Modding units morale

[NicSO]

I have modded every single units morale (cca+3 every unit) and decreased movement speed at all surfaces for 0.15 each.

This is very good balance and battles are far more realistic. I also changed some unit stats (shield stats, defence and armour stats) because some units had way to big armour stat for their apperance or shield stat.

I can say that game is now far ore challenging because its impossible to have much biger kill ratio than your enemy because units dont rout so easily even after death of general.

This is good when fighting Seleucid phalanx units because they are far more challenging now and I have great losses now so my logistic is under big pressure:-) in my Selecuid campaign as my legions need more and more freh men!!!

I also changed phalanx pikemen stats because they weer to weak. In fact I changed stats for many units....

[BobTheTerrible]

Are there any weird things resulting from what you've done? I was thinking of doing the same thing myself, but I didn't know how it would work out.

[Slider6977]

I have modded every single units morale (cca+3 every unit) and decreased movement speed at all surfaces for 0.15 each.

Do you mean you decreased them all by 0.15? In the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers? Just wondering exactly what you mean.

[Svean]

Units should have so low morale and should rout so easily - it is how it worked in reality!!! In most of acient/medieval battles MOST of kills came from chasing routers - in fight whey were scarring each other and then running after each ;)

I remember one medieval battle by Plowce (Poland against German Emperor) whey sudden appering of reinforcement - 10 (!!!!) Knights (trained and armoured but whatever..) with some wagon sevice and killing few peasats began chain routing of German forces. There were few thousands of soldiers on both sides...

[Slider6977]

Maybe, but it doesn't make this game any more fun that routing happens so easily and often. Besides, we are talking about battles that last a mere 5 minutes after battle setup is complete, sometimes quicker if the enemy starts pretty close to the player. This is not much fun to play. Ancient and Medieval battles may have saw mass routing, but even so, most battles lasted many hours, sometime a whole day, and sometimes much longer. We want to experience that.

MTW had that to an extent, as long as there were enough reinforcements. I remember playing a 3 hour bridge battle in Medieval. And though you can no longer have nearly endless reinforcements in Rome, we still desire a lot more out of these battles. They look to amazing are are too fun to last only several minutes on average.

[NicSO]

Do you mean you decreased them all by 0.15? In the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers? Just wondering exactly what you mean.

Yes...thats it...

I played few big batles after modifications and I can tell that game is now more realistic, routs occur but not on the first touch. Battles now really look like REAL ones:-)
I didnt noticed any strange things btw., everything is perfect.

I increased morale for some elite units like spartan hoplites for more than +3 or devotio warriors. For some general units I increased morale from 18 to 24 etc.

In my last battle with few rebel units I had 168 dead soldiers/cca 350 kills with 3 star general on my side and average roman army.
Rebels had gaesataes, they fought to the death like they are supposed to.

[BeeSting]

Don't touch the morale.... instead:

1. lower the missile attack rating for archers from 5 to 8.
2. lower the "wait to attack" factor from your usual 1 to 0.5.
3. Raise the defense level.

[BeeSting]

Don't touch the morale.... instead:

1. lower the missile attack rating for archers from 5 to 8.
2. lower the "wait to attack" factor from your usual 1 to 0.5.
3. Raise the defense level.

correction: 1. lower the missile attack rating ranging from 5 to 8.

[NicSO]

But in that case routs willl still occur at same level and kill ratio willl stay the same only the battle will be prolonged which is good combined whit moral stats rising:-)
In fact I willl try to raise defence value, not armour or shield.

I think morale is important because of killl ratio as I said not directly battle length!!!

[BeeSting]

But in that case routs willl still occur at same level and kill ratio willl stay the same only the battle will be prolonged which is good combined whit moral stats rising:-)
In fact I willl try to raise defence value, not armour or shield.

I think morale is important because of killl ratio as I said not directly battle length!!!

This has been extensively discussed on forums. The morale calculation is pretty complicated in this game, and I wouldn't change it for the accuracy of realism and for the fact you will be throwing many things off balance. The reason why enemy units route so easily is not the fault of the morale system, but because you hardly ever face an enemy army led by a general who has higher command rating than yours. Nor would they survive to fight another day with their suicidal tendencies in a battlefield facing a human opponent.
Lead your army without a general and you will find your army routing just as easily as the AI's.

