global versus platoon morale

[Deadly Dave]

Does global morale affect global fighting abilities. I assume that this is the case due to the fact that auto surrender will kick in if morale is too low.

However on a large map say hilly and heavy tree cover surely the platoon that might be getting wiped out in one valley shouldnt cause the platoon in the next valley to drop in morale unles there is some means of knowing ie radio or sight.

how is the AI worked on this does it count total points spent- less points lost through attrition( add flag bonus) to arrive at victory percentage and then is morale directly connected ie “were winning guys keep fighting “ does a winning percentage increase or maintain morale.

the answer to this may affect play eg is it better to hit hard in the opening rounds so as to soften the enemy globaly so that even enemy that hasnt been engaged is already less keen to fight, and is it better to announce flag victories so as to increase victory percentage and thus morale and thus the will to fight

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

To my knowledge there are NO "global morale" effects in the game - except obviously the surrender feature .

But even at 1 man from surrender the entire force fight at normal efficiency, only individual squads/teams experience moral effects.

Or else I didn't understand anything to morale issues in the game after 20 months of play !! :eek:

[Silvio Manuel]

BUMP. I thought Global Morale DID affect all of your forces...making them more likely to break or surrender. I remember Fionn mentioning that in the Alpha battle AAR, how he lost 10% from an F/B killing his Panther and that would affect everything a bit. Must check the manual when I get home.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Pascal DI FOLCO:

To my knowledge there are NO "global morale" effects in the game - except obviously the surrender feature .

But even at 1 man from surrender the entire force fight at normal efficiency, only individual squads/teams experience moral effects.

Or else I didn't understand anything to morale issues in the game after 20 months of play !! :eek:

I agree with this

I think Pascal has it correct.

What I am about to say may seem like hersey BUT

It is my (completely unsubstaniated) opinion (IMHO) that the global moral is NOTHING more than a number that represents (out of 100%) the points of your units that are NOT dead.

Look at it this way Play a QB and buy 1000 points worth of infantry. Watch them die. As they die the global moral goes down. There is (in this case) a 10-1 ratio 1000 pts to 100%.

It is my opinion there is NO effect on fighting ability it is simply the remainder of your force this is not dead or knocked out.

{Insert Retraction here} Moon Says aka_tom_w is mistaken, Oops sorry it works like this:

"Moon Administrator

Member # 386

posted April 15, 2002 03:49 PM

Low global morale does affect all units, and makes them more prone to panic and rout. It's a fairly subtle effect, but the lower your global morale, the more likely that they get pinned or run away."

......

try it with the 1000 point infantry example, and as you loose units watch the GM go down, it goes down portionaltely to your losses.

When you loose a tank or two it goes down ALOT because they are worth alot of points, BUT there is no actual "morale" effect on the remainder of the units.

This may be disputed by someone who knows more about how the game works than me, but when I play I look at MY GM as the percentage of my over all fighting force that is still battle ready. This could also explain why you do not see your opponents GM until after the game is over which makes sense.

And yes of course when your GM gets low enough it will trigger an auto-surrender, that is one great features of the GM if you kill enough of your opponent's units and his GM goes WAY down you can force and auto-surrender, I think that is the only reason the GM is there. If you never let yours go below %30 you should be fine. I'm not sure what the math formula is for auto surrender but something is trigger around %15 - %20 I think?

-tom w

[ April 15, 2002, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Traject0ry]

Haven't noticed any effects on the morale beyond the surrenderind feature but as it is the troops should suffer from group morale. As the enemy is closing the sound of the battle carries over long distances and the withdrawing men (do not consider all casualties as wounded beyond speech or dead) wounded and afraid are the worst source of knowledge concerning the enemy. I tend to think that a number of the casualties are wounded in the nerves (or simply ran out of the battle) and believe it or not the combat units can tell from these abovementioned sounds how tough it is on the other side of the hill - added to this the random straggler telling stories of the 4 meter tall enemy soldiers and battleship sized tanks all over his former position - the group morale is thus rationalized. Actually it is easier to concentrate on warfare when you are face to face with the opposition without time to think and hesitate as your tired brain is giving control to mechanical response to combat training (thus the greens tend to crawl and cry while the veteran fights often even in hopeless situation simply because he is trained to do so more than due to will to perform combat) than few kilometers behind listening to the noise of artillery rounds hitting the ground and discharge of many manner and size of weaponry. The morale "caving" effect comes when men start surrendering thus giving the others a moral permission to do so ("If Frank surrenders why should I fight and die?" or "Everybody I see have their hands up, there is no escape - even if I am fit and equipped for combat it is okay to surrender as others do it as well") and these can lead to surprising results when small patrols take prisoners by tens. The rest is ofcourse theory of morale on the battlefield but as long as any of the writers here have not been on one I think we should stick to the frame given us by the game.

