Chain routs and morale discussion

[hrvojej]

Ok, this is something that probably bugs me the most in this game, so I decided to start a thread about it to see whether we can come up with something to ameliorate it. I can live with most of the other problems if I really have to, but chain routs are totally destroying my enjoyment.

To the best of my knowledge, morale modifiers are not externalized in RTW, as they haven't been in the previous TW titles either. So, the only thing I can do is up the general morale for units. This works to a point. If I do 1 vs 1 with slightly upped morale (+3 or +4) and use elite units, it looks decent - they fight for a long time, even longer than I'd like them to (up to around 90% casualties sometimes). But, and this is a big but, if I then take a balanced army and fight against another balanced army, despite the upped morale across the board chainrout happens almost upon contact again.

Therefore, just upping the morale is not really an answer. It makes units too tough in single combat, whereas it doesn't really do much to the chainrouting problem.

From what I remember from MTW, this would mean that the morale penalty for taking casualties is working ok, but situational modifiers are too exaggerated. Right now I suspect that the biggest problem is the penalty derived from being outnumbered/outclassed by the opponent. Here is my reasoning: with high killrates it's quite likely to cause massive casualties upon charge, especially with cavalry and doubling on a unit. This creates a huge morale drop in the attacked unit since suddenly it becomes outclassed, and makes it rout. Since units that rout no longer count as "allies in the area" when it comes to deciding whether a unit is outclassed or not, this creates a huge drop in morale of other units nearby as well (also seeing the unit flee - there's no more elite unit status etc. so all units count the same - but that's to be expected). So, the outclassing becomes an epidemic, and the AI turns tails in a matter of seconds.

I'm not sure whether having an enemy positioned to the flank is a bit high too, but that would be another thing to look at. I think that the abovementioned outclassing is a much bigger problem, however.

I think the chainrouts are the single biggest problem expressed as the "bad AI" complaints, i.e. chainrouting undelies most of those complaints. If you weren't able to rout the entire enemy army after taking only 30-40 casualties, I bet the AI would seem much better to everyone. I'd really like to hear what people who also feel there's something amiss with all these chainrouts think about the possible causes. Even if we won't be able to change anything directly, hopefully we'll manage to find workarounds or at least figure out where exaclty the issue really lies.

I know there are also those who are happy with the speed at which the battles develop at present. Here is to the hope that we may all be happy with the ultimate result of discussions such as this one (long live customizability).

[A.Saturnus]

I don´t know, I´ve seen single units fighting on while the rest of the army routs. It would help if we had could find out what units rout under which conditions exactly.

[BeeSting]

I think chain routes accurately portray the real battle conditions of the time.

How else would there be such decisive battles where the contrast of casualties from two opposing forces was night and day? A greater portion of the killings was from the fleeing enemies.

It was a major issue for the generals to keep their troops from being disheartened by routing friends next to him. And this is easily imaginable, no matter how resolute you are in your heart to fight bravely, you will not stand alone against the charging of an angry mob. And the morale was particularly devastating for soldiers all of a sudden being attacked from the rear. The importance, therefore, in checking the enemy to exploit any gaps in the line or maneuver to attack the rear was a matter of life and death for an army.

So this chain routing factor puts another dimension to the game, or the need for reserves. Having experienced troops forming a second line is needed because they can quickly move up to engage the enemy unhindered by fleeing mass of the inexperienced troops in front. In turn, the routed troops could reform in the rear to engage for support and as altering reserves.

But the problem of this set up is that it seems a too complicated matter for the AI to manage, often facing a human player with better generals and higher quality troops. When facing a battle not resolved automatically against a human opponent, it loses too many of its generals to have quality forces that won’t route. I think it is a simple matter of programming to make use of the delicate matter such as this to best use of formation setup and have it fight a battle in phases accordingly. Instead it throws everything it has to the weakest target nearest its units, not excluding its generals.

[BeeSting]

So you are right...

The game needs to be toned down and leave a lot for ones imagination, at least for the single player option. The battle engine is too complicated for the unsophisticated AI.... and its programmers too.

