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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2 >> Feature Suggestions >> Dynamic National Morale

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Dynamic National Morale - 5/31/2021 2:57:16 PM

rob89

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In WitE2 NM trends are fixed on the basis of the GenData graphs.

IMO, it should be dynamically adjusted (via events?), as result of the win/loss battle ratios and the VP trend.

If in 1944 my win/loss ratio is very positive, with VP better than 'standard', why does my NM have to go down anyway (and viceversa)?

In a word, try to make WitE2 less rigid in its process...

regards

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 5/31/2021 4:04:07 PM

loki100

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worth remembering that NM is actually misnamed (but impossible to rename for various reasons).

it actually reflects the average competence of your recruitment and training programme. So the Germans get worse as their replacement pool becomes more stretched (younger/older call ups, less training).

to some extent you can control it at the unit level. Take few losses and your unit morale will tend to stay above NM for some time.

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/1/2021 4:52:36 AM

rob89

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quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

to some extent you can control it at the unit level. Take few losses and your unit morale will tend to stay above NM for some time.

Yes, but what I mean is that a better war outlook (with less pressure on manpower pool too) should impact on general OOB morale, not only on single units... and viceversa...

regards

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/1/2021 3:50:25 PM

Bamilus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rob89

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

to some extent you can control it at the unit level. Take few losses and your unit morale will tend to stay above NM for some time.

Yes, but what I mean is that a better war outlook (with less pressure on manpower pool too) should impact on general OOB morale, not only on single units... and viceversa...

regards

Re-read Loki's first statement. National "morale" has nothing to do with "morale", but rather the composition of recruits (Germans in 1941 were already having to call up younger recruits, older recruits, and factory workers) and how it degrades overtime based on population constraints, which had a negative effect on training (less hours at Panzer schools, air schools, etc.) I guess you could argue winning more would make more people sign-up, but Germany was authoritarian and in 1941 was well past the point of relying primarily on voluntary recruits.

The historical demographics can't be changed and as a result I don't think making this dynamic makes any sense since it's meant to reflect the reality of what Germany was dealing with, which was an already stretched system before Barbarossa, let alone 6 months in.

< Message edited by Bamilus -- 6/1/2021 3:51:40 PM >

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/1/2021 5:11:19 PM

rob89

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bamilus

The historical demographics can't be changed and as a result I don't think making this dynamic makes any sense since it's meant to reflect the reality of what Germany was dealing with, which was an already stretched system before Barbarossa, let alone 6 months in.

In 1940 the 1921 class was called to arms, in 1941 the 1922 class, etc.

From a demographic (quantity and quality) point of view we can imagine they were equivalent
Indeed, in WitE 2, the manpower capacity (apart from one/two events, see note below) is more or less fixed and therefore I guess it reflects the above demographics.

If the outlook of the war, with a different strategy, were more positive than the historical one (VP trend, battle win/loss ratio, manpower losses and manpower pool trend) we can also guess a lower need to recruit elderly or very young people, in the years 1943 and 1944 , with less degradation of the NM values ...

Last but sure not the least : training level ... this also depends on the losses suffered and the need to exploit the manpower pool ... More losses, less training, lower morale (and vice versa) ...

I meant 'dynamic' in this sense: the 'morale' or the quality of the pool (and training, etc.), if it sounds better, depends on its exploitation ... It is not carved in rock...

regards

Note: Those events, if I could choose, should be a player option, with all the consequences ...

< Message edited by rob89 -- 6/1/2021 6:04:12 PM >

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/1/2021 5:18:25 PM

Bamilus

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The problem is the 1940 call-ups are not equivalent to the 1941 call-ups, and it eventually got progressively worse. In 1941 the Germans were already scraping the bottom of the barrel and by 1945 they were using 14 year old's and 65 year old WW1 vets.

I get what you're saying but I think it's just too complex to try and model that independently. Suffice to say, by 1941 pre Barbarossa Germany and Friedrich Fromm were already in a very tough position. Even if somehow Germany took less losses than historically, they were already blew through available reserves within first month of Barbarossa.

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/1/2021 5:29:27 PM

rob89

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In any case, all this discussion about the NM which is not a proxy of morale but rather of the exploitation of manpower capacity sounds a bit strange, given that for the Soviets in 1943/44 there is a clear improvement in their values, certainly more legible to 'morale' (and the outlook of the war) than to anything else. All the major historians agree that in 1944 also the RKKA had scraped the bottom of the barrel, in terms of recruitment ...

regards

< Message edited by rob89 -- 6/1/2021 6:03:07 PM >

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/15/2021 11:34:41 AM

AlbertN

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+1 with what Rob said.

