is not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif (unless the affected squares stack on top of one another or some other bug)

Re: Fear mechanics
 

1. "Rout is checked by squad ... a squad will take a morale check if: ... The squad is near a monster causing Fear"

I always understood this to mean that even Fear+0 causes morale checks every round, they're just fairly easy to beat at first.


2. I did some Fear testing awhile back too. It seems to have some sort of cumulative effect, which is in fact VERY different from what the manual states - I wonder if KO has the same version of the manual, or replied to the post without looking. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

"Units in a monster's Fear area of effect must take a morale check against the monster's Fear, or rout. The basic Fear effect requires a check against 10 ...The Fear strength itself is increased for every full +5 Fear, so a Fear +10 unit would ... force a morale check against 12."

In my tests, it was shown that not only does the Fear effect not just produce its own isolated rolls, but it rapidly deteriorates the Morale of adjacent units. This effect is cumulative over at least 3 rounds of exposure, and is measurably far greater than the Morale deterioration seen without Fear active. For this reason, many people consider Fear + Awe to be invaluable, and my testing confirms that it is incredibly powerful - perhaps too powerful. -- Just a recap, the manual does not state that the Fear does anything other than force a check, but it does reduce Morale as well.


3. My own tests had implied the same, that there is something awry with the Fear radius. It DOES describe it as "additional" squares, which says to me that it works the same as AOE spells do, but does that mean that Fear+0 radiates to only the 8 squares surrounding the monster, and that each point after that only adds 1 square? If so, then at Fear+12 you would finally get a full radius of 2 around your monster, however even with a Fear +20 PoD, I was hard pressed to find units that were not adjacent, that had measurably lowered Morale scores.


4. I've noticed this sort of behavior as well, it does seem there are reasons why lower damage units can successfully damage a very high prot unit. I can't explain why, the chances of scoring a decent hit have always seemed greater than the probability implied by a comparison of damage+str vs protection values.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

In fact, Fear is the ONLY thing which causes deterioration of Morale scores. Damage to a unit affects the bonus to
the Morale check for unit "intactness", not Morale itself.

By the way, Fear +0 has AoE 5 IIRC because it's actually Fear +5. (E.g. three Fear +0 items give you Fear +10.)

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Fear starts from Fear -5. That's from DomII, where Fear was different.

I'm not sure how it works, but Fear +0 having AoE 5 is certainly one quite probable option.


The protection/damage thing is also quite interesting.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

> In my tests, it was shown that not only does the Fear effect not just produce its own isolated rolls, but it rapidly deteriorates the Morale of adjacent units. This effect is cumulative over at least 3 rounds of exposure, and is measurably far greater than the Morale deterioration seen without Fear active. For this reason, many people consider Fear + Awe to be invaluable, and my testing confirms that it is incredibly powerful - perhaps too powerful. -- Just a recap, the manual does not state that the Fear does anything other than force a check, but it does reduce Morale as well.

As I said, an omission. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

> My own tests had implied the same, that there is something awry with the Fear radius. It DOES describe it as "additional" squares, which says to me that it works the same as AOE spells do, but does that mean that Fear+0 radiates to only the 8 squares surrounding the monster, and that each point after that only adds 1 square? If so, then at Fear+12 you would finally get a full radius of 2 around your monster, however even with a Fear +20 PoD, I was hard pressed to find units that were not adjacent, that had measurably lowered Morale scores.

It is 12 random squares close to the fear inspiring one, not necessarily the squares surrounding him.

It might distribute lik this (X=targeted square, M=monster)

I think it targets a square, and if that one is already targeted it tries to target a random neigbopring square of the first attempted square

Re: Fear mechanics
 

1. Yes it is. I was documenting things fear does, not points on which the manual was incorrect.
2. I think it's a major omission because it's a major featue of fear, but ok, technically I suppose it isn't wrong to omit that.
3. The test I ran seemed to indicate otherwise.

Let me put the full text from the manual up, regarding fear.

