Battle Model Suggestion - Morale Changes

[Southern Hunter]

What I notice in my battles is that the troops are insanely brave. I am able to shoot (in particular) or melee (slightly less so) and kill close to 100% of an enemy unit before it begins to waver.

My own troops are similarly brave. Even skirmishers and such, having suffered 50-90% casualties, will happily be sent back into the fray.

This is clearly a-historical and I hope I don't have to post too many examples :P

In sieges, it is even worse, although I am led to believe this is because of some hard coded nonsense that CA have introduced.

In general battle, has the EB team experimented with substantially LOWER morale levels, to see if battles become more historical in terms of troops routing and leaving the field? Or more significantly, lines of troops having their morale broken by the consequences of other troops routing?

If not, can I suggest it.

I would be happy to conduct some trials and suggest how the values can be changed, if that is of interest.

Does anyone think differently?

Cheers,

Hunter

[Gask]

Try playing on medium battle difficulty as anything above does tend to create constant battles to the death. If you are playing medium then change your army abit, my battles usually always end in speedy routs. I wish there was a setting inbetween medium and hard.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Levies rout really easily. The elites are suppost to stay in there a long time, EB is like that on purpose to lengthen battles. If there is a general in the battle moral is really boosted. If the general is AI and/or really good then many times none of the troops will rout until he dies.

[Southern Hunter]

Try playing on medium battle difficulty as anything above does tend to create constant battles to the death. If you are playing medium then change your army abit, my battles usually always end in speedy routs. I wish there was a setting inbetween medium and hard.

Yes I am playing on VH/M

[Southern Hunter]

Levies rout really easily. The elites are suppost to stay in there a long time, EB is like that on purpose to lengthen battles. If there is a general in the battle moral is really boosted. If the general is AI and/or really good then many times none of the troops will rout until he dies.

I don't see levies or even 'normal' line troops routing easily.

I do see, as you say, the whole army hanging in there until the general dies, and the whole army has suffered 50% or so casualties.

I do see units suffering up to 90% casualties before routing (and then suffering the other 10% in retreat).

[LordCurlyton]

Levies rout really easily. The elites are suppost to stay in there a long time, EB is like that on purpose to lengthen battles. If there is a general in the battle moral is really boosted. If the general is AI and/or really good then many times none of the troops will rout until he dies.
*grumble grumble* Yes I've noticed that with the AI especially. Its giving me a real bugger of a time as I try and finish off the Romans in my Cathage campaign. Got this BEAUTIFUL merc army of 4 Merc Phalangitai, 2 Merc Phalanxes, 3 Lucanian Spearmen, 2 Merc Pelatastai, 4 Merc Samnite Spearmen, 3 Merc Samnite Heavy Infantry, a Merc Theurophoroi, and my Gen and I am getting assaulted by this Romani army which is turning out to be incredibly hard to beat that consists of 3 Generals (Leader, Heir [both with 60+ guys], and 1 other) and roughly 10-12 Rorarii + one cav unit and a triarii ro two (methinks). I keep thinking "Why is this taking so long/being as hard as it is?" and then I notice that they keep moving their Generals helter skelter while my entire line is tangling with the Rorarii, who must be getting some mad bonuses from the Generals. Having my line tied up like that is also conveniently bad for me since they eventually seem to wear me down thru attrition and MANY charges by their bloody Generals who refuse to die, even when they get down to the last man. I've turned out negatively thrice so far, mainly I think because I keep losing my general after a while (I never get 60+ Gens. Never. Rarely 50+ *pouts*), and its usually very close, since I usually rout one side and they rout the other, and apparently my side going is far worse than their side going because my phalanx/phalangitai units just seem to start folding soon after. Oh well got another tactic to try next time. I've just been convincing myself that there is NO WAY that this army should be putting up a fight, and yet I keep getting proven wrong (even the autocalc hates me). Well, now that I think about it there IS the rallying city army since I'm laying siege but its been depleted severely by a previous attempt and has only its general and maybe 50-60 troops (another one that escaped with one guy left in that battle...). But even then...meh. And its on Medium difficulty, too, which confounds me to no end. But we shall see.
*By the way, the fact that I'm getting this animated about a single battle (albeit a rather pivotal one) speaks volumes about the quality of your mod. :2thumbsup:

[Dooz]

The cool thing is, it depends where you recruit your troops from. Not only are there differences between units based on experience and eliteness, but also the type of government they are recruited under. You'll find your bravest and best troops from Homeland (Type 1) governments, and the less centralized the government, the less willing the locals are to fight for you. So type IV gov't is going to yield a lot less loyal troops who'll rout a lot easier.

