Nothing is more frustrating than watching your men turn their tails at a critical moment and watching them lose their heads.
Morale is, rightfully, the foundation of this game, and yet it is not fully understood by the VAST majority of players (myself included).
I've learned enough to realize that its difficult if not impossible to "stop a route" (at least a big one) by sending units into the fray. Usually even fresh units will route if they get too close. This is good, but also quite mysterious. How big is a "big route" how close can my 60 fresh H3 WM get to the route before they start to panic and run themselves? How big of an area do routing units "taint"? Exactly what goes into calculating morale? How often do units make morale checks? Whats the equation? How many factors are considered?
The mind boggles at the # of factors that the designers must have (to their credit) considered in calculating troop morale-- but what are they exactly? The manual is certainly no help, and after almost a year of play I am still at a loss to list every one of them, let alone decipher how they all fit together.
One of the most "mysterious" morale issues that I have noticed (especially with wavering or uncertain enemy troops) is this:
If you order an attack against a wavering enemy unit, almost immediately that unit takes a morale hit-- EVEN IF THAT UNIT COULD HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING YOU ISSUED THE ORDER! What I mean is, regardless of whether the unit could say "oh crap, those 3 units of Dachi are going to attack us", they seem to instictively KNOW that the Dachi are coming--almost instantly after you make the click. I've seen it happen time and time again-- an enemy unit is fighting my line (i mean in the HEAT of battle), I manage to free up some Dachi somewhere (pretty far off), and if I click them on the attack the enemy unit INSTANTLY runs. There is no way the enemy could know where my Dachi were going (but the combat engine knows!). If on the other hand I just click my dachi TOWARD the enemy (w/out attacking), the enemy will continue to fight until my Dachi get really close or I order the attack.
Now how could an enemy unit a good distance away, in the heat of battle, know that I have ordered them to be attacked by a unit they might not even be able to SEE?
It seems to me that as soon as an order is issued, the combat engine begins to calculate expected casualties. It seems like around the next 30-40 seconds of expected casualties are applied againt the unit's morale, and they bolt.
This can be QUITE frustrating for the other commander who has no idea why his men are running (and in fact those men probably have no idea themselves).
Could somebody (longjohn2?) confirm this observation?
Does anyone dare to attempt a list of morale factors?
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