TARGET morale issue need to be solved

[Khan7]

Well, I haven't played the expansion enough yet to have a relevant opinion on this point.. my only comment is to Yagyu:

You have gotten WAYYY ahead of yourself. You are making claims and arguing with an agressiveness that you cannot possibly support with your verrrrrrrrry limited knowledge of military history and theory. This is something that I often do (despite my rather impressive knowledge of the aforementioned), so I'm just telling you this as one stubborn hothead to another. But you really frankly don't quite know exactly what you are talking about (no offense intended-- it's just a frank observation).

But I will have to explore the expansion more extensively before I can really comment on the question at hand..

------------------
Khan7

[JAG]

i am with swoosh and all the others who feel strongly against this. . .one of the main things which took me so long to grasp as a newbie was the morale and y suddenly i lost and all ran away. . .it is one point about the game which has given it such long life! i have been playing this game since the 1st day it was out (only bout 10 months online), and still on the odd occasion i get it wrong just with 1 unit and against a good player i am punished and lose! this is what i love. . it makes even when u r clearly winning the game tense! knowing that if u allow some1 to flank u even if it is a ashi it might be the end of the battle! i am extreamly dissapointed more so than i could put in words at this new invincibility which has been created one of my main reasons for sticking with the game has gone and one of the strategies in a fight

------------------

Watch out for that. . . . . Dam too late!. . . the story of my life!

WarlordWarrior

[Nelson]

I see no problem with morale in the SP campaigns at this time. Units have been routing with regularity in my games. Granted, I haven't played every campaign but then... I've only owned the game for a week! Jesus, within days of its' release the sky begins to fall after a few guys rush to get online! "The MHC are over powered! Morale is busted! Newbies will like the changes! (A BAD thing?! Why? Because it takes 10 minutes to defeat them instead of 5?) MP will never be the same! Woe is us!"

Please, some semblance of perspective is in order here. I'll say right up front that I haven't been online with MI yet so I am willing to concede that all of the abovementioned gripes about MP are true and MAY need correcting. I believe you can take what Puzz3D says to the bank. That said, I'm just like thousands of other purchasers struggling to find time to play the game BY MYSELF. Let's not allow MP myopia to cause any rushes to judgement, especially if those judgements disregard unforeseen or uncared about effects in SP. The concensus around here on the SP side of things seems to be very positive although, again, it has only been a week. I believe that the single player campaigns are the bedrock of the game. They are not practice for the "real thing" online. They ARE the "real thing". MP is something I do with friends for a diversion. So whatever changes are contemplated, they must preserve the balance and playability of SP campaigns first and foremost. Clamoring for big changes to the game will be fruitless if SP isn't considered. Here's hoping we can somehow all get what we want.

[celtiberoijontychi]

This improved morale thing is happening only in Mongol vs Japanese games or in Sengoku games too?

Does it only affect multiplayer or Single player too, and then, in both campaigns or only in the mongol campaign?

I could understand that in the mongol game morale was improved, since it is a war between nations, and it is not the same to fight against an enemy clan than to fight for the survival of your beloved country...

[DragonCat]

I am primarily an online player and as I said before, I don't think there is such a cataclysmic problem as people are stating.

As for online play:
Against very good players like AMP, my armies are defeated and units are routed. I don't seem to stand a chance against him and I played him five times in a row just to prove it! My men ran like little girls.

Against newbies, I defeat them and rout their units like the aforementioned little girls.

Against people in my same league we have close, tough, hard fought, tooth and nail, fingernail biting combats that go down to almost the last man. This is because we are able to counter each others attempts. THIS is where the fun is.

I truly fail to see the problem. Unless all you are really interested in is using cheesy tactics to gain an unfair and unbalanced effect for a cheap win. Sorry, but if the shoe fits, you're going to have to wear it.

The battles I've had with the new game online are FAR superior to what went on before. (although I would like to beat AMP at least ONCE!)

