Chain routs and morale discussion

[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.

[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!!!

[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.

[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.

[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.