[hrvojej]

I respect that this may be how the battles really happened back in the days. I am all for morale and all the penalties involved, and eventually chainrouts in the end - that's what TW battles are all about. I also don't like seeing units, other than e.g. berserkers on mushrooms, fighting to death.

However, this is an issue where I most certainly would superimpose gameplay over authenticity, if this was the case. Routing upon contact is ruining my gameplay enjoyment big time. I have had way too many battles where everything was over in seconds, and the initial odds of 1:1 turned into over 10:1 in the end because the enemy routed as soon as the first few of his men fell. It would be ok if occasionally something like that would happen, but this is a *rule* for a vast majority of battles, not an exception. I really would like to not have chainrouts as rapid as they are right now, hence this thread.

[Papewaio]

What unit formations are you using?
Difficulty level?

Havn't really seen morale problems as I double line my groups whenever possible.

[NicSO]

chain routs sucks big time. It totally spoils the game. First touch and enemy army is on the run...even the longest battles are over in few minutes. I would like to see REAL LONG battle, STRATEGY, not crapy AI that is very very very bad...stupid....

I play on medium/medimu and using totalreaism 5.1 and game is still no challenge!!!

[BeeSting]

I agree...

Again, I like the battle engine period. But the problem as I pointed out is the incompetent AI and the low quality of its troops that are often without a general. The conditions are real and for that alone I give this game an "A+" and it's such a shame to have it tone down for the sake of game play due to the unsophisticated AI, which I'm starting to wander if they reflect their maker.

I have had few battles where I fought with numerical superiority but was beaten back. The reason being is that that comp had legion units with silver and gold chevrons and I had less civilized, raw units. I knew this was going to be tough.... But heck! How often am I going to get this chance? I took heavy casualty and so did the AI. Yet it did not (and this is post 1.2 patch) immediately seek safety for its remaining men for retraining.

So the problem is the AI and not the battle engine's routing factors. The comp has a hard time maintaining its units past the experienced stage when in war with a human player, because nine out of ten times they would be destroyed early on with their promising generals. And I know…. This gets old really soon.

[Red Harvest]

I saw a post somewhere about the routing phenomena that suggested it did an additive adjustment for morale when facing the enemy (whether or not in actual melee combat.) That seems to make it worse when you have a unit facing several. I don't know if this is true, or if it uses a sliding scale, or what. The general observation appears somewhat supported in my experience.

If you watch in campaign battles you might notice that your "fresh, eager" undamaged flank light cav go to "fresh, shaken" within a certain radius of the enemy--even if they effectively are in position to outflank the enemy. You might also see other low level infantry and the like do the same. What really puzzles me is that I can have men in line next to them or behind them, without improving their morale. I am not seeing the old "morale block" effect of adjacent friendlies as in SM Gettysburg/Antietam.

I suspect the chain rout is largely a problem of the very high kill rate. While I actually find the chain rout reasonable from historic context, the time scale is whacked. Units should indeed be hesitant to fight to the death, but the speed with which killing occurs should be slower.

[desdichado]

pape,

I think he is talking about the ai army chainrouting. not his own.

I agree that chainrouts, whether historical or not, ruin the gameplay. I have not played rtw for couple of months now and main reason was battles were far too easy. I had spped & killrate mods installed but the chainrouts for the ai were horrendous.

[BeeSting]

If you watch in campaign battles you might notice that your "fresh, eager" undamaged flank light cav go to "fresh, shaken" within a certain radius of the enemy--even if they effectively are in position to outflank the enemy. You might also see other low level infantry and the like do the same. What really puzzles me is that I can have men in line next to them or behind them, without improving their morale. I am not seeing the old "morale block" effect of adjacent friendlies as in SM Gettysburg/Antietam.

To lower the kill rate I found during melee is to significantly up the defense rating by almost double what they are currently set up for. It is the second number sitting between the armor and shield rating. Or up the delay time at which a soldier strikes his weapon again.

But I am not touching this, as I would have to embark on a grueling task of rebalancing every unit in the game.