By the way, I have more online comp games with the new edition than anyone else (except AMP who has just now crept ahead of me), so I think I do speak with some authority.

Maggy I ABSOLUTELY agree there should be Mongol vs. Mongol. One of the things I want to do MOST OF ALL is to contest you on the field for the Title of Mongol Warlord!

I love this forum and was really happy to come back. But I am dismayed and distraught over how easily people go way overboard based on so little information.

GET A GRIP, FOLKS!

OK, rant off.

------------------
DragonCat
"On the prowl . . . ."

[Swoosh So]

Actally amp has had 12 compeditive losses so far about 1 in 4 i think, yes he still beats me maybe its a mindset thing and amp learns games fast ala shogun hes def top 5 and populous, but i find theres no tactical play a flank u can get but it isent really rewarded, example i defend nagashima on the temple hill the guy (not amp) has an army of shock troops not all monks a mix nag cav nodachi monks now anyone rushing me on nagashima will lose but this wasent the case he charged and because his troops all kill better i am beaten even thou i got both flanks this isent tactical play??? in the old game this rush would have been suicide and rightfully so but here its going to be a fashion, whats the point of holding troops?? we will see less tactical play with this new morale system im sure in my opinion h0 troops are now like h3-4 troops!! even better, now if u like the new morale settings u could play high honor games ie 12000-20000 and get h5-6 troops but what of the rest of us who like the 5000-6000 koku gamesand the morale factor? if morale was dropped u could still play your 20000 koku games and i my 5000-6000, so in my opinion it has to be changed even if half like it and half dont. both can be happy with the settings you your 12-20000 koku games and the ones who want morale our 1000 to 6000 games. this is the only thing i can see to make both sides of this issue happy, its unfair to sit there saying theres not a problem because u dont mind, some of us do mind and this solution would keep both happy.

Swooosh


[This message has been edited by Swoosh So (edited 08-17-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Swoosh So (edited 08-17-2001).]

[TakeshidaSo]

I agree with all the comments that suggest not panicking, in fact if you have MI you are probably not going to, because panic is prohibited. I think the Morale structure of STW operated perfectly. Most ancient battles had few casualties up until the time the army routed. The greater number of losses occured during the pursuit. All the talk about "my enormous kills", often came from killing routing troops. The pursuit portion of the battles were just as critical as skirmishing, and the initial melee. STW has the realistic feel of ancient warfare. As a tabletop miniature gamer, for many years, I can say STW battles kept my armies in their cases. It doesnt matter if the tactical battles are Online or in the SP campaigns; MI shouldnt replace the realistic Morale system of STW with a more user-friendly one, just to make it more popular. In my long online experience, people who were willing to discuss and\or learn about morale factors, became better and better tacticians. I think this learning curve has been replaced with a need only to become familiar with the units, and how to match them up. The need to understand morale, and use it to your advantage, seems to be removed in favor of a more sanitized version of war. Maybe less realism will make the game more desirable, and make it more like a lot of other games I can think of. I know this could very well be the intention, but I dont have to like it. There is always talk of how "I was winning up until...", so let me ask; if you were winning why didnt the enemy rout instead of you? I tend to think its because you let the enemy rout a portion of your army, and the rest were close enough to be effected by it, and that you need to improve your understanding of morale's effects. Charging cavalry, or any charging unit, may make the target take a morale test, but it doesnt automatically lower that targets morale. The argument that the General's death shouldnt affect tired beaten up troops, who may also see routing friends, is unrealistic. The General's influence over your very real prospects of life or death were too important to you to just smile and be happy. You get a bonus if the General is nearby, and a minus if he dies, so you dont want to be nearby if he dies. You want a game thats not realistic, because its easier for you to do unrealistic things that you think you should be able to do. What is the Morale, or Fatigue, setting for? Why did most people play below 10,000 koku per player if they really wanted this kind of simulation? Why remove that flexibility from the game structure? Most everyone played some games with high koku or Morale and Fatigue settings off, at different times, and they are fun games. They just werent the commonly accepted games. Didnt STW's system allow for more flexibility, and more realistic options? Maybe you want to use settings in a different way than others do, but how can you defend the fact that others have had the lower end options raised, when the higher end options were never that popular before?

