Question: General's Battlefield Influence and Distance from Units

[Slaists]

In RTW, generals' command stars would affect unit battle ability and their morale. However, the effect on morale depended on the units' distance from the general. Distance supposedly also had an effect on how quickly a unit responded to commands.

My question then is about MTW II, do generals' stars still affect unit morale, or is it just chivalry (because there are several indications, high chivalry translates into higher morale for units in the battlefield; with dread negatively affecting the enemy's morale).

The next question is whether the distance from the general still matters. If it matters, does it matter just for the generals' stars portion of the morale boost (if such still exists) or also for the chivalry part of the morale boost.

How about dread: does the general's unit have to be close to the enemy for the full effect of the morale hit or the hit spreads across the whole battlefield regardless of the distance?

Could not find answers to these anywhere yet.

[Chosun]

Good question and I would like to add one of my own. During an attack, if I use the general's special button to boost morale, all he says is "come back cowards" when none of my units are routing. Is this the same as boosting morale? I would assume he would want to say something different to that effect. Maybe even just "forward! forward!"

[zstajerski]

hehe
am wondering the same :)
although i have made myself happy thinking he screms at the enemy come back cowards :)

[wzup]

always keep him close to the action, but not close enough to get killed heheh

[FactionHeir]

Command, as Chivalry, both influence morale positively when a unit is close to the general's unit. The distance is approx 10-15 trebuchet lengths.

[_Tristan_]

Command, as Chivalry, both influence morale positively when a unit is close to the general's unit. The distance is approx 10-15 trebuchet lengths.

That covers almost the entire battlefield...

[FactionHeir]

Trebuchet lengths, not trebuchet fire distances

[_Tristan_]

Sorry...I thought you meant fire distances...

I'm a little touchy on any trebuchet matters...

[Whacker]

Command, as Chivalry, both influence morale positively when a unit is close to the general's unit. The distance is approx 10-15 trebuchet lengths.

Just curious... How do you know this for a fact? Is it somewhere in the configs?

[FactionHeir]

Call it personal experience. I didn't give some formula afterall, but the AI is passive enough that I can run fun tests in the heat of battle.

Morale just tends to sharply drop off when a unit exits the general's morale radius (especially noticable when fighting timurids)

[TevashSzat]

Yea, command and chivalry both improve morale. You might to be able to even find that in the manual but I'm not that sure of it

[Whacker]

Certainly Chiv/Dread and Command improve morale in the battles, noone is disputing those facts. The question is how exactly does it work? Factionhair 's (heh) anecdotal evidence is welcome and may be a true indicator, but we can't know for sure. My guess this is sadly yet another variable or mechanic buried in game code that CA will not tell us how it works.

[Lord_hazard]

Im pretty sure it works like an aura, your generals command points etc. simply add to all of your units morale in the sense of x+y= total morale.
The generals special ability is used to, as is indicated by what he says, to rally your troops if they are fleeing the battle field. You have to close to the units for it to work, bare in mind that it doesnt always work. It seems to work by simply boosting the morale of your nearby units for a shot period of time.

[GoongaGaloonga]

Good question - one that I have never seen a true answer for.

Below is from FrogBeastEgg's RTW guide. I read somewhere that M2TW is similar to this. Of course this does not cover Chivalry/Dread as it was not an attribute in RTW. Maybe in M2TW command rank only effects attack and chivalry/dread only effects moral. Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm...

Your generals and captains will collect command stars as they win battles. These stars make them more effective. I shall quote CA developer Jerome Grasdyke on how stars work:
“It currently affects both morale and combat ability - we tried it for a while with just morale, but it ended up being not enough of a bonus. The combat calculations have changed so much from Rome to Medieval as to be unrecognisable, so it's no longer easy to equate stars to experience.

As a rule of thumb it's one point of attack per command rank, up to a maximum of 10, and this can become negative for very bad generals. Experience is one point of attack and one point of defence per chevron, plus a morale bonus.

The general's command also controls his radius-of-effect, which is set to 30 m + 5 m * command + 2 m * influence. This is used to award morale bonuses only, and is calculated between the actual general's position and the centre-point of nearby units.”