How about that morale?

[Sensei Warrior]

I didn't know if I should stick this in the tactics thread or start a new thread, so what the hey I decided to start with a clean slate. This is just my observations I something that occured to me so if I'm wrong please accept my heart-felt apology up front, but if I'm right and it helps let me know I like hearing about a good crushing like everyone else in here.

I don't know if anybody does this, but I just want to re-emphasize the importance of morale. Remember morale keeps your troops on the field instead of running home like spoiled brats. I have learned to build the morale improving buildings ASAP, sometimes to the detriment of getting better troops. A set of spearmen will stay in the came much longer with a few morale points even in morale damaging situations. I will give this little story as an example.

I was playing HRE from Early and it was in the High period. I was in the process of cycling out some older troops via combat. I was also attacking Spain. The force I was up against consisted of several Spearmen, several Urban Militia, lots of Jinettes, 2 sets of Royal Knights, 2 Archers, and lots of Javelin men. I had 2 sets of Chivalric knights, 5 archers, three Spearmen, and three Feudal Knights. My formation was basic the Spearmen in a line with archers in front and behind. The swordsmen were behind the second set of archers. I had 1 Chiv Knights on the left of the archers ready to flank and the other Chiv Knight was the general and was behind the Swordsmen. My men were outnumbered by 300-500 and the spanish were led by a general that was 4* higher than mine.

On the outset of the battle the Spanish attacked me with the Jinettes while the rest of their army staged themselves out of bowshot. My archers took care of them using all their arrows in the process. Now as the archers were withdrawing the rest of the Spanish army moved foward sending 2 sets of spears and javelinmen up to rush my knights but in order to do that they had to walk across my line a little. I took advantage of this. I sent a 1 set of swords against the first spears. Then I took a set of my spears moved them into a wedge formation and wedged them inbetween the 1st and 2nd ste of spanish Spears. Hmm they are not gonna last long huh? I sent a unit of sword against the 2nd spears and sent another set of spears completely around this hodgepodge and turned it to face the ensuing combat with its back to the spanish archers and the rest of their army. When the 1st set of Spanish Spears turned to face the swords I then had my knights rush in.

Well, the Spanish got caught between my Knights and my spears with my swords giving them what for in the middle then they broke and started to run right into my spears they were enveloped and suddenly disapeared it was a slaughter. I lost a hundred men to their 900+ men that were either killed or captured.

Now I suppose you are about to say, "Sensei, what does this have to do with morale?" Remember the Spears I used to wedge and the other set with their back to the Spanish army? They never routed, or even wavered for that matter, even though the one wedge comprised 90% of my losses and the other had its back to the spanish army for a small, but uncomfortable (uncomfortable for me and them too i'd imagine) period of time. These units stayed in place because they were built or retrained in places with the benefits of churches requilaries and other morale boosting buildings. Now I might be wrong but I firmly believed that's why they stayed in place.

Anyways make sure you build those morale buildings, because a morale pumped unit is a happy unit even though it might be just a unit of peasants in grubby tunics weilding pitchforks.

[Ironside]

A challenge.

Get 5 valor zero spearmen, with no upgrades (0 morale), put them against 7 hobilars (some with valour 1) run by the comp on very hard. Deploy the spearmen outside any forest. The spearmen will win unless they rout .
I won this at my fourth attempt BTW.

Morale is essential in this game, not until morale 4 they will do acceptable when it comes to own losses, and at 0 they rout for nothing.

[bretwalda]

This must be the reason why you are getting the upper hand after the beginnig of the game: you have higher moral units, I guess...

But where can I see the moral of the units on the campaign map? I see valor, armor, extra iron bonus - but not the moral... Or do I miss something?

[CBR]

Each valor gives +2 morale as well as +1 attack and +1 defense. Not only will a high valor unit have higher morale it will also have increased its combat power considerably: a V4 spearmen will be the same as a V0 Chivalric Man at Arms and then he will also have rank bonuses from 2 ranks behind him(another +1 attack and +2 defense)


CBR

[Ironside]

This must be the reason why you are getting the upper hand after the beginnig of the game: you have higher moral units, I guess...

But where can I see the moral of the units on the campaign map? I see valor, armor, extra iron bonus - but not the moral... Or do I miss something?

AFAIK it's impossible, you can only see it using F1 in combat.

Each valor gives +2 morale as well as +1 attack and +1 defense. Not only will a high valor unit have higher morale it will also have increased its combat power considerably: a V4 spearmen will be the same as a V0 Chivalric Man at Arms and then he will also have rank bonuses from 2 ranks behind him(another +1 attack and +2 defense)

That's the problem with generals with gluttony, they suck in combat and got a -8 morale penalty. The enemy farts to close and he flees, getting good runner and is useless afterwards.

[VikingHorde]

One thing about unit morale is also player difficulty. In easy difficulty, the player gets +4 morale to all troops. In very hard difficulty however, the AI gets +4 morale to all troops.

