Just an idea

Menschenfresser · #1 October 4th, 2001, 04:31 PM

Excellent, SJ. That sounds like a perfect solution, and incorporating exp. into the mix is brilliant.

The whole key here is to make morale seriously hurt or help an empire. If it just provides a slight advantage or disadvantage it won't have much impact. And of course, the option to turn it off should be there.

mac5732 · #2 October 4th, 2001, 05:17 PM

I also agree with what Menschenfreser said earlier about AI opponets and morale & experience. A human would take advantage of these but there would have to be some changes to get the AI to do the same in these areas as a human would, These ideas are great but we have to watch that a balance is struck between human & AI opponets. If the human player uses it and the AI is so so in these areas we could have a major imbalance of play. Also what about those races that have warrior, berserker, etc traits, I would think that due to their style they would start at a higher morale and experience level because of their trait. Also when they win, levels go up higher, but when they lose maybe an above average drop. On the same hand those that are peaceful or pacifist in nature would have lower levels in these areas as well.

just some ideas mac

chewy027 · #3 October 4th, 2001, 06:02 PM

mac i don't think that a pcifist or peaceful empire should necessarily have a lower morale. They should be slower to loose morale but also slower to gain. Having a lower morale doesn't really make sense to me. On the flip side, the warriors and berserkers. They should be quicker to gain and quicker to loose.

As for the AI maybe they could gain a large increase in morale when winning a battle against a human as opposed to another AI

Suicide Junkie · #4 October 4th, 2001, 07:41 PM

That would probably fall under the AI bonus multiplier (none/low/medium/high).

All you've gotta do is decide on what a reasonable bonus factor is for each level.

mac5732 · #5 October 4th, 2001, 07:42 PM

Chewy, I agree on the lower morale and higher for peaceful & pacifists type races, They would have more of tendancy to lose or gain morale when going to war or losing a battle, especially the pacifist. I would think peaceful would start low but gain faster then pacifist types. I forgot neutrals, hmm have to think on them. In regards to warriors, berserkers, etc, my opinion only, they should start at 1-2 levels higher in beginning due to their racial trait. I'm just concerned that in human vs AI play and with AI not being all to brite sometimes, that an imbalance could happen. I think the ideas are excellent and I'm all for them. If you could discern the difference between AI & human this might help offset any advantage a human would have over AI. We might have to set up some type of system that breaks the traits into seperate areas and assign different morale & experience modifiers for each type. Like
1 peaceful, 2 warrior, berserker, etc, 3 neutrals, 4 pacifists, etc. I'm not a modder so I don't know if this could be done without hard code changes. Like I said, I think the ideas would be excellant additions to the game.

just some ideas mac

Menschenfresser · #6 October 4th, 2001, 08:06 PM

If I remember correctly in Caesar 2, the AI armies had morale as well, but I am pretty sure it was reset with every new battle that took place, which was not so for the player. That's not a realistic way to go about it in SE4, but what about a natural decay rate or rather increase rate in bad morale for the AI. Something along the lines of the natural anger decrease that is in the game already. That way it would be modable. This certainly should not be the case with Human empires though.

Either that or as mentioned, the bonus. Maybe both. And the reverse should be true that the human empire's morale drops dramatically when the computer destory's its ships.

Another thing, and this pertains mostly to the math that would support all this. I really like the idea that SJ mentioned earlier, where a long war between two empires would grind down morale. In order for this to happen, the plus/minus ratio would have to be on the side of the minus. I guess what I am getting at, is say if you destroy one of your opponent's ships and he destroy's one of yours, both of equal value and without a computer bonus, will your morale go down, or even out?

Just more blah...

jimbob · #7 October 4th, 2001, 10:42 PM

What a great thread!
Morale is such an important strategic component of real politics & war, and yet almost no strategic games include it!

If any or all of the ideas mentioned so far could be included, that would be great. I especially like the idea that destroying ships with legendary status would affect morale more... destroying key enemy ships (like the Bismark, WWII?) should definitely affect morale. This would greatly increase the importance of precision strikes and sneak attacks through cloaking, etc.

A morale rating should definitely affect the likelyhood of ship mutiny. Whether each ship gets it's own rating (taking into consideration things like shore leave and supply levels) or there is an empire-wide rating doesn't even matter, if the morale is high, why would they mutiny?

The only thing I would really add to the discussion is the concept of "civilian" morale. If a tiny planet/low population planet is captured by an enemy, there should be some degree of change in the empire-wide morale (presumably a negative effect). If a heavily populated planet is captured, there should be a much more significant morale change.

If on the otherhand a planet or system is glassed by an opponent, there should be a very significant change in morale! If 2 billion of your citizens are utterly vaporized in combat, I think that would result in a change in moral. Perhaps this type of genocide would act to increase the morale of the defenders' empire! (incensed by the atrocity?)

Just some thoughts.

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-Jimbob