I think the Sid's Gettysburg/Antietam had an excellent battle engine, which on smaller scale could have been well incorporated with a similar TW's campaign map. It helped the soldiers morale to have a line of units in the rear. And the AI opponent in the game was super tough.

[hrvojej]

Here is an old list of all (I think) morale modifiers from MTW. This was not compiled by me, I copied it from this board a while ago, but unfortunatelly I don't know any more who the original poster was (many thanks once again to the one responsible):

(edit: I think it was Crandaeolon, judging by the routing note... )

MORALE

States

Impetuous: 10+
Steady: 2 to 14
Uncertain: -5 to 5
Wavering: -14 to -5
Routing: Less then -6 (Cran's note: the rout point is -16. Units will keep routing until their morale rises above -6.)

Negative

Loose Formation: -2
Outnumbered 2 to 1: -4
Outnumbered 3 to 1: -12 (depends on quality of troop, elite only afraid of elite, etc.)
One flank threatened: -2
Two flanks threatened: -6
Charged in flank: -4
Charged in flank by cavalry: -6
Charged by unit hidden in forest: -8
General's death (during the first few seconds): -8
After the General's death: -2 (for the rest of the battle)
Routing Friends: Up to -12
10% of unit is dead: -2
50% of unit is dead: -8
80% of unit is dead: -12
Taking missle fire: -2 (-4 if weapons cause fear)
Unit is Very Tired: -2
Unit is Exhausted: -6
Unit is completely exhausted: -8
Losing: Up to -8 (up to -14 if losing to cavalry)

Positive

Protected Flanks: +4
No retreat possible (usually castle sieges): +8
No enemies around: +4
Enemies Routing: Up to +8
Uphill Position: +2
Winning: Up to +6
Impetuous Charge: +4 (when Knights charge automatically)
Outnumber Enemy 3 to 1: +4
General in unit: +2
Close proximity to general: +1 morale per star
Far away from general: +1 morale per 2 stars

So, lots of things figure into the equation. My prime suspects are the outnumbering modifiers - that's why 1 on 1 units fight reasonably, but rout when an imbalance in army formation is created. Maybe it's because the unit status (elite only afraid of the elite) are gone, and they only took the larger modifier values?


ps.
Wouldn't it be cool if we had something like this in a .txt file somewhere to modify to our hearts' desires?

[Red Harvest]

In MTW the enemy army (and my army) would chain rout as well. But it developed more slowly unless one side was heavily outclassed. The men died more slowly, so I had some warning that they were failing before they routed. The rapid combat, and relative ineptitude of the RTW AI lead to more rapid routing and of course easier exploitation--leading to primarily cav armies. Plus in MTW it took longer to exploit a failing flank. Movement speed and kill speed were more plausible. This provided a brief window for help to arrive before the adjacent troops also routed.

Thanks for that table by the way...I forgot how much detail was in that.

[Simetrical]

JeromeGrasdyke has said that the morale system in RTW is based on pretty complex equations, so I don't think that it's nearly as straightforward as simple linear bonuses and penalties. Since the combat engine was completely rebuilt for RTW, I don't think anything from MTW is applicable, except perhaps as a hint to the designers' view of what morale modifiers should apply (assuming the designers were largely the same).

-Simetrical

[Kraxis]

In MTW the enemy army (and my army) would chain rout as well. But it developed more slowly unless one side was heavily outclassed. The men died more slowly, so I had some warning that they were failing before they routed.

Yeah... You could see the cracks in the line as the units began to waver. Gritting your teeth you began a frantic clickfest to get whatever reserves in position before it was too late and the entire line collapsed (along with the reserves). There has been many times whre I have yelled at the screen "COME ON... Just a few more seconds." A few more seconds... That is an eternity now. Even if you take hoplites and other phalanx units the battle is quickly desided.

[HarunTaiwan]

One problem is the historical issue.

Armies routed a lot back then, and for dumb reasons.

I just read the book The Last King, and they have non-Roman armies routing because units returned from the front in disorder, and the reserves assumed the battle was lost.

In another battle, Rome vs. Armenia, the undermanned Roman veteran routed and killed about 100,000 Armenians....Lucullus the Roman general claimed only 5 Romans died.