[Atilius]

What I notice in my battles is that the troops are insanely brave. I am able to shoot (in particular) or melee (slightly less so) and kill close to 100% of an enemy unit before it begins to waver.

My own troops are similarly brave. Even skirmishers and such, having suffered 50-90% casualties, will happily be sent back into the fray.

This is clearly a-historical and I hope I don't have to post too many examples ...

Lowering morale causes at least two problems. One of EB's objectives was to have longer, more tactically interesting battles. Obviously, lowering morale will shorten them. In addition, lowering morale leads to greater, even absurd, imbalances in casualties, since it's usually not too hard to kill every last man in a broken unit.

Anyway, the loser's army is usually (and a-historically) wiped out regardless. With higher morale, the winner at least suffers a more realistic fraction of the loser's casualties.

[Thaatu]

Plus, hammer and anvil tactic would make battles last under five minutes, as AI really has no idea how to counter it.

[Southern Hunter]

The cool thing is, it depends where you recruit your troops from. Not only are there differences between units based on experience and eliteness, but also the type of government they are recruited under. You'll find your bravest and best troops from Homeland (Type 1) governments, and the less centralized the government, the less willing the locals are to fight for you. So type IV gov't is going to yield a lot less loyal troops who'll rout a lot easier.

OK, I had no idea about that. Cheers.

[Southern Hunter]

Lowering morale causes at least two problems. One of EB's objectives was to have longer, more tactically interesting battles. Obviously, lowering morale will shorten them. In addition, lowering morale leads to greater, even absurd, imbalances in casualties, since it's usually not too hard to kill every last man in a broken unit.

Anyway, the loser's army is usually (and a-historically) wiped out regardless. With higher morale, the winner at least suffers a more realistic fraction of the loser's casualties.

Are you sure because you have tried it?

Lowering morale SHOULD shorten battles a bit. Then again, I have not tried it, so can't tell what actually happens.

I agree that if the player still turns up with more troops every time, then the battles MAY turn out to be even more unbalanced. The pursuit of routing troops is rather boring but effective.

[Caratacos]

I believe Atilius is refering to battles in Vanilla (where morale is lower). You can route the enemy fairly easily and then slaughter them all as they run, resulting in a heroic victory. That's how you end up with all those heroic sites all over the map (that's how i did anyway). I haven't had a single heroic victory in EB yet. mostly because i always make sure the enemy is weaker than me so i can crush 'em :yes:

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Is the general just a nobody or someone with lots of morale traits? Someone who is a terrific leader in that respect should have the units fighting harder/longer for him. I hope that awful leaders have quickly routing/fleeing units also, but I don't get into many serious battles with guys who just shouldn't be there in the first place (usually try to get them 'reformed' into good managers at least).

[Domitius Ulpianus]

Umm in my humble opinion the morale settings in EB are just PERFECT!

The first difference I noticed between Vanilla and EB was the duration of Battles...in EB you actually get to shoot, flank charge...etc..in Vanilla everything was over so quick...there was no place for any sense of "glory" even in full stacks battles.

Please don't touch it. There are some other things that might need some adjustments...IMHO this is not one of them.

Thanks.

[Fondor_Yards]

EB upped the morale to stop the short battles you see in Vanillia, in specific the chain routs that always happened. Those battles were so lame, you could chain rout any army within like 2 minutes because the AI is so bad.

Generals and buildings in the city they were recruited in also really matter. I've had general who have given over +8 to morale with his traits *And I've also seen some that give like -6, bah stupid generals*. As for buildings, you might be surpised at how many add to morale. Pretty much all temples give at least +1 morale, the bigger ones and the war ones even more. Then you have half of the unique buildings, Celtic Hero Cults, and many governments, they really add up after a while.

[Kull]

We are never going to be able to model ancient warfare EXACTLY. As others have noted, poor morale leads to shorter battles - and if that's what you are really after, vanilla RTW beckons. Besides, we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. If the enemy army breaks quickly, the battles are short and they suffer huge casualties as you race after and annihilate them from behind. If they break late, their troops again suffer many losses, it's just that more happened during the battle as opposed to the rout.