[Silvio Manuel]

I example I have to support the idea of Global Morale affecting your overall combat performance (all units) is this:

I had around 50% GM (can't be any more precise than that, too long ago). I had a Bofors 40mmAAA, Greyhound, MMG, Bazooka, and 60mm all attacking a Panzer IV. The Bofors had a "low" kill chance. All those units fired, except the Bofors, it wouldn't engage anything, let alone the Panzer.

This screwed me up, because I was counting on the Greyhound OR Bofors getting the flank kill, while the other stuff distracted the mark IV. Instead, the Bofors only engaged AFTER my Greyhound was KO'd, and then it shot at the Panzer...an example of Global Morale lowering (death of AC) then a unit doing something it wouldn't normally do out of (morale-induced) desperation? It did fire just after the 'Hound was killed.

[Moon]

Low global morale does affect all units, and makes them more prone to panic and rout. It's a fairly subtle effect, but the lower your global morale, the more likely that they get pinned or run away.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Moon:

Low global morale does affect all units, and makes them more prone to panic and rout. It's a fairly subtle effect, but the lower your global morale, the more likely that they get pinned or run away.

OK

Well if there is anyone who can speak authouritatively on on the issue it would be Moon being that he and Steve WROTE the manual.

My appologies, I must have mistaken that "fairly subtle effect" for NO effect at all Oooops !

oh well...

Looks like its best to keep your morale level as high as possible and not get your guys killed unnecessarily! (But we knew that didn't we?)

-tom w

[Deadly Dave]

Originally posted by Moon:

Low global morale does affect all units, and makes them more prone to panic and rout. It's a fairly subtle effect, but the lower your global morale, the more likely that they get pinned or run away.

so causing massive casualites even in one small area would cause global morale to drop and hence fighting spirit even with enemy that hasnt been contacted, so that the next pocket of restistance would be likely to get pinned and break even though they are fresh, I guess that has a bearing of how one attacks and with what size force

[lassner.1]

I have to agree with Silvio Manuel. I have been playing CM for quite a while, and intensively, and I have most def. noticed that if one takes high casualties units are more likely to break and more difficult to rally.

[Redwolf]

I ran a few tests. Three regular platoons in the open face 10 3-men MMG teams in woods/foxholes.

At 47% morale the behaviour is not distinguishable from 100% morale. At 31% it gets worse, you can see more temporary morale drops when storming the MGs, but not enough to make for different end results. At 22% and 17% you see even more temporary problems, but again combat results were almost the same, it isn't a big difference.

So yes, the effect is there, but it is much smaller than I would assume from the manual's wordings. Mind you that 17% morale is just barely above autosurrender.

I guess is the usual tip applies: play green troops!

[lassner.1]

With all due respect redwolf, I have to disagree slightly. I do think that there is one very noticable difference, namely, if units break early in the game (w high global morale) they tend to rally very quickly, and often without necessitating being in command. Once global morale lowers, rallying broken troops becomes increasingly difficult, and, eventually, almost impossible.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by lassner:

With all due respect redwolf, I have to disagree slightly. I do think that there is one very noticable difference, namely, if units break early in the game (w high global morale) they tend to rally very quickly, and often without necessitating being in command. Once global morale lowers, rallying broken troops becomes increasingly difficult, and, eventually, almost impossible.

Good point. I was only testing for morale drop, not raise.

So, your troops are still very usable in low global morale, but *if* you break them, you are in deeper trouble.

[Hunter]

Can Global Morale start at less than 100?

What about in an operation when you have already taken casualties?

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Originally posted by Moon:

Low global morale does affect all units, and makes them more prone to panic and rout. It's a fairly subtle effect, but the lower your global morale, the more likely that they get pinned or run away.

Humm, apologies, I was wrong ! :eek:

Effect is undoubtly "subtle" with overall morale > 50%, I never noticed it ... but now with this knowledge I can understand why broken units where sometimes sooooo long to rally (if at all ! ) !

I put that effect to my sticky horrible luck that makes me lose 3/4 of all games I play (vs human players, however ! ), but no, the game engine was against me too !!