"Units in a monster's Fear are of effect must take a morale check against the monster's Fear, or rout. The basic Fear effect requires a check against 10. Unlike Awe, the bonus to Fear indicates the additional area of effect, not the fear strength. So a Fear +4 monster has normal Fear that radiates to 4 additional squares. The Fear strength itself is increased for every full +5 fear, so a fear +10 unit would radiate to ten additional squares, and force a morale check against 12. The base area of effect (Fear +0) is 6 squares."

Things that are wrong (not just omitted).

Units are routed by fear - I haven't seen individual units rout, just groups. If units refers to groups, why is the 'monster' referred to as a 'fear +10 unit'?
Fear value is aoe, not power - With fear 14 my monster should have had a fear radius of 20 (6+14) but the only units with reduced morale were directly adjacent.

I can't comment about fear value not = strength, because since the manual omits the whole thing about fear reducing morale, there's no reason it should mention that a high fear unit causes far more morale reduction than a low fear one (more than the +1,2 or 3 to the morale check requirement would suggest).


I'm not making this thread to complain, just to get some more info on how fear works. I went with the manual regarding the aoe but the tests don't appear to show it working that way.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

JimMorrison:

What do you mean by strength? Isn't it AoE of Fear increased every 5 levels of Fear and every point of fear making it harder to resist?

Re: Fear mechanics
 

> Fear value is aoe, not power - With fear 14 my monster should have had a fear radius of 20 (6+14) but the only units with reduced morale were directly adjacent.

This might be due to the fact that units regain morale every turn. Thus units not adjacent might have their morale restored to their normal value before it is comes into effect. Units closer to the fear source get their morlae lowered enough that they never have time to regain it, making it appear as if they were the only ones affected.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Hmm. Seems possible this would cause the test results. I didn't see a single unit that wasn't directly adjacent with reduced morale, but I didn't run that many tests, I admit.

Edit: And units regain morale on their own? That I also didn't know. At least I'm learning some stuff here.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

It's the other way around. AOE is increased for every point and resistance penalized for every 5 points. Otherwise it would be insanely powerful.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Empowering or getting D booster increases fear?

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Yep

Re: Fear mechanics
 

> I haven't seen individual units rout, just groups

A group is a unit, as is an individual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Units with no innate fear gain Fear(+0) at D5 and every subsequent D level increases the fear by 1. Units with Fear(+0) or more natively get an immediate boost from Death magic.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I've never noticed units regaining morale on their own. Admittedly, I've never run tests looking for it.

Standards are the counter to fear, since they'll continually boost morale up to base + their bonus. Working much like fear, but in the other direction.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

AoE 20 will be a radius of about 2, not 20. The ones directly adjacent are closer to the center of effect and will get hit more frequently; it's possible that others were getting hit too occasionally and just recovering. (The penalty to morale wears off.) It's hard to say. I'd probably try testing with Fear +50 or something, where the results should be more dramatic and obvious.

Edit: whoops, KO already mentioned this possibility.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

This notion of resisting is complicated.

As far as I can tell, Fear reduces morale, consistently, and constantly. The implication of what I've seen, is that the effect of having morale reduced, is irresistible.

If when people are talking about resisting, they are referring to making successful morale checks, then this is a bit misleading as well. Since next turn the morale continues to deteriorate, and morale checks are automatic every turn, it starts to seem more that the unit is just "withstanding" the Fear. The actual Fear effect still occurs, morale continues to deteriorate.


And KO, this seems like more than an omission. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif The problem is that all that we're observing only corroborates what we can observe, and not what is in the manual at all. Also, it might be worthwhile to take a look and see what is actually happening - if the Fear effect reduces morale AND raises the opposing roll, then it is effectually twice as strong as implied. That is, Fear +5 reduces morale by an additional point, and raises the opposing roll by 1 as well, giving an effective balance of a 2 point shift. Also, even Fear +0 will reduce morale by more than 1 point. You can watch it go down each round, though perhaps not as swiftly as with a stronger Fear, but stronger Fear drops morale by more than 2 points etc as well. It looked like the cap might be 5 or 6, but that is a huge amount, it basically means that some less disciplined units can practically be auto-routed by a D10 PoD, even before you start adding a Horror Helm or whatever.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

As far as units getting lucky blows, i had it benefit me twice in the 1st big game where my MA Ctis province defense killed a Bogus thug from Lanka, and later in the game a gor tartarian of Velusion.

