Poll: morale and routing

[magnate]

My first poll, following on from interesting suggestions in the Dammit thread (thanks to Panther and Sheap). This may take some editing to get right ....

[Esben Mose Hansen]

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.).

[Boron]

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.).

battlemages would become MUCH stronger too .
they would be the real winners imho :

i would then only BUILD battlemages + scs to guard the battlemages .

this would be boring


the disadvantage of being surrounded is already high enough . 24 vampires can sorround 1 SC . No sc survives this .
with 11 attack for vampires about 5-15 should hit each turn depending on luck .
because of their ap attack they do normally always damage + fatigue which lowers defense again .

same with ghosts .

[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

[Pickles]

The same morale issues should also apply to troops. As a long term miniatures gamer it used to confuse me to see a few archers standing shooting when hordes of other troops went fleeing past but morale is only taken on a "squad" by squad basis not on an army level. On the whole the basic game systems are pretty simplistic but they do a job. The only real "bug" is that one point of PD is a liability if there is an SC, for example, around (as other situations can be worked around).

I would prefer a more sophisticated army morale system such that the morale of all units (leaders or "squads") was effected by things other than just their own casualties
(& eg fear spells). This would subsume the current quirks so that a unit would check morale if it's leader was killed or if another unit broke or was destroyed & heroes would be just another type of unit. There could even be more than 2 morale states, fine & routing could be joined by "shaken" -2 to att & def maybe.

However that would require a rebalancing of the game & is more a Dom3 wish list item rather than a patch issue so I am happier with the current system that some attempt to paper over a few cracks.

Pickles

[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.

[Arryn]

Pickles said:
I would prefer a more sophisticated army morale system such that the morale of all units (leaders or "squads") was effected by things other than just their own casualties
(& eg fear spells). This would subsume the current quirks so that a unit would check morale if it's leader was killed or if another unit broke or was destroyed & heroes would be just another type of unit. There could even be more than 2 morale states, fine & routing could be joined by "shaken" -2 to att & def maybe.

However that would require a rebalancing of the game & is more a Dom3 wish list item rather than a patch issue so I am happier with the current system that some attempt to paper over a few cracks.

I, too, would prefer a more miniatures-like morale system, but that -- as you say -- would entail a major rewrite of the game.

[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.

[Gandalf Parker]

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.