[This message has been edited by TakeshidaSo (edited 08-17-2001).]

[Polar]

Swoosh, can't agree with you more!
The moral issue sucks the most amoung other things. Moral was what made this game better than all other RTS. We can't just charge and hope for the best like we do in other games.
I think the devlopers just reduced the moral impact to please the the crowd audiance. How often do you hear newbies shout "Why my men all ran? don't you hate that?" WOW, cool! now I can play AOE with ten thousand men chopping!
I admit the xpac is a good game, but cant we do some little things to make it better? If the moral is not fixed with a patch, I don't see how I can enjoy the game as long as I did the original one. (maybe thats what the company intended to accomplish?)
I've never played a game for this long....

------------------
Polar the ugly

[Polar]

And Mongol vs. Mongol too.
Why do the developers have to tell us what we can or what we can't do? They don't even play the game!
We are the ones who play the game, and all we want is the freedom of choice. If someone don't like fighting their own race, fine, pick another race. For the rest of us, give us the option please!!!

------------------
Polar the ugly

[Alastair]

Polar, ahehe, the devs DO play the games. If they didn't, the game would be much crappier than it is now, because the devs wouldn't have any idea if their coding came out correctly.

[Polar]

LOL alastar, I know what you mean. Of course they do play the game. In fact, they have to!

But are they enjoying the game they made? Are they playing online every night? Or they only test play the game before its released as their job?

All I know is that they didnt even find the F1 bug during their "test play"....

------------------
Polar the ugly

[Target]

Yeah, but we found loads of other ones

I don't know about the other guys, but I haven't played online at all. We had in office Shogun tournament when the game first came out last year, and I was one of the first to get knocked out. Still, I was up against the guy who worked on the battlefield AI, so it came as no surprise.

[Polar]

UHHHHHHH! Finally, we lured our target out

Target, can you explain the reason of reducing the moral impact in the game, and whether the developers will consider changing it with a future patch??

We are curious

------------------
Polar the ugly

[Target]

Morale was one of the combat stats that was tweaked when trying to balance the Mongol units. Most of the time, normal bog-standard units like the Yari Ashis and the Arquebusiers would take one look at the mongol units and leg it.

Morale drops rapidly when soldiers see their mates dying in copious numbers around them - and killing quickly is something the Mongol units excel at. The morale was adjusted so that the Japanese would at least hang around long enough for samurai to try and stick their yaris into the enemy - fine for battling Mongols, but it makes them a little more resiliant to the old units. We thought we'd hit a happy medium, but it looks like we might have been wrong.

Yeah, Polar, of course we'll consider changing it for a future patch if that's what the community wants, but the argument still seems to be raging on at the moment, and Europe still haven't got their hands on the XP yet.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

my targetting mate
feel free to email my Khan Target he will bring u a nice message...

btw we should combine quotes

------------------
Quote I gallop messages around, dont track me I can bring war as well[/QUOTE]

[Polar]

Target, thx for the response, at least theres still hope

I think most vets played the game so far think the moral is a bit too high. Maybe somewhere in between the current one and the original will be optimal.

My suggestion is to give japanese units a moral bonus when they are facing mongol army. Because, they are fighting to protect their homeland, women, and children. Unlike in sengoku period, where they are fighting civil war for landlords.

[Khan7]

Here is another example of the new morale engine (originally posted in another thread):

>>So, all that said, back to the immediate topic: with the new system, you can have an honor 2 YS unit, ALONE, charge thunderbombers.. all but 7 guys get blown to bits.. those remaining seven are countercharged by a unit of ordinary Korean Spearmen.. the YS fights like mad to the very last man.. then the next YS comes up.. gets knocked down to 36 due to thunderbombs.. and fights like mad to the very last man..