So that's the RTW engine - massive casualties either way. Which was more interesting?

[antisocialmunky]

Huh, I never knew about the buildings, that explains alot of the inconsistancies on how quickly my Phalanxes fold. I've seen Hoplitai Haploi fight to the death and Iphikratous Hoplitai rout after 20% casualties.

Is there anyway of guestimating how much morale extra your units get? Can I get a good estimate of adding together all the municipal buildings(government and temples) and the MIC level?

[Dooz]

I don't think you have the guesstimate at all. All morale bonuses and negative bonuses are listed in the building browser... at least for the government types it is. I don't remember exactly but I think any other building that does either lists it explicitly, or it's implied in the description somewhere.

[antisocialmunky]

I guess have have to read the descriptiongs more closely, I skim over many of the building ones. o^_^o

[Ypoknons]

It also depends on your frame of mind. For those of us from the MTW days, we find vanilla too short; for those with a RTW frame of mind, EB might be "too short." However, I and I think the EB team find RTW vanilla's battles to be too short to include the tactics we want.

[skuzzy]

Hehe, it's easy to get a Heroic Victory with elephents and/or horse archers

[mcantu]

Is it possible to get a units base morale stat to show on the unit card?

[JeffSteel]

Is it possible to get a units base morale stat to show on the unit card?
That would be an excellent little feature. While one could say the units trait list will say "good morale, excellent moral, poor moral," etc., it seems that in EB most units have the "good moral" trait, rendering it not so useful in comparing units as it is in vanilla RTW.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I really don't think it's possible to show morale in any way at all guys. Let us know if someone figures it out.

[paullus]

And remember, its not just that we've upped morale, we've also lowered kill rates. Now, I suppose we could take the ancient realism really seriously and have large battles last hours and hours because people generally aren't so excited about killing the other guy that they throw their own lives away. I'm not sure you want 3 hour battles--I for one lack the time to do such a thing. And if the battle lasted about the same time it does now, but the "losing" side broke having taken only 20-30% casualties (which can and does happen in EB, depending on the morale situation), they're still going to lose most of the unit if you pursue them as they rout.

And Southern Hunter, part of your complaint seemed to be related to the "rally" effect, where if a heavily depleted unit gets far enough away from the nearest enemy they may rally back to participate again in the battle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anything we can do about that.

[Southern Hunter]

And remember, its not just that we've upped morale, we've also lowered kill rates. Now, I suppose we could take the ancient realism really seriously and have large battles last hours and hours because people generally aren't so excited about killing the other guy that they throw their own lives away. I'm not sure you want 3 hour battles--I for one lack the time to do such a thing. And if the battle lasted about the same time it does now, but the "losing" side broke having taken only 20-30% casualties (which can and does happen in EB, depending on the morale situation), they're still going to lose most of the unit if you pursue them as they rout.

And Southern Hunter, part of your complaint seemed to be related to the "rally" effect, where if a heavily depleted unit gets far enough away from the nearest enemy they may rally back to participate again in the battle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's anything we can do about that.

1. As for the pursuit, I know there are problems in doing so, but it would be perhaps useful to disallow the pursuit beyond the point where every enemy unit is broken. Especially as the AI doesn't do it.

2. Yes, the rally effect is part of what I think is wrong. I am assuming that the chance of rallying is related to their morale value, in which case it is able to be affected. If it is not related, then you are right, we can't fix it.

[Caratacos]

1. As for the pursuit, I know there are problems in doing so, but it would be perhaps useful to disallow the pursuit beyond the point where every enemy unit is broken. Especially as the AI doesn't do it.

2. Yes, the rally effect is part of what I think is wrong. I am assuming that the chance of rallying is related to their morale value, in which case it is able to be affected. If it is not related, then you are right, we can't fix it.

1. what would be the point in disallowing the choice? If the player wants to kill them all they will want to chose to continue. If not then they will end it there. Choice is a good thing.

2. I'm not 100% sure on this but after the unit has routed would it not have lost all it's bonuses (other than it's default morale)? Or was the default morale of the unit what you were talking about? In which case it has already been stated why the allround higher morale setting is where it is-- for longer more tactical battles.

