Standard Modification to Fix Morale

[Khan7]

Alright, it's time to get those who want to return morale to a more reasonable level together and work on a standard modication for the troopstats.txt file. Puzz3d has done some excellent preliminary work which you can look at here http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001975.html

Basically the way this would work is we get together a commitee that would do tests and work out how the troopstats file should be modified, and then a copy of the new file/description of modifications would be distributed to any and all wishing to use it. This way any of these people could play eachother online.

If a "grognard", as I will from now on refer to them, is having trouble getting a match or wants to play an SP campaign, all he need do is change out his modified troopstats file with the standard one.

In this way, grognards can get their way, without forcing others to follow them and without waiting for CA to move its lazy/overworked (probably more lazy) butt to do something about it. We at this time have no idea how long it will take them, if they ever do it, so I would suggest that this is the best course of action, and is a relatively quick, easy, and clean solution, if not as good as a patch providing in-game options which may never come.

So, let's get to work! I'm sure some vet will come in here and assume leadership in this effort, but my e-mail is gengiskan0@cs.com and my ICQ is 57947664 anyway.

Admins: the scope and importance of this discussion warrant that it not be moved to one of the scantly-trafficked special-topic forums. Please let it be :-)

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Khan7

[Khan7]

grrr.. bump

[Catiline]

Khan you know the deal, I'm not keeping everything you post here open purely because you aslk for it. Editing and Mods is

a) getting more traffic than normal

b) populated by people who are morelikely to be able to help with this sort of thing

c)not so busy that you have to bump to keep stuff visible.

d) where this belongs. You post in GD and it doesn't get replied to. QED

So if anybody wants to reply to this go HERE

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Oderint dum metuant

[Whitey]

looking at the game, and after playing a while - I am under the impression that -12 morale points to each unit 'sorts out' the morale problem in Jap vs Jap games...havn't tested Monguls yet...

[Khan7]

ok ok Catiline, you're right..

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Khan7

[Catiline]

In true dP style I just found my new sig

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Oderint dum metuant

[Puzz3D]

Whitey,

I also finally came up with -12 after devising a really simple test, and establishing that raising honor by 1 point also raises morale by 2 points. You can look at what honor a unit becomes impetuous in STW and then WE/MI and a morale modified WE/MI.

Here's what I got. The number right after the unit name is it's base morale at honor=0.

Old STW:

SA 0 H9
CA 0 H9
YS 2 H8
YC 2 H8
Ng 4 H7
HC 4 H7
Wm 8 H5
ND 8 H5

New WE/MI:

SA 0 H3
CA 0 H3
YS 2 H2
YC 2 H2
Ng 4 H1
HC 4 H1
Wm 8 H0
ND 8 H0

Reducing morale in the TroopStat file by 12 points:

SA 0 H9
CA 0 H9
YS 2 H8
Ng 4 H7
Wm 8 H5

You can see that -12 points makes WE/MI the same as STW. You can also see a 2 to 1 relationship between morale and honor. In fact, units become "impetuous" at +18 morale. Just take the base morale + 2x the honor to see it. Playing with the TroopStats file you can establish that:

Impetuous is morale 18 or higher
Steady is morale -30 or higher
Uncertain is morale -36 or higher
Wavering is morale -46 or higher

If you want to repeat this test make sure that the units get separated to prevent the flank cover morale boost. It is between 1 or 2 points for each cover: left side, right side and back. A taishio gives at least 2 points to a unit he covers, but I believe it's less than 4 points. He has to be fairly close to the unit to do it; about a distance of 20 men measured edge-to-edge or 30 men center-to-center. (I used 10x6 retangular units). Also, the taisho adds +2 morale to whatever unit he is in. So, statements over the past year that the taisho unit has a beneficial effect on his army are correct, but he has to be quite close to the units for them to get the morale benefit. I missed this effect in some flanking tests I ran last Feburary.

MizuYuuki

[This message has been edited by Puzz3D (edited 08-30-2001).]

[Whitey]

sorry - this post was 'wrong'

[This message has been edited by Whitey (edited 08-29-2001).]

[Khan7]

This may be obvious, but I'm just having a bit of trouble deducing how Puzz is getting his experimental data on morale. Thanx in advance :-)

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Khan7

[Puzz3D]

What I did was play a custom battle with 10 of the same unit each having a different honor from 0 to 9. I then identified the lowest honor unit that remained "impetuous" when it was moved away from covering support of other friendly units. The enemy was only a single low honor YA, and kept it's distance so it did not interfere with the measurements.

I did this for old STW, new WE/MI and a modified WE/MI. I didn't test all units the last time. I had seen enough after 5 different units. You can see in the first dataset that every unit becomes "impetuous" at +18 morale. Once I identified that point, I lowered morale on a set of 10 YA units of 0 to 9 honor until they spanned the next morale transition point like "steady/uncertain" and then "uncertain/wavering", and finally "wavering/running". The last one is hard to get because some of the units run immediately, and that can take another unit with it. I think I did identify the right value.

Lastly, I took the highest honor YA I had that was "wavering" when set off by itself. I know that unit is 2 morale points below the value that will make it become "uncertain" because I can see the next higher honor YA unit standing out there alone, and it's "uncertain". Then I bring over other units to cover the "wavering" unit, and see what type of support gets it up to "uncertain". That's when I saw that the taisho's unit, which I happened to make a warrior monk, gave more support than a non-taisho unit. I had also been lowering the taisho's honor over several test runs to see at what point it made the transistion from "impetuous" to "steady" because in some earlier testing I had seen an impetuous taisho when other non-taisho units of the same type and honor level were only "steady". The taisho made the transition at 1 honor point below what the warrior monk in the 0 to 9 honor dataset did. That's why I say the taisho gets a +2 morale boost.

These morale boosts from supporting units are not very large, but they can be the difference between winning and loosing when you get close to the "wavering/running" mark. This phenomenon is what is removed from high morale battles because you are so far above that point. At high morale, casualties alone determine the outcome. Sure you see units run, but the outcome has already been determined by casualties.

Sorry. I really didn't give enough information before for people to follow what I did. I don't really have as much time as I would like to test this stuff, and I loose my LAN setup 5 days from now. Just typing out this explaination took me over 30 min.

If you see any flaw in what I did, let me know. I did work only in multiples of 2. So, there is a possibility that I'm off by 1 morale point on the transistion points, but I don't think so. It's easy enough to check, but taking the time to do it is another thing. It means not doing something else like typing this post.

MizuYuuki

[This message has been edited by Puzz3D (edited 08-30-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Puzz3D (edited 08-30-2001).]

[Khan7]

My, you are quite a scientist, with amazing patience and method! My hat is off :-)

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Khan7