So, I think chain routing is realistic. Most times when I lose a battle it is because one key unit breaks and then I get the chain rout. (Though I don't lose very often.)

The best way to solve this problem for the player:

1. AI should build better units and upgrade more.

2. Killspeed and running is too fast. (Though this might help the AI more than it helps the player.)

[Svean]

I think many if not the most of the battles were highly dependant on morale (and routing). In real battles there were few "natural" casulaties "from sword" and the rest were from chasing routers... That's why Thermopile battle was so legendary - few men fought to death.
But i would say that could be annying ;-). I didn't noticed many routs in RTW but I hated in MTW when some Boyars made my 4 times bigger army to rout :-)

[The Stranger]

yes that's true the real fight never took long, tha long part was when the winning party was busy slaughtering remaining forces of the losing army. most of the time, the fight to decide who won this battle took only like 20-30 minutes. and then i'm talking about 60.000 men on the battlefield.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

It's a very interesting topic, and it is rather difficult to assess how that works given the battle conditions, and the very low level of information given by CA.

I mainly (only) play MP, and my theory about morale is very different from the one hrvojej laid out.

In MTW, everything being equal (florins, even armies were looking alike), I would see a lot more chain rout than I see in RTW.
In MTW, a couple of units on flank, a dead general, and that was a mass rout, and if you could herd the mass rout well, you could trigger multiple armies chain rout. Actually, you did not even need the dead general, any hole in one army would trigger it; one unit start routing, therefore support morlae bonii are reduced, outnumbering morale penalty are increased, friendly routing morale penalty increase, and voila, everyone routs. The mechanism hrvojej describes in his first post is what happened in MTW.
In MTW, outnumbering penalty were so big that very few players would come with less than 16 units, even at low florin level. At low floring level, the main problem was that just massing a lot of units quickly was enough to cause a mass rout.

With RTW, it looks more difficult, and some of the players army choice make me think that, implicitly, some of the morale is understood to be different.
For example, I do think outnumbering morale penalties are much less than what they used to be: I see players taking less than 20 units quite frequently, and when playing with low denarii, playing with 10 units instead of 15 or 20 is a perfectly valid option: that was suicide in MTW because of the outnumbering penalty, it is not anymore, so I think this penalty has been tone down.
Flanking is still important, but I also saw complelty surrounded units fighting for a very long time.
I wonder if positional got different relative importance depending on unit status... Highly trained disciplined units caring less about flanking than warband. Actually you can make the same case about outnumbering... MTW had unit status (Elite or not), but I don't think it was as important as it is for RTW. Unfortunately, it is also rather difficult to assess the impact of those.

Also, being in formation might add to morale... or being disorganised might subtract from it. Units in good formation resist way better than the disorganised one that usually routs very quickly. Either it is a specific morale modifier, or the killrate is very high against disorganised units making them routing faster. To resist a rout, it is very important for units to be in formation!

Alternative assumption; it is very important for disciplined/ highly trained units, and not at all for impetuous one... hum...

Compared to MTW, one thing is sure, it's less forgiving; a tiny error, a unit misplaced, or too late, hence not in formation yet, and that unit is gone.

Louis,

[Epistolary Richard]

Perhaps one solution would be to change the way that routing works. Units shouldn't change suddenly from fighting normally to taking flight. As a unit becomes disorganised or shaken it should retreat in a more orderly fashion: outside of the player's control but still able to defend itself effectively.

If the unit is unsupported or charged again then it may break and run, as it should do. But if it manages to disengage then it should reform as its officers knock some heads together and return to the players control.

This would limit the severity of chain-routing and give time for the general to move reserves to where they were needed. It also has the benefit of being more historically accurate.


And on the subject of routing, the reason we can do ludicrous things such as regularly wiping out every last man of the opposing force is because all routers run to the same point off the map. This means that one small unit of light cavalry can run down an army.

Now, I don't know about you guys but if I was a router then running away from the enemy would be far more important than where I was running to. If units picked their own points to rout towards it would make things a lot more difficult to run them all down.