So sometimes you just get very very lucky with the dice and your militia kill stuff they should not kill.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Sorry I meant aoe not radius. With aoe 20 I would have expected to observe units that weren't adjacent losing morale, which I didn't. However I was unaware units recover morale. That complicates things. I've learned several things from the test and this thread which aren't in the manual and aren't obvious at all.

As for testing with fear+50 - 14 is the highest base fear I could mod. I could have added death magic to get it higher though I'm not sure what the roof is. Base prot has a roof of 40 for example.


With fear decreasing morale constantly it's easy to see why Baalz dumping 6 lesser horrors onto an SC (regardless of his high morale) worked great and caused him to flee almost immediately, possibly autokilling him. The SC can only avoid this by being mindless because the reduction to morale apparently cannot be resisted. I imagine the same trick would work with big squads of ghosts and the like.

And yeah, standard is basically fear in reverse, so enough units with standard can counteract fear. That's assuming standard actually works the way the manual describes which in my experience is not a safe assumption to make.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I thought for some reason that Morale 30 units were unaffected by Fear. I'm AFG so I can't check, but there are multiple Morale 30 SCs available.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I don't think morale 30 is immune to fear. They can rout IIRC, but don't trust me on this. 30 is just a way of saying 'practically unroutable'.

I'm starting to think that you should not trust what I'm saying, so I'll say some more to confuse matters further http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Moral loss might have replaced the fear bonus http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
- Morale loss (and gain from standards) gets halved each round.
- Morale regain will only affect those not in melee.

Neither of these comes from trusted sources, they come from me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
JK is on vacation playing golf or something, so he can't shed light on matters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fear mechanics
 

IIRC you have said morale 30 means a unit is considered unroutable for the purposes of spells like Panic, Fear etc and tests have borne this out. The units can still get lowered morale from fear, but considering the types of units that generally have 30 morale, a unit with fear will usually be hacked to death before the fear will have had enough effect.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I do love you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif <3


Now, I am curious, is it just that 30 is the "practically unroutable" score for "normal" units? Is 50 reserved for Mindless? Because I thought 50 was REALLY unroutable, so I had been wondering why 30 also supposedly was. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Granted, failing a morale check against 30 is like a Markata hurting a geared Cyclops, but it could happen!

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Well, morale 30 units will retreat during army rout or when they get beat up enough, mindless units will either keep on keepin' on (golem) or dissolve from lack of leadership.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

50 and 99 are special cases.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I always thought 30 was just high morale but was told recently (by edi I think?) that it's special when modding and gives some sort of unbreakable (but able to retreat) tag.

Shame 99 in modding doesn't auto berserk :]

Re: Fear mechanics
 

just try starting the game with a unit with fear 15-20ish and attacking independents...


you tell me then if you think fear has any increased radius (I reckon you'll agree it's radius is still very very small)


so everyone reading the manual and thinking fear20 has a big radius is completely misled...

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Sombre,

It doesn't? I have this vague memory of modding in 99 in some of my test cases and I thought it did give berserk.

Namad,

People new to the game will generally be tempted to think that AoE X means radius X, and will be disappointed to learn that an AoE 9 Falling Frost is still pretty small. I don't think that's specific to Fear. Hmmm, I don't see this in the FAQ, I'll mention it to Edi as a possible add.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

If this is true, it probably explains why Sombre's Fear +14 commander only caused visible morale drop to adjacent units, because they're in melee with him and therefore don't recover.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Nope. I suggest you test it rather than ust believing me though. Always better to test.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

True. It's my own fault for posting while I'm AFG (http://xkcd.com/303/).

