Poll: morale and routing

PvK · #1 August 27th, 2004, 07:15 PM

Seems to me the least popular selection in this poll is the best, unless I'm not considering something.

Panther's suggestion of a morale check is flawed because there are really two different types of commanders for this question - ones which might want to stand alone against an enemy army, and everyone else, who wouldn't, as Arryn pointed out.

Sheap's suggestion would allow players to provide an exception to the general rule, and this would also solve the long-standing issues with super combattants routing when their minor allies rout.

PvK

Sheap · #2 August 27th, 2004, 08:28 PM

Well I can certainly understand the desire to leave the current system alone. But in reality no matter the situation you will have cases where your units either rout too soon or don't rout soon enough.

I really don't think Panther's idea is very good, though. Instead of having all your commanders rout because your troops died, instead half of them would rout, leaving the other half to die. So now instead of routing and losing the battle, you rout, lose the battle, and then a bunch of your mages die as well.

The_Tauren13 · #3 August 27th, 2004, 11:13 PM

hmmm... if you lose the battle, dont you think you deserve to lose half your mages?

Arryn · #4 August 27th, 2004, 11:45 PM

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
hmmm... if you lose the battle, dont you think you deserve to lose half your mages?

No.

Any military commander who's not brain-dead knows when a battle is lost and when to retreat to save his forces for another day. Only a fool or a madman (not that there's a difference) wastes valuable lives.

Cheezeninja · #5 August 27th, 2004, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Arryn said:

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
hmmm... if you lose the battle, dont you think you deserve to lose half your mages?

No.

Any military commander who's not brain-dead knows when a battle is lost and when to retreat to save his forces for another day. Only a fool or a madman (not that there's a difference) wastes valuable lives.

Arryn i believe you meant any commander who's not undead

I finally beat everybody to the cheezy Ermor pun, and boy do i feel clever. =)

The_Tauren13 · #6 August 28th, 2004, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Arryn said:

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
hmmm... if you lose the battle, dont you think you deserve to lose half your mages?

No.

Any military commander who's not brain-dead knows when a battle is lost and when to retreat to save his forces for another day. Only a fool or a madman (not that there's a difference) wastes valuable lives.

ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

Arryn · #7 August 28th, 2004, 12:57 AM

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

I've said that myself. However, be that as it may, none of us are perfect, and thus we can (and do) make mistakes such as misjudging an enemy's strength. And, if one does get themselves into a situation that is hopeless, the smart thing to do is retreat, as quickly as possible, so as to conserve as much of your force as you can so that you can try again later. Some call it a learning experience, and one needn't suffer a slaughter in order to realize one has made a mistake. As for deserving punishment for mistakes, only masochists enjoy and desire them. Which is why certain games (like Doom 3) exist, to fulfill the needs of such folk.

The_Tauren13 · #8 August 28th, 2004, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Arryn said:

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

I've said that myself. However, be that as it may, none of us are perfect, and thus we can (and do) make mistakes such as misjudging an enemy's strength. And, if one does get themselves into a situation that is hopeless, the smart thing to do is retreat, as quickly as possible, so as to conserve as much of your force as you can so that you can try again later. Some call it a learning experience, and one needn't suffer a slaughter in order to realize one has made a mistake. As for deserving punishment for mistakes, only masochists enjoy and desire them. Which is why certain games (like Doom 3) exist, to fulfill the needs of such folk.

since battlemages are far stronger and more useful than troops, losing half of them when you lose a battle would be a good thing; it would help balance that out. i mean, would you rather buy 20 militia or a mage? about the same cost, but the mage is far more useful.

Cainehill · #9 August 28th, 2004, 02:33 AM

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:

Quote:

Arryn said:

Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
hmmm... if you lose the battle, dont you think you deserve to lose half your mages?

No.

Any military commander who's not brain-dead knows when a battle is lost and when to retreat to save his forces for another day. Only a fool or a madman (not that there's a difference) wastes valuable lives.

ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

Most people don't go into a battle planning on losing. But even if they "don't go into battle unless they can win", it doesn't mean they're 100% sure they'll win. Historically, commanders can and do gamble - balancing the loss of 100 men (or 1000) against the benefit gained if they do win.

They also go into battle because, while they're not sure they'll win, they know that the other possible battlefields and situations will be worse.

And they go into battle figuring that while they may lose, they'll inflict greater casualties on the enemy - this is especially true both of military defenses and ambushes.

An example of this in Dom2 is sending 4 or 5 spellcasters with a screening troop of 10 or 20 militia or archers in front of them. Going against, say, knights, they can expect to lose - the knights are going to tear up those screening troops, but are going to sustain heavy casualties from the mages.

This is _planned_ for by the force with the mages and militia.

And you think that they _deserve_ to lose half the mages, who are sitting all the way in the rear of the battlefield???

Nice to know the kind of superior military intellects who are in favor of demolishing, I mean, improving, the current morale system.

Esben Mose Hansen · #10 August 28th, 2004, 08:49 AM

OK, a few Last points.

I never wanted to nerf immortality. I just mentioned a few easy ways to do so, if it proved to be a problem. From the above, it seems to be vampires that are the problem, if any. That can be solved in a mod, and is therefore irrelevant to the current discussion.
The arguments that "it would be a matter of just killing the chaff" etc. is just lame, for obvious reasons. Just use quality soldiers.
Most importantly, the entire reason I proposed this was to illustrate that the proposal wasn't about fixing a flaw, but was about making SC even more powerful. I think sheap, Arryn and others have illustrated this point nicely by now. I find it extremely funny that after proposing a SC-boost, these people turn around and deride "my change" as a whine-de-jour. Just like Norfleet did, really
To bend this point in neon: I proposed this change without any hope that this would happen, but solely to prevent SC to become even stronger by proposing another fix that would stop the "The Moloch is treated so unfairly". That was all.