Quote Originally Posted by Puzz3D
Aetius,

I think the quick fighting is due mostly to low morale on the units. The combat cycle itself seems to be much longer than it was in MTW. CA seems to want a large range on morale from very low to very high in order to leave lots of room in the system for upgraded units, battlefield upgrades and effect of the general's command stars. You could raise morale on the units by modding the unit descr file, and I think that would make the fighting last longer especially with large unit size rather than normal unit size. We've been asking for a morale slider or at least a 4 or 5 step selectable level in the options for 4 years now, yet the game, now in its 5th incarnation, still only has a morale on/off option. We are up against a philosophical difference of opion regarding more options in the game settings with CA. Their objection is that too many options would make the game overly complex for the average gamer.
If CA would explain what morale does in RTW it would help. If morale increases both defensive skill and attack then it should offset in melee. If however, it just increases attack, then that would produce faster kills. Increasing combat speed alone (or effectiveness of strikes) would tend to produce faster kills. One thing I notice is that custom battles tend to be slower than in the campaign. So I wonder if it is because of the lack of an experienced or otherwise pumped up general to influence morale. And I don't know how any of the morale boosts work for generals being near (range based?)

My suspicion is that CA set the increment too high for attack. For example, if you set missile attack to "1" it will still kill at a substantial rate at full range vs. unarmoured opponents. And that is the absolute lowest you can go with the value (anything less is treated as zero, no missiles available.) To my way of thinking the absolute worst missile units should be no worse than flies at long range. Yet we have archers built with 14 missile attack and with upgrades and experience they can easily hit 18 to 20. I suspect the same sort of problem is happening with combat values.