Learning taisho has an idiot question.

[Drisos]

It's not much: Does a low morale influence the fighting of a unit??

[Ghost of Rom]

Morale is the name of the game so to speak. When the number drops(by taking so many percent of casualties, being flanked, outnumbered, taking missile fire, etc.) to a certain level your unit runs away so the higher the morale the longer those men will stand and fight

[Nowake]

No, he asked if a unit with the morale lowered during battle gets fighting penalties. And no, it doesn't; but you really must try and convince it to keep fighting

[Wilbo]

Yes morale does affect the fighting of a unit - with low morale a unit will run away rather than fight.

Factors that affect morale in battle include being outnumbered, being shot with arrows, being charged in the flank or rear... Anything else, anyone?

[Drisos]

[QUOTE=Nowake]No, he asked if a unit with the morale lowered during battle gets fighting penalties.

That's right, Rom misunderstood me.

[QUOTO=Nowake]And no, it doesn't; but you really must try and convince it to keep fighting

OK, thanks for the information, but how do i convince them to keep fiighting?

[Drisos]

I must have done something wrong with the quote. . .

haha, i'm bit stupid!!!! :-(

[Wilbo]

Ways you can convince them to keep fighting: Good morale (palaces, high honor); leading them with a good general; dont let your general die; dont let your units get flanked/reared; try to avoid heavy casualties; try to not get too heavily outnumbered; avoid being shot with arrows where possible.

[Adrian II]

Rest assured, Drisos: there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. And in this Dojo there are no stupid answers either, only helpful ones.

[Wilbo]

Oh man, my Oda Daimyo just got moidered by the Hojo. That was pretty damning to my morale. Owned.

[gatoshin]

In a recent battle, I forgot how dreadfully the sight of fleeing units can affect the morale of the rest. Usually, when a formation of Ashigaru books, the rest of my troops just call 'em wusses and shrug it off as they march off to war. Trouble was, I had about four units of honor 3 Ashigaru charging the enemy archers, hoping to inflict some casualties and tie them up while my own archers rained death on the enemy shock troops.

These guys tore into the enemy firing line, but when the monks hit them, they all ran for the hills at once, and while the sight of disgraced peasants fleeing for their lives usually doesn't bother the samurai class, this looked like a human wave rolling in on them. All of a sudden I had a full rout on my hands, despite only suffering light casualties up to that point.

[Minamoto Yoritomo]

I ran into an interesting phenomenon early in my last campaign. My initial arrow barrage reduced the attacker's heavy cavalry down to one horse, so I focused my fire on the enemy spearmen, knowing that part of the threat was neutralized. The computer moved his single horse back and forth near my archers' flank until they routed, something that completely surprised me given the fact that I was winning the battle handily (and still won handily, despite my cowardly band of archers running away from one guy on a horse).

Anyway, the moral (no pun intended) of this story is to deal even with insignificant threats on your units' flanks in order to keep them from routing.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I ran into an interesting phenomenon early in my last campaign. My initial arrow barrage reduced the attacker's heavy cavalry down to one horse, so I focused my fire on the enemy spearmen, knowing that part of the threat was neutralized. The computer moved his single horse back and forth near my archers' flank until they routed, something that completely surprised me given the fact that I was winning the battle handily (and still won handily, despite my cowardly band of archers running away from one guy on a horse).

Anyway, the moral (no pun intended) of this story is to deal even with insignificant threats on your units' flanks in order to keep them from routing.

Yeah, the computer treats 1 man the same as 60 men for morale purposes. A bit daft really. They fixed it in Medieval.

[Drisos]

And in this Dojo there are no stupid answers either, only helpful ones.

OK then, i forgot that for a moment, can't change the treads name anymore . . .

[Togakure]

Moral is like a switch--men are either fighting, or their running. One thing I remember a seasoned vet pointing out in a post a long while ago: if a unit routs, all the men in that unit are instantly no longer fighting. Obvious, but significantly overlooked in many players' approaches to TW battles. This is better than slowly defeating a unit by killing its men. I've noticed that many of the really talented players seem to focus on causing units to rout en masse, as this will win a battle much faster than defeating your opponent by out-fighting them. Clan teammates are particularly good at this as they practice it.

Ashigaru routing through samurai won't affect the morale of the samurai soldiers very much, but samurai routing through samurai will affect the morale of the samurai who are not yet routing in a negative way. Samurai routing through ashigaru (both yari and teppo) will definitely affect the ashi morale in a negative way. Many players use low honor cav archers (h0-h1) very effectively (I love them) BUT, they can cause major morale problems when they route through your other troops, as they are samurai (and they do rout often if you don't manage them carefully ...).

There are a lot of things that affect morale, but the big ones are a unit getting flanked or attacked from the rear (particularly by a cavalry charge), or being fired on by guns (-6; this is a key reason why guns are so useful ...). Being outnumered in an area significantly lowers morale (this is why you should always bring 16 units in a MP battle). Your general getting killed will affect the morale of your entire army negatively (I seem to remember someone saying that in STW this is a permanent morale loss, whereas in MTW it is a temporary morale loss). If this happens at a critical point in the battle, it can spell your army's doom. Being fired on by archers or cav archers, or being charged by monks (if you're not Christian in a campaign) will lower morale of the targeted unit by 2. The rate of a unit's attrition obviously affects its morale.

As I said, many other things affect morale; these are just some of the ones most often exploited by players.