Poll: morale and routing

[magnate]

If only that were the case. I've seen a lot of undamaged morale 30 ice devils rout when a single PD archer gets killed - whatever the negative modifier for watching your comrades die is, it can't be that big. I'm inclined to believe those who tell me that it's an automatic rout (and there's no distinction between his troops and other commanders' troops).

CC

[johan osterman]

Gandalf Parker said:

I think I will wait and see if the dev's pipe in. I thought that was how it was done now. The commander has a morale setting, the routing of his troops is harmful to his roll but not absolute, and there is always the items which can boost morale.

When all squads are killed or routed all remaining commanders flee, unless berserk etc.

[The_Tauren13]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
SC have plenty of advantages already, including low upkeep. No reason to make them even stronger. Now, if we take something and give something else, it's different. Such as greatly increasing the disadvantage of being surrounded. (-1 of each on front, -2 for each on flank, -4 for each on rear.).

OK here's a crazy idea that the devs are free to ignore

use esben's suggestion about being surrounded, making SCs weaker. then, bring back the old dom I attack commanders battle option, to make battlemages weaker. then, poof, typical recruitable troops become more useful, and maybe the AI's massed armies strat might actually work.

[Arryn]

The_Tauren13 said:
use esben's suggestion about being surrounded, making SCs weaker. then, bring back the old dom I attack commanders battle option, to make battlemages weaker. then, poof, typical recruitable troops become more useful, and maybe the AI's massed armies strat might actually work.

Since the devs created Dom 2 primarily as a MP game, I seriously doubt that they'd bring back a command that would dramatically alter MP play just to attempt to fix a SP issue, and one they don't seem to consider much of an issue at that.

You've made an interesting suggestion. It just has about as much of a chance of ever happening as we have of ever seeing a major UI change. Snowballs in Abysia, anyone?

[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

[The Panther]

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.

Actually, this is precisely the point. What sane commander would go ALONE into a battle anyway? The game simply should not reward a lone commander like it does now and heavily penalize the commander with a few troops or PD. It seems so very wrong to me. If anything, the game OUGHT to penalize the lone commander quite severly. Sending in a commander without an army is a somewhat warped and totally non-intuitive strategy that works only because of the current routing algorithm.

So, when the commander's troops are gone, no matter whether he brought any along or not at the start of the battle, he should rout fairly easily. But he should rout on his own, not because one measly point of PD has disapeared. The absence of troops should be nothing more than another strong factor in whether or not he will rout. Have him subtract 5-10 morale points or something like that because he has no army, regardless of whether it was killed in battle or he had none to begin with.

The current routing algortihm seems busted to me, despite the fact that people have figured a way to take advantage of it. Of course people want the status quo so they can continue to use the cheap flying SC strategy and not have to bother with the mundane and expensive thing like having an actual army.

This is just another of the reasons the AI plays poorly. It tries to build a real army, which does not work overly well against the lone SC attack, especially the SC pretender strategy.

[Morphem]

I completely agree with Panther here.
As a TBS game vet, thats the only flaw buggin me with Dom2 so far.

Lets have 2 exactly similar SC facing each other :
- one is alone
- one is grouped with some small unit(s)

The one with extra small units will be the one routed.
(as soon as the small unit gets killed)

I can't see any common or roleplaying sense here.

[Boron]

Morphem said:

I completely agree with Panther here.
As a TBS game vet, thats the only flaw buggin me with Dom2 so far.

Lets have 2 exactly similar SC facing each other :
- one is alone
- one is grouped with some small unit(s)

The one with extra small units will be the one routed.
(as soon as the small unit gets killed)

I can't see any common or roleplaying sense here.

if you exchange though some small units with some good units the one with the good units wins .

and a lone sc has no chance against an antisc-sc or against a sc killer brigade .
while the sc with troops has good chances to win against them .