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I think the confusion comes from berserker state giving 99 morale?

50 I think makes a unit mindless, and 30 gives pretender style morale. Been a long time since I modded, so I may be wrong on these.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

There doesn't seem to be agreement regarding what 'pretender style morale' actually does/means.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

You pretend that you are unbreakable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fear mechanics
 

-Sombre routs in agreement-

Re: Fear mechanics
 

So...

Morale gets checked as a unit. So if you have a division of 50 units attacking a scary beastie, let's say only 10 are "hit" by the fear AoE roll, how does that work?

Is there just one roll for the whole division of 50 caused by the effect on a few, where presumably the morale is still averaged for the whole unit, and because 10 have been "hit" they carry a negative modifier, dragging the average down?

Re: Fear mechanics
 

That's how I think it works, Agema.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

That's how I think as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fear mechanics
 

BTW, fear stacks very, very well. Sombre mentioned my dirty horror trick which will rout any SC not mindless or berserk, but you can achieve a similar effect on armies rather than SCs. Horrors don't work very well for this because they spread out, but there are a number of fear aura units - nightmares, demon knights, ghosts, banshees, etc. When they engage in melee while clumped together it's pretty sick the effect on the front line's moral, each block gets hit by multiple fear auras and the moral instantly drops into the negatives most of the time. If you spread them out right so that this affects a significant portion of the enemy forces you don't have to do much fighting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Now what I'm curious about is how the moral checks are handled.

Do multiple fear aura's trigger multiple moral checks?
Does a 100 man squad make a moral check for everybody if just one unit is within a fear aura?
Do you make multiple fear checks if you have multiple triggers - ie hit by agony while inside a fear aura while taking melee damage.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Only one rout check each turn IIRC

Re: Fear mechanics
 

By "pretender style morale" I just mean what a pretender or prophet's morale is set to when they are designated as such. I don't think it gives any special bonuses beyond just being really hard to break.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

It turns out that morale regain can affect those in melee after all. See the final arena battle in the attached. At one point the Van's morale goes from 12 back up to 16, just before he dies.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I'm not sure if you need a copy of my active mods in order to run that. Just in case, here's my mods directory.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

A couple of other fear-related findings:

1.) I verified Sombre's statement. Modding morale to 99 does not make units go berserk. It does, however, make them behave strangely (cast Ironskin graphic on themselves every turn while not actually casting the spell) and then eat up all your computer memory on Vista. Conclusion: don't mod morale to 99.

2.) Morale 30 is (virtually?) immune to Fear. A small squad of Ditanu (4 + 1 Malik) fought defeated 200 Hydras where Iron Warrior'ed Umbrals would invariable route (even without taking any damage). The Ditanu's morale never dropped below 30 that I saw. Either Fear just doesn't work against Morale 30 units, or the Morale drop is an opposed roll vs. Morale.

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I use the Prince of Death quite frequently, and have often puzzled over the odd pattern of morale reduction. How come this one guy up close is unaffected but a whole square three ranks back is terrified? This explanation squares completely with my observations.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Yeah, it's the same as how Blessing, Legions of Steel, etc. can sometimes miss guys in the middle. I once had an H2 caster trying to bless himself miss three times in a row!

-Max

Re: Fear mechanics
 

hmmm...

if that's how blessing works...

than i wonder if the rabbis ever miss some of the salt? you may buy some kosher salt, only to realize it wasn't actually kosher due to the priest missing. oh how they would snicker at you in heaven.

maybe they're H3 priests, and just divine bless the whole... salt factory.

EDIT: hehe. actually, i don't think kosher salt is even blessed. i think it is called that for some other reason; so bad example.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

I always though "Kosher" meant the salt was slaughtered humanely.

Learn something every day, I guess.

Re: Fear mechanics
 

Poor salt. Killed so inhumanely