National morale & unit morale

[Cantona66]

Is there a link between National morale & unit morale and vice versa?

[Wushuki]

Yes, I believe the manual mentions this. Bill later claimed on this forum that the relationship wasn't very big to not prevent players from counterattacking.

How big the exact effect is neither in the manual nor on the forums however.

[Hubert Cater]

National Morale has an effect on units in that it will also lower a unit's morale by up to an additional 10%.

For example, once a country's National Morale dips below 90% then a unit's morale will receive a hit of an additional 10% after all other regular unit morale calculations are performed.

In testing we linked a unit's morale value to be multiplied by the current country's National Morale but found that units were taking too much of a hit when National Morale was very low so we capped it at having only an additional 10% effect.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[UFC Addict]

That effectively makes worrying about National Morale to a ZERO. How about you either (a) add a little more impact by dropping another % when at 80, and another at 70.., or ( create some Trigger Events at various percentages, like for Germany, Britain, etc. if you get at say 70%, then the AI tells you to move like 4 Corps (or something) to the motherland. Because right now, everyone gets below 90% fairly rapidly.. other then that, there is no incentive to focus on NM.

[Bill101]

Hi

What we found when a low NM had more impact on unit morale was that it made unit's virtually unable to launch attacks if their opponent's had higher NM. The impact was far too excessive.

But here, the way it is now, everyone goes to war full of enthusiasm, but once the initial battles are over, the reality has set in and pretty much everyone's unit morale will be slightly lower as a result. Unless of course someone manages to do really well without suffering heavy casualties...

[UFC Addict]

I get that. But you totally removed NM from the whole game.

I was just suggesting ways you could let it play a role in this game. Right now, it is nothing because everyone drops below 90% rapidly and almost equally. And by the time it gets remotely close to 1% or whatever, the game has clearly been over for a loooong time.

I have another idea, you should multiply the attacking and defending values by NM. That way a country would have to keep an eye on NM. Right now, those NM for the Germans (the blockade routes), why would any Entente player but ships there, you get no payoff and conversely, why would the Germans give a crap if you blocked them.

[Hubert Cater]

I'll let Bill expand on this if necessary but the original idea behind National Morale was to model the pros and cons of various decisions and the relative effects of waging war over a period of time for each nation.

Essentially it was a way to model winning and even losing a war beyond the traditional capture and capitulation of enemy nations which I think the game does a pretty good job of, i.e. targeting key 'National Morale' locations on the map such as the blockade routes or cities and fortresses on the map.

Beyond that we decided to include combat casualties in the National Morale numbers and lastly we had the idea that we could also tie in National Morale with individual unit morale.

As Bill mentions we found the impact on units to be simply too excessive and you do make a good point that since everyone does drop 90% very quickly I wouldn't even be adverse to removing it entirely (as it relates to individual units) as I still think the other aspects of National Morale are significant enough.

We can discuss this internally and make some adjustments and hopefully get a better idea for any possible further adjustments.

[Sergei]

Historically, unit morale depended heavily on the availability of certain vital commodities...

(from http://tiksa.blogspot.com/ )

[Hubert Cater]

Good one !

[UFC Addict]

Hi Hubert. I think the blanket statement that it had too much of an impact.., can we re-examine that? What were the parameters of that? Did you have total Attack and Defense total multiplied by NM? Because I cannot imagine how that could cause a problem. In a close game, you have a difference in NM of like 10-15 or something. The way it is now, just remove all the NM things on the map because they make no difference that way it is presently set up. My suggestion (feel free to throw it out) is to not get rid of NM, but have as I stated the % multiplied by unit Attack and Defense. It will add the dimension of NM to a WW1 game that is needed. We have more playtesters now, so try it out on a bunch of us and see what happens. I cannot imagine this not being a success.

Down the road, I think you could tie some Events to the NM and that would add yet another dimension.

Just thoughts, they might be bad.

