"Fighting to the death" status?

[sapi]

I've also noticed (and fyi this is just personal experience) that units that are fighting to the death tend to be far less effective than you'd think - I've had units break and do so with dozens of men left and not inflict more than one or two casualties...

[Foz]

I've also noticed (and fyi this is just personal experience) that units that are fighting to the death tend to be far less effective than you'd think - I've had units break and do so with dozens of men left and not inflict more than one or two casualties...

Perhaps reflective of the mentality one has when trapped and forced to fight a hopeless fight trying to escape? Animals fight harder when cornered, but perhaps humans fight weaker because they see how hopeless and futile their situation has become.

[sapi]

Yeh - That's likely the case

I wasn't saying it was a bad idea, just commenting that fighting to the death does very little except on walls.

[StoneCold]

Shoudn't that be a case for surrendering instead of fighting to the death? I mean you are surrounded, broken as a figthing unit, I thought the men in it will more likely to surrender than to fight to the death?

[sapi]

If you want to look on fighting to the death in a RP sense, consider that the men in the unit are waiting for rescue from their comrades on the battlefield and still retain faith that their side will win (hence will not surrender)

[JCoyote]

Shoudn't that be a case for surrendering instead of fighting to the death? I mean you are surrounded, broken as a figthing unit, I thought the men in it will more likely to surrender than to fight to the death?

I agree. For the vast majority of units this situation should lead to a total unit surrender. Fighting to the death should only happen to super high morale soldiers; ie, the psychos and zealots. More reasonable units should be throwing down their arms and begging for their lives... which would fun if they animated it. Most would then be captured by enemy moves... though a few would still die (people are pretty worked up and accidents happen). In fact, I think a good consequence of uber morale units should be taking very few prisoners... routers and surrendered units should still be mostly killed by the highest... their just kinda crazy with bloodlust.

[sapi]

If it were to go that way, I'd say you'd want a sliding scale that peaked in the middle

ie:

low morale unit -> accepts surrenders

middle morale unit, fanatics -> never accepts surrenders

high morale unit, professional soldiers -> accepts surrenders

[JCoyote]

That really seems more relative to discipline. Discipline should be what keeps them from killing surrendered, not higher morale.