The morale system is kind of off...

**chainedoj** · 09-24-2010, 20:48

Sometimes unit will fight to the last man (not fighting to the last man because they're forced but because they won't rout). The hell...I'm pretty sure being surrounded by both sides and having only 3 units left against 50 would result in a rout. And sometimes the generals are invincible! It gets ridiculous when it takes minutes while you're x3 fast fowarding to take down one general who is COMPLETELY surrounded by 50 men.

**NoHelmet** · 09-24-2010, 23:24

Welcome!
Routing mostly occurs after repeated charges by multiple units, not by prolonged combat. As for the general, i agree, he is quite hard to kill, but i think it is hardcoded for generals to be unrealisticaly hard to get killed. In reality, generals rarely got killed on the battlefield, but AI does not know that, and plunges its leader into the thick of battle, so it had to be compensated in some way, IMHO. But, you should wait for some of the really experienced members for this to be confirmed as true or not...

**vollorix** · 09-25-2010, 04:53

Last time playing Sweboz i´ve counted, just for fun, how high the morale bonus of my faction leader on my troops would be, and without taking in account his "seen the elephant trait", i´ve come to +9 morale, also not taking in account his command stars, or the presence of "inspiring" units etc. So, take a levy spearmen with a morale of, say, 9 and add another 9 to it, and you will see, the unit becomes elite. And i am talking about medium battle difficulty, with no additional bonuses for the AI besides from traits of AI generals.
I think, EB team wanted you to get a tough, and a realistic, experience: you can kill the general asap, and the AI army will loose "the head" and rout quite fast, or you can have a challenge by leaving letting him get killed randomly. Btw: the best way to kill enemy general is to charge him with heavy cavalry, an elephant unit, or run some chariots through his unit a couple of time - all this units got "armour piercing" weapons and launching damage in case of eles and chariots.
But in any case: if you manage to cause significant causalities on an enemy unit within a short time by well timed charges ( or missile fire in their backs ), while they are - tired, concerned over exposed flanks, unhappy to see comrades routing, or, in the best case, are weaving, you can rout any unit, even spartans or other elites.

**Cambyses** · 09-25-2010, 13:08

Generals have multiple hitpoints. You have to effectively kill them several times. Some of them are a lot tougher than others though it depends on traits. Especially tough generals do take a long time to kill its true, but they shouldnt be able to do too much damage while you wait.

And yeah, morale can be unrealistic. But think of it another way, if you were a group of 3 against 50 - and totally surrounded - would you blindly run through the enemy, dropping your shield and with no hope of survival or stand like a true warrior back to back with your fellows and fight to the death...?

If you want to break a unit, charge it in the rear, unleash a volley of javelins from the rear or start stacking fear inducing effects like flaming arrows or naked spearmen. It is the speed at which troops die that adds to the possibility of a rout not the total number left.

**Captain Trek** · 09-25-2010, 16:03

And yeah, morale can be unrealistic. But think of it another way, if you were a group of 3 against 50 - and totally surrounded - would you blindly run through the enemy, dropping your shield and with no hope of survival or stand like a true warrior back to back with your fellows and fight to the death...?

A completely surrounded unit whose morale breaks will fight to the death anyway. An interesting thing about that mechanic is that a unit that is at broken morale and "fighting to the death" is massively worse in combat... I've it happen numerous times where an elite unit such as Argyraspides is surrounded by my units and breaks, they then proceed to get rapidly and efficiently slaughtered even though they are technically still fighting, well able to lose the remaining half of their number in 20 seconds where it took several minutes for my levies and other crappy units to whittle down the first half... For this reason, I generally find it uneccessary to heavily disrupt my units by trying to create a breach for them to rout through, as simply letting them fight to the death results in a quicker and more efficient finishing off of the unit (even if I do take a few extra casulaties, casulaties I probably would take anyway while trying to create a breach for the routers).

**Cute Wolf** · 09-25-2010, 22:39

Originally Posted by Captain Trek

A completely surrounded unit whose morale breaks will fight to the death anyway. An interesting thing about that mechanic is that a unit that is at broken morale and "fighting to the death" is massively worse in combat... I've it happen numerous times where an elite unit such as Argyraspides is surrounded by my units and breaks, they then proceed to get rapidly and efficiently slaughtered even though they are technically still fighting, well able to lose the remaining half of their number in 20 seconds where it took several minutes for my levies and other crappy units to whittle down the first half... For this reason, I generally find it uneccessary to heavily disrupt my units by trying to create a breach for them to rout through, as simply letting them fight to the death results in a quicker and more efficient finishing off of the unit (even if I do take a few extra casulaties, casulaties I probably would take anyway while trying to create a breach for the routers).

that was the effect of EB's low lethality attacks, actually (at least quite observable in M2TW), units who fight to the death kills enemy faster, but die faster as well, looks like they gain some attack bonus but massive defense penalty

**Ludens** · 09-25-2010, 19:50

Generals do get multiple hitpoints, but this is mostly the result of a hidden EB trait that beefs up A.I. generals. This because the A.I. is rather careless with them.

And yes, the morale system is unrealistic: in reality armies would not be annihilated like happens in EB, but break far earlier. However, although the morale of individual units can be changed, the TW morale system cannot be rebalanced and in any case is rather simple. Basically, the current system is the best compromise the team could find.

BTW, welcome to the .Org and to EB, chainedoj.

**Rahl** · 09-25-2010, 23:30

Originally Posted by Ludens

Generals do get multiple hitpoints, but this is mostly the result of a hidden EB trait that beefs up A.I. generals.

Not in EB 1.2. In earlier versions that was the case, but I looked up the trait-file and the Hitpoint bonus of the EB-AI-General-Bonus-Trait gets ignored because a ; (how you call that in english?) stands before the "Effect Hitpoints". But maybe the AI gains a lot of hitpoint-traits because of the auto-resolve battles since they seem to be harder to kill then player controlled generals, I don't know.

**vartan** · 09-26-2010, 00:43

Originally Posted by Ludens

And yes, the morale system is unrealistic: in reality armies would not be annihilated like happens in EB, but break far earlier. However, although the morale of individual units can be changed, the TW morale system cannot be rebalanced and in any case is rather simple. Basically, the current system is the best compromise the team could find.

Not to mention that the TW morale system is an individualised morale system, not one of armies. That is, there is no army-wide morale, but rather individual morale values for each unit which in turn are affected by the relative morale values of neighbouring units. I don't know what's better, this system, an army-wide one, or a hybrid. What do you think?