Analysis: aside from the fact that thunderbombs are going to be wet-your-pants-all-through freeky for medieval Japanese troops who haven't been trained to go up against such things, and aside from the fact that just about anyone (even a well trained modern soldier) is going to utterly lose their will to fight if their unit takes 90% casualties in the first few moments of combat-- the plain fact is that IF a close-order melee unit were all alone and got THAT badly torn up by explosives so quickly, the survivors would be too disoriented and disorganized to go on fighting even if they really truly wanted to.

[TakeshidaSo]

I agree that the game needs to be studied world wide and enough feedback gathered before any adjustments are made. Couldnt the morale modifiers for heavy rapid losses be adjusted instead of the whole system? Since everyone is reporting a pretty easy time with the Mongols even after the attempt to strengthen the Japanese units, maybe some of the Mongols abilities to kill so rapidly is over-inflated. This fellow you mentioned who worked on the battlefield AI, where has he gone? Whether or not units with low honor and low morale fight to the death, and whether or not units ever rout with enough men left to rally again, are MP and SP issues. Online head to head play is the real test of whether or not the tactical engine is still functioning in a realistic way. What happens with higher koku valued armies, or when the armies are strengthened with Morale or Fatigue settings?

[Swoosh So]

Target i can understand what you are saying about the jap v mongol units but isent that what high koku is for? at the moment we have no choice its super units or old shogun, if it was set back the players playing v mongols could choose higher koku games and the jap v jap we could lower the koku is 5-6k the most popular online choice at the moment we are forced to play low koku games to get anywhere near the right morale effect and this means we cant use the weapon/armor upgrades and we cant have any 'crack units' unless we sacrafice not having the full 16, when all that needs to be done is for the people that want to face the mongols to play high koku games and people who want proper morale included in the games can play the normal 5-6k games.

Swoosh

ps. i really hope u guys can fix this i really like the new cmapaign single player but the online game just isent playable for me in the current state.

[Trousermonkey]

Though now I can only lend weight to the previous arguments, I agree that the moral change has reduced the fun of the game.
Charging into an opponents flank or quickly crushing the AI's ashigaru general to tip the scales enough to force a rout was the best part of the game. Even though I've only played the game for a week now I've noticed that many of these tricks no longer work and in most cases soldiers fight to the end when they should have routed. I'm not as concerned about obvious errors like the rout bug and the F1 key but gameplay issues like changing the moral system should be taken very seriously.
I will reserve my final opinion for when I've played the game more thoroughly but my gut feeling is that I won't change my mind.

[DragonCat]

I must respectfully disagree. I played several games today that turned on the morale issue.

I agree that the morale should be tweaked, but not much at all.

Lets say old morale sits at 1 on the scale and new morale sits at 10. Then slide it back to about 7.5 and it will be about right. Maybe 8. Certainly not to 5 or lower!

------------------
DragonCat
"On the prowl . . . ."

[JAG]

swoosh polar i agree with u guys 100%! plus target thnx for posting it is appreciated by all i think!

------------------

Watch out for that. . . . . Dam too late!. . . the story of my life!

WarlordWarrior

[KumaRatta Yamamoto]

Dragon cat, i'm getting the same feeling as you ("I truly fail to see the problem. Unless all you are really interested in is using cheesy tactics to gain an unfair and unbalanced effect for a cheap win. Sorry, but if the shoe fits, you're going to have to wear it").

In my view , the outcry about morale changes are much more motivated by loosing an advantage on the battlefield that you worked hard for in the original game, than anything else.

Yes you worked hard to understand and refine your use of the games specific settings/mechanics and now they changed the rules and that pisses you off. That i can
understand.

BUT Less tactics in MI? No way, actually you can use much more like i stated in an earlier post in this thread. I mean, what tactics exactly can't we use anymore?

