Scare Tactics

[Maltz]

I remember reading somewhere there is a CA coder explaining how morales are calculated. Just pulling fade memories out of my head, factors that reduce morales (not counting "a priori" conditions such as ambushed, general's traits) are:

(1) Outnumbered

The most common kind of routing. Outnumbering gives a huge morale reduction. I think it works as any single unit sums up, in a certain radius, the number of friendly and enemy units. If there are far more enemy units than friendly units, then "outnumber" condition is established and the penalty given.

(2) Unit depletion

Morale penalty is correlated the degree of unit depletion. I guess there are certain thresholds. For example, 1/2 left = (-2), 1/4 left = (-4), etc.

(3) Arrow fire

I am not sure whether the number of arrows also affect the degree of morale reduction.

(4) Melee situation

Losing badly certainly sounds worse than winning easily. In Vh settings your men always start to blink whenever they engage in melee for this reason - they always lose badly.

(5) Flanked

Charge from behind gives the most penalty, while flank from the side is about half of that.

(6) Animals

Elephants, wardogs, chariots all reduces morale.

(7) Routing friendly units

The higher status the routing friendly unit, the stronger the effect. If everyone is running away, you want to run, too.

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As you can see, you want to create local advantages that you outnumber the enemy in that given spot, killing them quickly, and perferrably charging them from multiple directions. That will be the simplest routing condition.