[SeaMonkey]

I think NM is an excellent addition to the game as it is a gauge of how you and your opponent are doing in the present situation. If the game ends prematurely the winner can be assessed immediately. It allows emphasis on goals, objectives, replicates the population's morale on the home front, all viable entities in war time.

Perhaps it needs to be tuned a tad, add a propaganda element through intel tech or the diplomatic leanings of a variuos minors to your cause. There seems to be no small enhancement to the game engine through this parameter and definitely adds a level of realism to the simulation.

I'm looking forward to it in the following SC editions.

[Hubert Cater]

Hi UFC,

Hi Hubert. I think the blanket statement that it had too much of an impact.., can we re-examine that?

Sure, what we had was as mentioned a tie in of NM to unit morale as follows:

unit morale = unit morale * national morale

So if unit morale would normally be at 100% and National morale was at 50% then unit morale would be 50%.

On paper this looked like it would be a great idea but in practice we found it just didn't work out as well as intended.

For example, unit morale is not usually at 100% to begin with and even let's say once you got to a National Morale of 80% and subsequently having unit morale continually reduced by the formula above (as NM continued to be reduced), combat pretty much started to become as mentioned useless for both sides.

Alternatively multiplying National Morale against the attack and defense values is pretty much the same thing as this is how morale already works relative to combat results, i.e. since it is related to a unit's 'readiness' value and this value *is* multiplied against the attack and defense values for units.

One way to see this is to take a closer look at the formulas and see how unit morale already plays a part in combat results or to even setup a test campaign with units in good supply and maxed out strength (which will result in maximum morale) versus units in low supply and low strength (which will result in low morale) to see the difference in the combat results.

Long story short, think of how effective a cutoff unit is and how much fun it is to play turn after turn of mostly 0 vs 0 combat etc.

Down the road, I think you could tie some Events to the NM and that would add yet another dimension.

This is actually already in place with a number of events tied into National Morale.

Just taking a quick look at the DECISION event list and there are over 35 DECISION events tied into the different National Morale levels that then tie into any number of sub events.

For example the first War Weariness DECISION event for the UK ties into 4 different SUPPLY events and so on.

I hope this helps and as mentioned I'm not adverse to making changes but in fairness we did test this out quite a bit.

We had about 20 testers over a 6 month period playing any number of multiplayer games and the absolute consensus was that NM as it was tied into the unit formulas just didn't work and after a year of game time it literally felt pointless to play.

Hubert

[UFC Addict]

Thank you for the clarification on the NM test. This game is so new, I thought it was just a quick and dirty play test. Hey, how about you take a ratio of NM.., if Britain is at 88% and German is at 83%, there is an enhancement to attack and defend of 5.7% to Britain? I will not mention this anymore.

As far as Decision events, where are those? I just checked the 1914 and 1917 Decision Event logs in pdf, and I cannot find these. Only the ones on Russia when they get super low (10-13%).

Thank you again for all of your help.

[Cantona66]

Hmm, as i understand unit morale is affected if NM is under90%

And if you get below 1% you will surrender

But i also see decision events for NM below 50% and 25% and also some for 19% and 15%, what happens for these?

[Hubert Cater]

UFC, Cantona66

I just posted the background on NM related events in the other thread and hopefully this helps.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1242014&postcount=9

Interesting idea regarding combat and NM and I'll think about this some more.

Cantona66, just to clarify the unit morale is always multiplied by NM, it is just currently limited to a maximum reduction of 10%, i.e. once NM dips below 90% the formula goes to the following:

unit morale = unit morale * .9

instead of:

unit morale = unit morale * NM

[dgold07]

I would be in favour of another 10% unit morale drop when NM hits 50% of starting value, with perhaps another 10% unit morale drop at 25% of NM.

A more consistent rule would be:

* 10% drop at 75%

* 10% drop at 50%

* 10% drop at 25%

These would hurt the side with poor morale, but would not make their combat values too poor to defend or counterattack.

[Bill101]

Hmm, as i understand unit morale is affected if NM is under90%

And if you get below 1% you will surrender

But i also see decision events for NM below 50% and 25% and also some for 19% and 15%, what happens for these?