And they all stick in a close little group, making the cavalry unit's job even easier. I realise this is so they can reform, but if a unit is past the point where it can reform then it should be each man for himself, perhaps dispersing in the same way dogs do when they head off the map. This should allow a battlefield with men running away all over it, adding to the realism and increasing the number of survivors.

[Bob the Insane]

I have been playing arund with modding unit statistics to try an generate longer lasting standup fights...

One thing I did with add 2 to the morale of every unit in the game, but I am seriously considering removing this change as even a peasant unit with fight until recieving 50% casualties in a simple head on fight of equal numbers... And a remotely professional unit will happliy fight until receiving around 80% casualties...

I can't decide to the "realisim" of those sorts of figures... I mean yu can still route units sooner by ganging up on them and flanking them, etc... But is it reasonable for any old units to fight nearly to the death before running in a simple, equal fight??

For slowing things down I found giving all units a big bonus to all unit's defence stats. I am still experimenting, but as it slows down the rate at which individuals in a unit are killed off, it reduces the rate at which morale penalties (from casualties) are piled on..

[Darius]

I remember having battles in MTW that would last for several hours, and thats in real time. I'd throw in a few stacks, the AI would throw in a few more, and then the battle began. One side would crush the first line after a prolonged struggle. Afterwards the reinforcements would arrive and they would assemble at a defensive position and take on the attackers, the attackers would be pushed back, the defenders would pursue, the next wave of attackers would slam into the pursuers from the flank and send them reeling and it would just go back and forth like this. Now I charge, or set up on a defendible position, and then the battle is done in no time. If only that was how RTW worked...

[SpencerH]

Yeah... You could see the cracks in the line as the units began to waver. Gritting your teeth you began a frantic clickfest to get whatever reserves in position before it was too late and the entire line collapsed (along with the reserves). There has been many times whre I have yelled at the screen "COME ON... Just a few more seconds." A few more seconds... That is an eternity now. Even if you take hoplites and other phalanx units the battle is quickly desided.

I've always preferred defensive battles. Some are Agincourt-like slaughters but those like you describe are always the best.

I fought two defensive battles this morning before work with a total of 5000 men in the space of 15 min. The battles in RTW are over too fast and chain routing is a big part of it.

[Red Harvest]

When I first was adjusting the phalanx two days ago, I did a 1 vs. 1 grassland test with 6 militia hops vs. hastati or something like that. (I had already given the hops some armour pts. to match their greaves and helmet in the game.) The plan was to test a well ordered wall vs. similar but somewhat better sword infantry. The AI and I marched against one another with 5 abreast, and captain's unit in reserve. As the lines met I was able to keep my militia in good order and take the pila barrage--this was the IDEAL match up with militia hops. When the hastati crashed into them, two of the units routed immediately...for no apparent reason, creating a "picket fence" look. I threw in my captain's unit at one of the holes, but of course could do nothing about the other. In this case the battle was lost within 2 seconds of the lines making contact despite what should have been a sound tactical employment, and the AI even obliging with straightforward frontal assault.

As a result of this and other tests, I have raised defensive skill for almost all phalanx units by +2. The formation should be excellent at defending itself and holding together. If the game engine won't give them credit for it...then I will do so with the unit stats. In tests yesterday I found this to hold the units together well, even if they were suffering considerable attrition.

[BeeSting]

JeromeGrasdyke has said that the morale system in RTW is based on pretty complex equations, so I don't think that it's nearly as straightforward as simple linear bonuses and penalties. Since the combat engine was completely rebuilt for RTW, I don't think anything from MTW is applicable, except perhaps as a hint to the designers' view of what morale modifiers should apply (assuming the designers were largely the same).

-Simetrical

And indeed, I like the way the morale system works, if you are facing an equal quality troops and high command general, you will find it tough to route them. Such battles may last 30 minutes or so. It's just that you rarely run into an AI army of equal quality, much less generals with equal or higher number of stars. Again, they were either all killed off early and if you do find a uber veteran force that may be of equal match, they are usually leaderless. Have you noticed how past the first generation, you rarely see AI generals that may match your own lion’s brood of leaders?