Highest Possible Morale

[Mongothegreat]

I only recently found out you can hit F1 before a battle starts to see your units' morale. Playing the Turkish, on Hard, I had a Ghulum general that defended Ireland six times in a row against the English, with one unit of saracen infantry, one turcoman horse, one desert archers, and one futawwas. Before the seventh battle, by that time his unit was down to only one, he had 36 morale.

This intrigued me, and he could kick ass over a single unit of fyrdmen, but he eventually routed and I bought him back. But what's the highest possible morale? Is there a limit?

[bamff]

Interesting query Mongo.

Sadly I cannot provide the answer, but no doubt one of our more learned Orgahs will pass this way soon to provide the information which you seek.

While we wait, I will offer my welcome to the Main Hall!

[Mongothegreat]

I've posted here under a variety of names over the years. I first bought MTW and VI in a bundle back in 2004, and I'm still finding out new stuff about the game. It's one of those games I keep going back to. Even after RTW and M2TW I keep going back. This morale thing is only the most recent. It seems weird, though, that a general who sees his small army disintegrating around him over 6 battles would have his morale go up.

And, this is the first time, after 5 years of playing the game, off and on, that I really played a muslim faction, the Turkish, and enjoyed it. What with horse archers and the like, it's really a different game. I recently had another general with 35 morale, but 36 is still the highest for me.

[Garnier]

I think the reason is when his unit is down to just him, a single man, his average morale is 36 because that is his specific morale. When there were other men in his unit, it dilluted the morale a lot.

[Axalon]

Hello,

I think the roof for morale are about 50. I dont think that I have ever reached beyond 50 and the highest values I can remember having are about 46-48 in morale. To get that high morale you must do alot of fighting and have numerous valor-traits and stars as well. As a unit you can get probably get about 30-40. Also, remember that some buildings here and there provide additional morale bonuses (probably about +10 or so). Drone can probably fill in the blanks as to exactly how much that every building grants in the original game. Essentially its churches, monasterys and stuff like that.


- Cheers

[drone]

The Cathedral and Grand Mosque are the best, they will give units a +3 morale bonus when trained in the province. Churches and Mosques give +1, and Monasteries and Ribats are +2, I believe. If I'm not mistaken on the mechanics, these bonuses do not stack.

This helps some, but for this case I'm guessing it was the valour of the Ghulam general. It's +2 morale for each level of valour, and as a singleton he was probably levelled pretty high. This, combined with the other command related bonuses (I'm assuming he had some good Defender-style virtues at this point) could get him into the 30s easily.

[Ironside]

Ok freaky memory stuff here.

Basically morale comes from valour, so what's the highest possible valour? Ancient thread to the rescue https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=26231&highlight=valour

According to the thread, the highest combat valour with v&v is 19+9 = 28 = +56 morale.
Base morale for a royal knight is 8 and the highest building bonus is +6 (the displayed value on the building is doubled).

There's units with base morale of +12 (hashishins and berzerkers).

So the theoretical maximum is 12+6+56 = 74.

Highest maximum anyone gotten that I know of. The screen would've showed it but as it's gone I'll do an educated guess. 8 base, 4 building (might be 6 though) and 21*2 for combat.

That's 8+4+42=54.

Edit: Valour given by general command doesn't give any displayed morale bonuses.

[Axalon]

Well, who am I to argue with an ancient tread? I was wrong this time. Good work Drone and Ironside, filling in the blanks accurately here. :mickey:

- Cheers

[Martok]

Well with that having apparently been settled, my question is this: Theoretical maximums aside, what has been the *actual* highest morale any of you have seen in the game? (This does not have to apply to only your own units -- a unit from other factions can count as well.)

Personally, I believe the highest I've ever seen was something like 26-28 on a company of Ghazi Infantry (from one of my Eggy campaigns) -- aside from having absurdly high valour (it was something like 10-12), their unit leader's traits also improved their morale by another +4 IIRC. It got to the point that they almost never routed, and would pretty much only withdraw from combat if I ordered them to. :beam:

[seireikhaan]

Well with that having apparently been settled, my question is this: Theoretical maximums aside, what has been the *actual* highest morale any of you have seen in the game? (This does not have to apply to only your own units -- a unit from other factions can count as well.)

Personally, I believe the highest I've ever seen was something like 26-28 on a company of Ghazi Infantry (from one of my Eggy campaigns) -- aside from having absurdly high valour (it was something like 10-12), their unit leader's traits also improved their morale by another +4 IIRC. It got to the point that they almost never routed, and would pretty much only withdraw from combat if I ordered them to. :beam:
About 24, if memory serves me correctly. Was an XL game as Lithuania. First heir was an inbred loon, with the management capabilities of an AIG exec. However, he had a good number of impressive valor enhancers which made him and his unit of boyars god-like in combat. I sent his unit alone on a suicide mission against 300 Novgoridians, and slew 240-ish of them before finally being slain.

[Axalon]

Hello Shinseikhaan and Martok (long time no siege BTW)....

As I said before; I had little generals running around with 46-48 in morale. I also had plenty of other knight-units well over 30 (in rarer cases almost up to 40 as a unit). Both in raw MTW and redux for me. Expert settings as always. :mickey:

- Cheers