Poll: morale and routing

[magnate]

Surely battlemages would be almost the least affected? If something can rout a battlemage's escort, wouldn't the mage fail a morale check? They tend to have much lower morale than SCs. If they passed, they might get killed anyway.

Esben, I don't see this as making SCs any "stronger" - anything which can kill them will still kill them. It just removes a mechanic which hampers them unjustifiably. If you feel that this mechanic is necessary because they are too powerful, that's something slightly different. If you want to argue that SCs should be toned down, I won't disagree with you. But I still think the routing mechanic should be changed. It just doesn't make any sense that any commander routs without failing its own morale check.

CC

[Arryn]

magnate said:
It just doesn't make any sense that any commander routs without failing its own morale check.

Sure it does. It's *common* sense. How many officers would stick around to face an enemy, alone, after their troops have fled? Answer: none that are sane.

[magnate]

Arryn said:

Sure it does. It's *common* sense. How many officers would stick around to face an enemy, alone, after their troops have fled? Answer: none that are sane.

I'm getting quite frustrated here - you are just not getting the point. For a 10hp, 10 morale human commander yes, I agree with you, he won't hang around when all his men are killed. He will fail a morale check and flee.

For a 200hp, 30 morale uber-beast, it's a different matter. What do they care if the infantry or archers or whoever they are get mown down (probably trampled by their own fleeing mammoths)? Unless they are sorely wounded and fatigued themselves, they wouldn't rout. In a fantasy game, that's "*common* sense".

I'm not saying that anything major needs to change, just a morale check instead of an auto-rout.

CC

[atul]

magnate said:
For a 200hp, 30 morale uber-beast, it's a different matter. What do they care if the infantry or archers or whoever they are get mown down (probably trampled by their own fleeing mammoths)? Unless they are sorely wounded and fatigued themselves, they wouldn't rout. In a fantasy game, that's "*common* sense".

Hm. Pick a movie, preferably featuring the most fearsome weapon of destruction known to Hollywood, Arnold the Brute. Mr Stallone probably applies too.

If he's fighting overpowering enemy with some companions, the minute the wimps flee Arnie follows to cover them or drag their bodies to safety.

After an emotional scene when companions preferably die, our hero embarks on a quest of revenge, packing the biggest guns available in the movie's universe. Eventually alone kicking butt of the army previously so overwhelming against the company of wimps.

So, it makes perfect sense that SCs with troops rout as the troops rout. And don't claim you haven't been brainwashed by Hollywood, everyone with an access to Internet has been.

[Cainehill]

magnate said:

I'm getting quite frustrated here - you are just not getting the point. For a 10hp, 10 morale human commander yes, I agree with you, he won't hang around when all his men are killed. He will fail a morale check and flee.

For a 200hp, 30 morale uber-beast, it's a different matter. What do they care if the infantry or archers or whoever they are get mown down (probably trampled by their own fleeing mammoths)? Unless they are sorely wounded and fatigued themselves, they wouldn't rout. In a fantasy game, that's "*common* sense".

Gee - I just lost a 200 HP, 30 morale uber-beast pretender, because after all the infantry and cavalry was mowed down, the _archers_ behind him were still plinking away at Man's heavily armored knights. Said knights surrounded uber-beast and lanced him into a grave in 2 turns, tops.

I'd say that yes, the SCs _should_ still pay attention to their troops, mostly.

IMO, it's only that summoned creatures shouldn't count / matter for making commanders rout, whether it be the Moloch's imps, or the single phantasmal warrior one of the mages stupidly summons after hir script runs out.

That, and possibly some changes to what happens when a commander dies in an all-commander force - force a morale check on each death, since if there are nothing but commanders then some friendly casualties might be expected.

[tinkthank]

Although I agree with Magnate and his description (I think the vision is: Big, bad, ugly Beast has his "army" of rabble which would just as easily jump on a sword and slay itself as run into enemy ranks -- Tolkien did some good descriptions of the Commander/Grunt psychology here), I think the current system must remain as it is until Dom3 comes around for balance reasons. If there were no autoroute, it would make certain scenarios (e.g. Wrathful Skies, Big Bad SC) overwhelmingly powerful, and that is a Bad Thing, since everyone would just rush to duplicate some form of overwhelmingly powerful scenario and the whole game would become a cookie-cutter boredom producer.

[The_Tauren13]

well it already seems to me that the game is nothing but a race to the ice devils/ air queens...

but im just a n00b

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Another, simple idea that would fix this problem: Make armies without troops rout always, without exception. Would make SC use so much more ... interesting. And summoned troops, single point of PD etc. would no longer be a liability, which I agree makes little sense.

[Arryn]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
Another, simple idea that would fix this problem: Make armies without troops rout always, without exception. Would make SC use so much more ... interesting. And summoned troops, single point of PD etc. would no longer be a liability, which I agree makes little sense.

An exception should be made, if IW were to do this, for lone pretenders. Gods should not be subject to the same rules as mortals.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Arryn said:An exception should be made, if IW were to do this, for lone pretenders. Gods should not be subject to the same rules as mortals.

Why not? How can the god do battle without the support of his believers? Without belief the god is nothing Besides, making it so for everybody makes it more even, and SC (including Gods) will still be important... they just need to lug around an army of sufficient size, instead of being one-man-armies.