Less Reality in MI? if reality is such an important issue, why bother with Mongols attacking the japanese at all? It never happened! Why not complain as loud about the speed that units are moving now in MI? We all used the gun shooting through friendly units bug didn't we? How realist was that? Most of us deemed camping on a high hill as unhonorable, unfair, disdaining those "campers". But in a real battle, if you are defending using a high hill and other terrain features make sense , no? So defenders should always camp. Most of us want a mongol vs mongol mode, but is this historically accurate? How about the unit composition of our MP armies? Do they really represent what happened historically? Should't they be always almost all ashis? Don't forget the use of the red zone? Ok i will stop now.

[Swoosh So]

Kuma i find that reply dissapointing most of us here are capable players not looking for some cheesy advantage, actually i win alot with the new morale but thats not the issue the issue is some like the new morale some dont, but we who dont like it have absolutely no choice at the moment but to grin and bear it lowering the morale gives both sets of players the OPTION if you like the high morale theres no problem if its changed play high koku games! thats why the option for so much koku is there but we who like the lower morale games arent catered for its 900 takeda shingens or nothing, reducing the morale gives all the players the CHOICE of how they wish to play the game that is all may not seem alot to u, but it means alot to us, the option of playing either way SHOULD be there and currently its not.

Swoosh of grey wolves

[MagyarKhans Cham]

swoosh is right, we always had teh default koku value on 5000 koku and imo it was always not enough to have a good battle. lees than 5000were more and more unitgambles. i think around 10000 would be the best option, but sadly 10000 koku allowed the newbies who just visit online some days and move on to a next game, to buy 16 monks and gogogogo. and they even get some wins.

i sugegsted ages ago to have the option to set the def and att koku on a different amount. so u can play an hilly map 9000 vs 6000 koku or whatever



------------------
Quote I gallop messages around, dont track me I can bring war as well[/QUOTE]

[KumaRatta Yamamoto]

Originally posted by Swoosh So:
"Kuma i find that reply dissapointing"

Yeah, i find it disapointing to, sorry
and i know that most of you guys are capable players who are honorable and friendly.


If you tell me that you don't like it the way it is now, you prefer the morale settings of the original, i have nothing to say about that.

I just can't buy into the "reality" or the "no more tactics" argumentation for changing these settings back.

As for no more option to play games we're morale are the most important factor, can you not play low koku games with all H0 honor units?

[MagyarKhans Cham]

yes kuma that is possible, but we cant lower it to -1 or -2 and thats the whole point.

let h2 be the standard as we had and for those who want to have a long standing samurai take battles of 20000 koku or more

imo there was a reason that people just ttok 4000-7000 koku as average. they want to make the enemy rout and chase him down.

[TakeshidaSo]

The facts of historical battles prove that it was not "realistic" for armies to suffer this many casualties, or ignore this many negative morale modifiers, before units began to rout. If you cant buy the "realism" argument, why not? Sure sometimes armies suffered high casualties and little was left to pursue, but that was rarely the case. In most of those cases, that I can recall, there were no other negative morale modifiers to be considered. The reason given for adjusting the Morale setting was that the Mongols caused too many casualties too quickly, so that the modifiers for sudden heavy losses routed the Japs too easy. Maybe that isnt "realistic". Maybe that one modifier should be adjusted. Maybe the "realism" of bombers and skirmishers isnt properly calculated. The destructive potential of Javelins is overblown I think, but Mongol costs and damage were decided because of SP game balance I believe. When the Mongols appeared to be too powerful, which many think is still the case, they bumped the morale system up. This wasnt based on "realism" I dont think. The "cheesy tactics" you refer to are what? You keep asking what they are, but define them as cheesy anyway? What are the new tactics that are now allowed to you? If you think units who are less effective, when they lose formation or become disorded, wouldnt rout when they are also flanked and suffering, tell us why not? It seems cheesy to me to be able to now do things that are against all the commonly accepted principles of Generalship. There's a list of suggested tactics, and there's also a list of tactics that should be avoided. To be able to use tactics that are often preached against, means that the attempt to simulate ancient warfare fell short.