[Sensei Warrior]

Bretwalda: Hmm you know I never thought of that. The tides do seem to turn once my troops stop fleeing.

Oh, and let's not forget a general ranks pumps up the men's valor which in turn gives a plus on morale as well.

Basically morale keeps your troops flexible. You might not want to stop a unit of CAA with spears, but it's nice to have the option when you know in a couple of seconds you can send in some knights across their flank.

[Ironside]

The commander valour bonus gives only combat bonuses, not morale.
But yes morale is mostly for flexibility and trusting units to hold the line against the odds to give you time for the flanking.

I've gotten a Egyptian general with 10 in morale bonus , his troops fought to the death most of the time.

[ichi]

I am always amazed when folks start a thread and say "Wow my Knights got ripped up by a unit of Trebizond Archers - what am I doing wrong???"

But they don't mention the morale of the units involved. As CBR-san correctly points out, there is a direct relationship between Valor and Morale (and Attack and Defense stats). Morale does not affect the Speed, Charge or Armor stats.

I think that melee (hand-to-hand fighters) units should be morale 8 in order to be dependable. Remember that the comp calculates the state of morale of a unit by starting with the base morale and then subtracting morale points for everything (from taking missile fire to being tired to being depleted to being surrounded to being outnumbered to being close to a stinky camel to having your friends routing to having the Genral die). Once the morale hits -18 or something like that the unit routs.

So morale is all important and valor is related to morale.

So, since V0 Kataphraktoi have morale 4 they need to be V2 in order to have morale 8 and so they can work effectively (again, this is just my humble opinion, but is also the online standard).

There are several outstanding unit stat guides. Now I know a lot of people who say that they just like to play, they don't care about stats. But if you don't know that a Polish Retainer works best at valor 2 or above then I don't think you can really use it effectively.

Morale is the key to the strength of your army. Flanking is the key to tactics on the field.

ichi

[Saracen_Warrior]

All these newer war games seem to be about morale, which is good since i think(i dont know ive never been in battle) its realistic. Like sid meiers civl war, this game, steel panthers, even some weird board game I saw at school where your peice might run off the board or something if you rolled under a 3 or wutever(my chemistry class is where they hold board game club, sounds boring to me but i dunno know)

[Sensei Warrior]

A challenge.

Get 5 valor zero spearmen, with no upgrades (0 morale), put them against 7 hobilars (some with valour 1) run by the comp on very hard. Deploy the spearmen outside any forest. The spearmen will win unless they rout .
I won this at my fourth attempt BTW.

Morale is essential in this game, not until morale 4 they will do acceptable when it comes to own losses, and at 0 they rout for nothing.

I humbly accept your challenge. I will let you know if I make a prat out of myself on the world (forum) stage.

[Sensei Warrior]

Ironside:
Now that I have tried it a couple of times (and got my butt handed to me) I have a couple of questions.

1. Should I set it on hard or expert? I set it on expert because you said very hard.
2. Should 3 or 4 hobilars have valor 1? I erred on the side of judgement and used 4 hobs at 1 valor
3. I know it can't be used in MP, but does the challenge allow me to use the pause button? I'm afraid I'm rather used to it. In my defense I noblely tried to do the challenge w/out using the pause button at all.

Maybe I'm being picky but I got pretty well whomped the first couple I tried.

[Ironside]

Ironside:
Now that I have tried it a couple of times (and got my butt handed to me) I have a couple of questions.

1. Should I set it on hard or expert? I set it on expert because you said very hard.
2. Should 3 or 4 hobilars have valor 1? I erred on the side of judgement and used 4 hobs at 1 valor
3. I know it can't be used in MP, but does the challenge allow me to use the pause button? I'm afraid I'm rather used to it. In my defense I noblely tried to do the challenge w/out using the pause button at all.

Maybe I'm being picky but I got pretty well whomped the first couple I tried.

1. Expert is correct, I have played only on that for years, so I'm guessing that reading too much posts for RTW (is going to get it when I have updated my computer, it should happen soon) made me use an incorrect term.
2. It was a campaign battle for a while ago so I don't remember the exact numbers, so you can try 3, it's still hard as hell.
3. Pause is allowed considering that I probably used it and that it's still very hard to do it, the comp is probably atleast as good as a human with those hobilars anyway.

And for you that wonder what the problem is, the problem is that the hobilars are experts on "light flanking" due to the impossibility of creating a perfect circle with spearmens. The hobilar will hit those edges and rout the spearmens that already got an extra morale penalty for losing badly against another hobilar (they'll win by numbers, not by strength). The combat use of that charge is negliable otherwise.

Edit:
Try it when putting your spears in the woods and see the difference BTW.

[Sensei Warrior]

Ironside: I tip my hat to you. You are truely a Master. I have tried this a total of 5 times. Three before the clarification and 2 after you clarified some points. It is alot harder than it looks, and I still haven't beat it.