Some of them are just pointers to the players that their NM has fallen below a certain level, but some carry over into triggers events such as industrial unrest, riots, and of course both Russian Revolutions are tied in with Russia's NM levels.

[Bill101]

I think one problem with penalizing someone too much due to their country having low NM is that often a Major with low NM is likely to be losing.

If you are losing and this were to cause a big loss in unit morale then it would make any hope of counterattacking and turning tide rather difficult.

Given that it's our hope that we can turn things around and change the way things are going that provides one of the fun elements of the game, indeed that keeps us on the edge of our seats and looking forward to our next turn, it would perhaps be a mistake to change this.

There are already other penalties in place, e.g. a Major that is taking a hammering will often be feeding units directly into the front line the moment they are formed (i.e. at lower unit morale than is desirable), they may have lost HQs which provide bonuses to their units, and their income will also be suffering due to foreign invasion and/or industrial unrest. Pile on too many penalties and even the best general would be unable to change the course of the game once a certain point has been reached.

This doesn't mean that an NM effect on unit morale would be a totally mistaken move, just that we need to be very careful that by introducing something here it wouldn't have an overall negative effect on the game.

[Alaric]

... best greetings, i have few time to post and i apologize in advance, for my bad english and if what i are about to say has been said before...

1 - to mitigate casualties effect on National Morale i think a way may be to set the NM loss directly on casualty differential, in example, attacker get 2 step losses, defender get 1 step loss, i just want to mean, that, instead of taking all 3 steps on NM drain, just hit attacker (in the example given), by one NM "factor" (2-1) this will make longer campaigns.

2 - to the development team, i just pledge about dont get rid from NM factor, i pledge to make it as a optional rule, as research, diplomacy, and all other rules/scripts.

3 - National Morale in fact is an important part of victory conditions, i just want to send the idea (if not given still), that you can make your game drive around NM, if not overall for the engine, that may be a drastic change, just as optional rule or just in some "campaign mirror" scenarios, in example, we can make a scenario based on victory conditions on capitals or objetives, may be great to make a scenario about draining enemy powers NM for determine victory.

3.2 - also, too it can be set as "open ended", each power or side score each turn or each fixed set of turns based on given NM standings, onwards, more freedom is at hand, you can set a fixed value in victory points per "NM round check" or in example each 10% loss, or the % loss directly added as victory points for the opponent.

4 - well, i are very pleased with the game engine, with both world war 2 mods and just will like this -Great- and -Devoted- engine go to multiplayer, in example,

a) democratic regimes alliance / fascist regimes alliance / comunist regimes alliance

(three sides war is not historical, i know, but is my personal favorite)

two scenarios... europe / world ... not neutral countries.

i seriously think it can make full advantage of the now given allowance of 8 major powers, i really will love a 3 vs 3 vs 2 Scenario Setting, so for world war 1 and also for world war 2.

i just make this post to make me free of the pincer on my mind that this really awesome game engine have even more potential that by now it is allowed to show,

obviously i dont are saying is bad, as that will be ridiculous by me, i just say how it may be even better,

have my best regards,

Alarick.

-looking forward for the official world war 2 scenario with the dedicated scripts and thanks to Mr. Cater and all the Development team for all the hard word.

regards.

[U8led]

just to clarify the unit morale is always multiplied by NM, it is just currently limited to a maximum reduction of 10%, i.e. once NM dips below 90% the formula goes to the following:

unit morale = unit morale * .9

instead of:

unit morale = unit morale * NM

Just want to throw my 2cents in:

I think the 10% max morale hit is a good idea for the reasons mentioned.

But I feel that being at 90% NM is too good of a NM to get the MAX morale hit.

I would like to see it stretched out longer for example:

NM<90% = unit morale * .98

NM<80% = unit morale * .96

NM<70% = unit morale * .94

NM<60% = unit morale * .92

NM<50% = unit morale * .90 (max)

Love the game more than I expected by the way

[SeaMonkey]

How about, current unit morale = previous unit morale + NM / 2