Campaign Moral - Something no one really has talked about.

[Budwise]

I really hope after all the talking I have done in the past about CA and possible changes that they would inflict this one upon the next game. (I say inflict because it will most likely be broken and really disapointment to me or the AI will get a free pass on it like Crusade Desertion.)

You should have another type of moral, for your total empire. For instance, if you are on the up and up and taking over this and that, then it should go up and people are less likely to rebel because PEOPLE ARE HAPPY WITH THEIR LEADER until you go so far into war that people get disgrunted and lose moral when their sons/fathers come home in a box.

Also, if you are about to lose (AI too) one of your last few territories or even if you have a lot under control to a lesser extent, you should have a chance to add/lose troops. For instance, if I had only 2 DFK and a Chiv Knight and NOTHING ELSE and my city was seiged and assaulted, the peasants living there should grab arms and fill in the rest of the boxes if my moral was high and the assaulter had a poor Reputation, you should get the unit roster filled with peasant/militia type of solders so that you have a "full army" of types. HOWEVER, if you are being attacked while your assaulter won several crusades and treated everyone with Chivary, then your soldiers in a sense should either fight and break quickly or just disband and let the gates open.

If you turtle and just fend off attacks but never strike back, moral should drop because people would want revenge for loved ones lost and you aren't giving it. Also, if you capture a key providence (or even ANY providence) and just give it away (Giving to pope excluded if your catholic) then the people back home will be annoyed with you for wasting lives to just LOSE what they died to win. Also, sacking should actually ADD moral to the homeland providences but lower "happiness" in the sacked providence due to people liking to have more stuff/money.

But, if using diplomacy to add a providence instead of attacking, complete a crusade, being chivirous, attacking back when attacked (Pearl Harbor Effect), KEEPING ALLIANCES, helping defend off allies (Remember, civilians probably after a long alliance will have family in your allies homeland as well if you share a border and would be worried if it were attacked. Word spreads), or building various Happiness/Religious/Trade type of buildings should all RAISE your moral.
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With this combined with Civil Wars RETURNING would add a whole new aspect to the game. It would make both the AI (If programmed right) and you be more reasonable and more realistic. If nothing else, CA has gone a far way to make the game as realistic as possible and I feel that this would be a bonus, not a subtraction to the fun factor of the series.

As a note though, I believe that if Civil Wars returned, I think they should be few and sparse (Not like in MTW) and the side you DON'T pick will be a new faction that behaves like a real faction. That part shouldn't take that much extra programming and would add a bunch more to the game.

[Zenicetus]

I was thinking about this too, after reading the post here about potential morale effects from fighting on or near legendary battlegrounds. Faction morale effects could be triggered by all sorts of things, and tied into the economy too. But the big question (as with all "blue sky" ideas) is whether the campaign AI could manage it as well as the player, and if it would really add anything to the campaign or just be one more annoying micromanagement hassle.

Here's the other thing that worries me a little about "faction morale". It might be an interesting challenge to manage morale if your faction isn't doing very well, but it could turn into a runaway positive feedback loop if you're successfully blitzing the map. Morale boosts could make that strategy even easier than it already is. I think that might be the deal-breaker for me, personally, with this idea. But that's just my $.02, and I'd have to actually play a game set up this way to know if it's a plus or a minus. Everything would depend on the balancing; how well the AI could handle it, and what sort of controls like "squalor" are in place to hold back a rapidly expanding faction.

[Xehh II]

Hell yeah, Bud your so smart I want to be like you when I grow up
Very good idea but it wont happen.

[crpcarrot]

any of these could be included in the province loyalty system.

i wish we could have rebellions again

[Budwise]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here's the other thing that worries me a little about "faction morale". It might be an interesting challenge to manage morale if your faction isn't doing very well, but it could turn into a runaway positive feedback loop if you're successfully blitzing the map. Morale boosts could make that strategy even easier than it already is.

True, but I figured that you could also take into an account that people don't like being conquered (Like the French resistance during Nazi occupation) and that would also add to that moral effect. You steamroll across the world and eventually you will have more providences that are new (the moral penalty for newly conquered lands should be rather long) than old and faithful. Therefore, after a while unless you are a super nice chivirous king, should be disastrous.

[icek]

My way to get rid of blitz & sacking: 1 sack = pope give you halt on attacking all christians for 10 turns, punishment for breaking = excom. if you broke this youll get after 1 turn a crusade againts your capital. Muslim can fight with each other whatever they like but if they start sacking catholic or orthodox there should be immediate crusade to reconquer such lands and it would be realistic because 1 crusade's official target was to reconquer bizantine lands from turks.

[crpcarrot]

My way to get rid of blitz & sacking: 1 sack = pope give you halt on attacking all christians for 10 turns, punishment for breaking = excom. if you broke this youll get after 1 turn a crusade againts your capital. Muslim can fight with each other whatever they like but if they start sacking catholic or orthodox there should be immediate crusade to reconquer such lands and it would be realistic because 1 crusade's official target was to reconquer bizantine lands from turks.

this solution wont really work if u are a muslim faction. and orthodox factions have no penalty at all.

blitzing can only be controlled by loyalty or as budwise suggest a new variable that makes it hard to control new provinces. specially ones of different religion.

even if crusade is declared the AI does not always join in sufficent numbers to cause a problem

[icek]

this new variable would be old variable called culture penalty from rtw. So let ca make it that piety of ai's king will decide about joining crusade. Make relious unrests so heavy like in rtw and that orthodox factions will lose % in converting and if they start attacking catholics then pope can oficially anounce them as enemy to catholics alowing crusading againts them. This way christians would have problems sacking christians, unrests will prevent blitz war for orthodox and muslims can fight with each other like they please on sand and they major pain in bum would be hordes. I dont see why you think it will not work when playing muslims - they should have south and east-south of the map and they every try to move towards europe should be punished by crusade with 100% from papal states with those papal guards. And to be better, pope will not be able to take this lands for himself, after conquering he will give option to buy from him those lands. Orthodox would have higher prices so using crasaders would really empty theyr treasure chests.

[NodachiSam]

Sounds like a good idea in principle. I thought that the influence of your leader kind of already reflected how well you were doing. As in, if the new king looses some provinces I though you're population was more likely to rebel anyways. The other ideas are cool though.

[Plaidwarrior]

what about armies having a moral meter like cities public order system, bad general, lots of losses=deserting army, awesome general,victory streak=great moral and maybe even free mercenaries from surrounding provinces

[Alpedar]

Interesting would be if there was something like how peaple feel about other faction. Ruler can not abide this, but then people are not happy (protesting aginst war, protesting FOR war ...). This would have to be affected by what happens eg. getting setlement sacked or even exterminated will mad pople, but frighten too, dynastical marriage improve relations (from peoples point of view).
And some nationalities could be eg. more for vengance, some for money, some would prefare safety. If this was carefully set, there would be some force pushing towards something close to historic relations (or et least alternative history relations).

[Quickening]

There is a great game called Knights of Honor (uses the American spelling) which is just like the Total War games except not in 3D and it is awesome and it upsets me that hardly anyone knows about it. Anyway that game uses such a system and it works brilliantly. There is a checklist of things that affect your peoples happiness and war is amongst them and it gets worse the longer the war drags on.

You know Knights of Honour may not look like much but it is awesome and has an amazing amount of detail. Makes me wish that CA would redo Med 2 at some point keeping the exact same engine but just fixing things and spending all the time making it awesome like Knights of Honour and with the AI of Galactic Civilizations 2 or Europa Universalis 3. But alas, tis but a dream.