Morale

[Endoperez]

IIRC, banners don't boost morale, but make it rise to the original again. That is, they negate negative effects (Panic spells, people dying from the squad), while you'd need something like a Sermon of Courage to actually increase morale.

[Taqwus]

Wouldn't mind seeing some refinements, 'tho, ex...

- immortals taking a serious morale hit outside of their own dominion, because now... they might actually *die*

- units getting a morale bonus when retreat is not an option

- possibly, units having a -1 modifier if they fled a battle in the previous month (note: a +1 for victory would be easily abusable)

[Kristoffer O]

Banners and stuff increase morale and may even raise it a bit above original lvl. Morale tries to return to original morale level, a bit each turn. Brave soldiers loose their bravery if far from the banner, and frightened soldiers regain their lost morale if their squad is not subject to attacks or spells.

As someone said there is also an armyrout rule that makes the whole army rout when a certain amount of troops are dead or routed. Even if there are just 50 archers left they seem to have done us incredible harm, best not attack them!

[Hadrian_II]

Kristoffer O said:
As someone said there is also an armyrout rule that makes the whole army rout when a certain amount of troops are dead or routed. Even if there are just 50 archers left they seem to have done us incredible harm, best not attack them!

Does the armyrout rule just count the death troops, or does a death War Minotaur count harder than a death meaenad?
Or asked otherwise, throwing lots of chaff into the grinder might actually hurt you?

[TwoBits]

Yeah. So don't lose too much of your cannon fodder - they're expendable, but not that expendable.

Perhaps the developers need to create some kind of "morale point" system for different units. Say, a commander or an elite sacred unit might be worth the equivalent of 5 other units, while a militia/thrall/manead might only be worth 0.5.

Think Longshanks from Braveheart - "Send in the Irish, they're cheaper than arrows." No offense to any Irish folk here

Wadda ya' think, can we have that ready for the next patch?

[Kristoffer O]

> Think Longshanks from Braveheart - "Send in the Irish, they're cheaper than arrows."

An old classic

It might be HP related, but most likely not.

[TwoBits]

Glad you enjoyed the quote Kristoffer (however inaccurate it may have been)

Relating moral to a unit's HP might be a start, but that doesn't necessarily reflect a unit's true worth, or "morale value" to the rest of the army. That creepy old man might only have a few hit points, but he might be able to kill scores of the enemy with a single spell - and on the flip side, his getting plugged early by an arrow might cause his fellow soldiers to get a tad depressed.

I know it might be a little much to expect major tweaks to the morale system like this in a patch, but you guys might want to consider it when contemplating 4.0. I guess I should post this in the 'wish list' thread, but since I'm here now...

At a minimum, I think a pretender death should cause an automatic moral check by all units, or more likely an automatic rout by the entire army. After all, you've just seen your god die in front of you. That's got to be a buzz-kill

[Taqwus]

...or perhaps national / non-national troops.

Although, defining national troop is slightly tricky when you take spells and mods into consideration.

Ex. --
- anything directly recruitable by the nation definition
- anything recruitable from a home magic site
- anything sacred (incl indy priests?) ?
- anything summonable by this nation but not all others?

[Saulot]

I have to say that I'm opposed to the automatic morale check by all units in case of pretender death. Immortal gods die quite a bit, and it's not much of an issue there.

[Ewierl]

Kristoffer O said:
As someone said there is also an armyrout rule that makes the whole army rout when a certain amount of troops are dead or routed. Even if there are just 50 archers left they seem to have done us incredible harm, best not attack them!

Personally, I've found that this rule provides some strange efeects in practice. If you have a really solid SC but a big disadvantage in terms of armies, you end up forced to keep your SC alone, since bringing any troops whatsoever raises the risk of "automatic whole-army rout" when your troops die off in droves.

I've often seen this rule produce strange tactical requirements if you're fighting with thugs and SCs. You end up needing to keep your chaff protected!

Basically, I think the "army casualties -> army rout" connection is problematic. Let squads rout individually, don't force that Gorgon to rout just because Maenads are getting chewed up by spells.