[Orb]

Disallow pursuit as a house rule, then. You don't have to pursue.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I always chase down the enemy. If you don't, they'll get a third of their losses healed and be back the next turn to attack you again. If battles were rarer or the enemy didnt' have two more armies to replace the one you destroyed I might not. Also the game has no feature to represt winning a big battle causing some sort of shift. The greeks wouldn't chase the other side once the fled (most of the time) because that side would admit defeat (most of the time) even if they could attack again soon.

There is also a section of role play in it. The greeks generally wouldn't chase routers, but the Romans often would. The Makedonians couldn't believe their eyes when the Romans chased the fleeing men, with pikes held in the air, when Phillip V was defeated.

[Sygrod]

Thoughout most of history, a routing army would suffer tremendously. In many cases they would sustain at least 2/3 of their casualties while fleeing. I have read accounts of cavalry chasing fleeing soldiers for days. On top of that, there was no automatic pardon of prisoners, and many times they were done away with. Add to that soldiers deserting. Personally, I am annoyed with the magic red line, which prevents me from running down the enemy routers.

[Watchman]

Actual post-battle router-hunting was for entirely practical reasons restricted to daylight hours (which there often weren't many left after a big set-piece battle), and whenever it was present one of the main duties of cavalry - particularly of the light kind. Beaten armies could be further pursued later of course, and if this was done well could lead to their virtually complete destruction.

The Romans incidentally were apparently in the opinion that the boot should really be ground in on defeated foes, so that the loss was as utter and terrifying as possible and the curs wouldn't be keen to take on the might of Rome any time again soon. The steppe peoples seem to often have been similarly persistent about wiping out their enemies, by what I know of it.


The Makedonians couldn't believe their eyes when the Romans chased the fleeing men, with pikes held in the air, when Phillip V was defeated.I've read this was actually an enveloped phalanx getting butchered despite having raised its pikes upright, a generally accepted Successor sign of surrender which the Romans alas weren't familiar with... or maybe just didn't care.

When pikemen actually routed very obviously the exact first piece of their kit that was dumped was the heavy and cumbersome pike.

[Quilts]

1.

And remember, its not just that we've upped morale, we've also lowered kill rates.

Was this done by lowering 'weapon lethality'? (That, unmentioned in the 'description text', 12th figure in the Stat Pri line).

2.
Personally, I'd like to see higher defensive capabilities (therefore less casualties), perhaps even lower 'kill rates' (see above) but lower morale. The net effect being battles take as long, but casualty rates are lower until someone breaks.

This may also assist with the 'rolling experience into troops factors' that I read somewhere. I think the idea was that troops would be recruited with a relatively high level of experience, so that they could improve with experience (level 6-9 so +3 attack/defence/morale) but not become more than twice as effective (level 0-9 or +9 attack/defence,morale).....or hand held catapults in the case of missile troops (Who experience a 900% improvement when they achieve 9 chevrons, from Attack 1 to 10!!!!!!!!!! in most cases). Anyway, back to the point.

As with all 'simulations' a lot has to be assumed despite appearances. Using the game mechanics there is no way to model cavalry throwing javelins whilst charging, and turning away at the last minute because the enemy infantry stood firm. We have to either charge or not. But by increasing the cavalries survivability when in combat, and probably lessening their attack for the same reason, we can 'simulate' the cavalry staying out of hand to hand until the infantry began to break before one of their charges (or not :yes: ). Yes, the little figures on the screen will be swinging away and intermixed, but this is just a reflection of the limitations of having a 'stand and fight or skirmish only' computer combat system.

This same analogy can be used for all the 'combat' simulated within the game.

My 2 cents.

Cheers,

Quilts

[Pelopidas]

Personnaly, I make army rout very easily, even in H settings ( not in VH ).

I've seen troops fleeing after just 15/20% loses.

I think that the real factor is the time in wich this casualties happens: when you send two cavalry in the back of a unit who 's engaged in a frontal fight with one of your infantry unit, usually, this "target" broke very easily, having supported heavy casualties in a matter of seconds.

[Kull]

Thoughout most of history, a routing army would suffer tremendously. In many cases they would sustain at least 2/3 of their casualties while fleeing. I have read accounts of cavalry chasing fleeing soldiers for days. On top of that, there was no automatic pardon of prisoners, and many times they were done away with. Add to that soldiers deserting. Personally, I am annoyed with the magic red line, which prevents me from running down the enemy routers.

Read Thucydides' account of the Athenian retreat after losing the final battle at Syracuse. Sobering.