[Kraellin]

i tend to agree with the folks that like the new system of morale over the old. the 'cheesy' tactic referred to is very simple; one flanking unit could rout an entire army...and that IS cheesy.

the funniest thing, though, about this whole discussion, is that NOTHING has really changed, at least not in results of who wins and who loses. the good players still mostly win and the weaker players still mostly lose. the ONLY thing that is changed about that is how long it takes for the good player to do it and trust me, the time is negligible. and if you stop and think about it you'll see why. ALL units had their morale raised EXACTLY the same amount. so, the only thing that affects in actual game play is WHEN a unit routs, not IF a unit routs. the tactics that worked in stw still work in xpack. if this is 'historic' or not is almost moot, because we established long ago that online play is NOT historic...dead arguement here.

the other major factor to all this is a point that someone mentioned earlier in this thread but has been almost entirely ignored in the rest of the thread. online play accounts for less that 1% of sales. you think i'm kidding? railroad tycoon ii sold over 500,000 copies! over 500,000! and is still selling. i played that game almost every day online for over a year and from almost the first day it came out. we almost never had more than about 20 or 30 folks online at any given time. now, granted we all come online at different times and from different times zones and so on, but even if you multiply that by 10, or even 20 to account for this time difference, it still only adds up to less than 1% of the sales worldwide. so online play is NOT the heart of the game. we here at the forum are online, so guess what, we're in that 1%.

now, another factor that hasnt even been mentioned yet, surprises me. there is more than one game style now! how many of you have played the king on the hill style so far? can you imagine playing this with the way the morale worked on stw? i dont think it would work at all. no one would ever re-capture the hill cause your units would rout before even getting close to the combat zone! play it and tell me i'm wrong.

frankly, i'm quite happy to see the 'entire army routing at the drop of a hat' thing gone. and i'd hate to see it re-instated. and i'm like dragoncat here about lowering the morale a subtle amount to test it out. going back to the stw mode just wont work in the new game unless you also do an entire replaytesting of the game and re-balancing of the units.

and as for the arguement of why dont those that like the higher morale simply play higher koku games...you've got to be kidding. i mean, come on, everybody here knows that high koku games were taboo, pariahs, and totally shunned by the main community. playing even a 7k koku game was looked upon as 'you newbie!'. so dont even bother with that arguement either. and of course there's also the very valid arguement about the monks, which others have already raised.

so, i dont really understand all this forlorn cry about morale being bad now. the good players are still good and still win. the mediocre still win some/lose some and the bad still mostly lose. the relative morale hasnt changed one iota. the domino effect is mostly gone, and the rout bug whereas still present has at least been somewhat lessened (i think).

the only valid arguement i can see is the one swoosh makes about wanting the range of morale back and even that one seems a bit moot to me given that all units were morale affected and thus simply rout later in the battle than sooner. if she wants it back to get the old domino effect then i dont agree at all.

bear in mind also that we can now change honor of ALL units ourselves and i dont mean by buying it or subtracting it with koku. i mean by altering the stat files. those are now available to us and the obvious thing here isnt to continue debating what shld be or shldnt be....let's just go change it the way we want it and let ca know this is what we think and then let them set that as the default in a patch. further debate is somewhat pointless in light of this ability. change the freakin stats ourselves and then let's debate THAT! ;)

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

i have a nice troopstatfileeditor for u guys, and i am evemn updating my logfilereader now, the 2 basic tools for testing.

krae u agree with swoosh, so do i. but if u like it that the units dont rout that quickly why did u hardly play games over 10000 koku, from 20000 koku all units stand firm much longer.

i played all kokus and joined people hosting high koku games, just for the fun of it. the gameexperience i felt in those games is almost the same as in SP WE.

but ifw e can use the editor and all online diehards come up with (preferably) 1 or more defeault settings than it is ok by me, esp when there is nothing changed in the code about morale.