Also, remember that defense skill value does nothing to stop a missile; only armors and shields may stop an arrow from killing a man. So, to balance the whole spectrum of making your man less killable, you have to lower the missile value as well. And I have an opinion that missile units are too over powered here. Even the advent of gunpowder didn't have the same damaging affect as arrows do in this game. Arrows just don't pierce through armors and shields, maybe composite bows of central Asia may have, but not in the scope of RTW. You may as well get rid of the melee units altogether in this game considering that some archers are advanced as an 18th century musket unit.

Most slingers save for the Balearic slingers remain at 4. But the Balearic slingers were reputable to exceed the skills of Cretan archers or arguably more deadly, so I gave them 8.

Most stock archers were rated down to 5 save for the scythian, dacian, egyptian, and other eastern stock archers. Mainly due to the fact that they were familiar with composite bows; they were given 6 attack. For elite archers, like the cretan and barbarian fantasy archer/melee units, I gave 8.

However, for foot javelins I raised it to 9 base and for mounted I gave 8.

You will find the game more challenging this way and realize how you've been exploiting the AI with overwhelming archer units.

[Bob the Insane]

I have to say that after my personal testing I find that adding 2 points to the morale of every unit make for better battles...

While things may appear a little odd for one on one fights (peasants not breaking until they receive like 50% casualties) it is much better for large combats...

Testing with Britain vs Gual, Warband vs Warband. I had ten units on each side meeting in a long line head on head fight... Before the morale addition you would always get one or two units routing on contact with the enemy right at the start of the battle which would naturaly have the effect of lowerin the morale of the other units on that side. I think what is occuring here is unforseen effect of the morale system when you have large scale battles. When you have one, two or even three unit battles you do not see this but something happen is in larger scale battles to promote the chance of large scale routs (with or without generals).

I have already bumped up the defence stat of every unit by 6 points and this has had a good effect on slowing down the casualty rate during a face to face fight. This modification alone produces longer running battles when dealing with smaller numbers of units. But in a large battle it appears that factors other than casualties influence morale failures. The work around of bumping morale up a couple of points (in addition to the defence stat adjustment) allows for the larger battles to develop at a slower pace without actually slowing down the action. Flanking attacks and gangin up on a unit will still cause a pretty rapid rout (and arguable that they should) but at least units do not run from a straight, equal head to head fight so quickly...

I have personally found that these changes inhance the survivability of infantry in particular making them more important to the battle... Cavalry is less overwhelming as the infantry able to defend itself and does not break and run so quickly...

This also has the benefit of causing units that have routed to return to the fight sooner...

[NicSO]

This has been extensively discussed on forums. The morale calculation is pretty complicated in this game, and I wouldn't change it for the accuracy of realism and for the fact you will be throwing many things off balance. The reason why enemy units route so easily is not the fault of the morale system, but because you hardly ever face an enemy army led by a general who has higher command rating than yours. Nor would they survive to fight another day with their suicidal tendencies in a battlefield facing a human opponent.
Lead your army without a general and you will find your army routing just as easily as the AI's.

Also, remember that defense skill value does nothing to stop a missile; only armors and shields may stop an arrow from killing a man. So, to balance the whole spectrum of making your man less killable, you have to lower the missile value as well. And I have an opinion that missile units are too over powered here. Even the advent of gunpowder didn't have the same damaging affect as arrows do in this game. Arrows just don't pierce through armors and shields, maybe composite bows of central Asia may have, but not in the scope of RTW. You may as well get rid of the melee units altogether in this game considering that some archers are advanced as an 18th century musket unit.

Most slingers save for the Balearic slingers remain at 4. But the Balearic slingers were reputable to exceed the skills of Cretan archers or arguably more deadly, so I gave them 8.

Most stock archers were rated down to 5 save for the scythian, dacian, egyptian, and other eastern stock archers. Mainly due to the fact that they were familiar with composite bows; they were given 6 attack. For elite archers, like the cretan and barbarian fantasy archer/melee units, I gave 8.

However, for foot javelins I raised it to 9 base and for mounted I gave 8.

You will find the game more challenging this way and realize how you've been exploiting the AI with overwhelming archer units.

My arceher units are in my opinion to weak, slinger units on the other hand are to strong.
I changed only defence skill value because I didnt want to change anything else and I want armour and shield values stay the same at this moment.

Im playing hours and hours with morale modded and game is PERFECTLY balanced and nothing strange occured just yet no matter of discussions on other forums...

Im gonna keep u informed...