Concept is crystal clear but '44 '45 Soviet forces were as well far from being top notch. An amount of the personnel undisciplined, liberated prisoners craving revenge more than anything else. (Sure you can say they had high morale though!)

But it would make for a more interesting game that depending on the 'on map situation' the level of pressure on your training centers and need for replacements changes.

It also can help to dismantle the issue of enforced decline no matter what for the Axis.

I can only see game design benefits from that, and not setbacks.

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/15/2021 3:23:10 PM

SparkleyTits

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Try the Vistula to Berlin campaign

There is an event in that for Germany, that helped me better visualise what is being described here

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/16/2021 7:24:41 AM

Slush

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+1

WiTE2 is a great game, no doubt about it, but it's also still history on rails. I hope future improvements will include events that are more tied to the strategic situation in the game, rather than what how it was historically. This is not meant to disparage the current state of WiTE2. It's just a wish from someone who only plays the AI and prefers a game with more strategic flexibility.

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/16/2021 10:30:29 AM

rob89

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I don't understand the evolution of 2by3 thinking: EDBTR and WITP had a certain flexibility (production, priority, etc.), then with WitE, WitW and now WitE 2 they passed to an incredible 'historical rigidity' (unchangeable TOEs, unmanageable production, not even a little bit within available resources, etc.), with the micro-detail-mania unrelated to the simple observation that a simulation covering a period of 4 years cannot always and only remain on the original track ...

Yes, it's a great game but it could be so much better...

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/16/2021 4:32:19 PM

Denniss

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WitE started to use a centralized data system (generic data) for OBs, aircraft, ground elements etc for easier managment of this data. In older games you'd have to update the data in each scenario.
You could do a lot with locked generic data in scenarios but this functionality is not yet activated in WitE2.

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/17/2021 6:03:57 PM

Q-Ball

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I think the responses on training here are part of the answer, but not the full answer. "National Morale" is really overall military efficiency, which relates to recruit quality, training, doctrine, small unit leadership, and other factors.

I think most would agree that overall efficiency of the Wehrmacht declined from 41 to 45. It declined in recruit quality, training, the loss of experienced small unit leaders....and also declined because of increased concentration of high quality recruits, leaders, and equipment in elite units (SS and others). This had an impact on the "regular" German army.

Soviet recruit quality actually declined as the war went on and the Soviets had to scrape the bottom of the manpower barrel. But Red Army grew in terms of doctrine, small unit leadership, communications, experience, and combined arms tactics. Red Army learned a ton from the defeats of 41-42.

US Army "National Morale" grew for different reasons; recruit quality remained strong, and underlying morale really did not change. What changed was that US Army gained experience, particularly in small-unit leadership, and changed some doctrines to improve.

I can go on with other nationalities, but if you look at it as, instead of "National Morale", but as "Military Efficiency", think it makes more sense

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 6/17/2021 8:37:19 PM

GloriousRuse

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Q-Ball and Loki I think have the right of it with "Military Efficiency."

I think there are two other key considerations to take into account here:

1) WitE2 is an operational-strategic game. You are OKH or Stavka, not an omniscient guiding spirit of the nation. You work with the tools you're given for the goals assigned to you. Granted, you have a whole lot of freedom, but that's still who you are.

2) Due to the popularity of Grand Strategy games, we tend to have an unrealistic view of just how much we can tweak a thing and produce a brave new world - they tend to overstate the effect minor changes can have, because, well, it's hard to admit that some "mistakes" you'd have to just go on making.

Take the Soviet NM. Let's say you have a great soviet '41 and only lose 3M men. It's not like at 3.4M all of a sudden you started drafting and before that it was well trained professional volunteers. You were going to the mass conscription and barely adequate assembly and training regardless. It's not like there was time to make new colonels and majors and/or reform the officer corps. Stalin was still being obnoxious. The logistics folks were still figuring out how to make this massive new behemoth work. So the drop to NM of 45 makes plenty of sense either way. And if you somehow only lost 600k men, you should have won the game by now...

Or for the Germans, that NM of 75 represent an extensively pre-trained peace time army with two successful campaigns and nearly a year of preparation, not to mention some very deliberate reforms and lessons taken from the earlier comparatively bloodless fights. (One of the outcomes of '39 was a dramatic refining of the small unit leaders in the German army with a real emphasis on weeding out the older, less fit, less aggressive leaders from combat NCO and officer postings -leading to '40 and '41 having a level of human capital that arguably no nation will match in WW2). That NM 75 is literally the product of half a decade of work even if you don't count the twenty years of theoretical and intellectual development the leaders pursued. Once you start bleeding, the difference between 2M losses and 2.25M losses at the gates of Stalingrad doesn't mean much compared to the reality that keeping the machine fed was going to have a qualitative cost...

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RE: Dynamic National Morale - 7/5/2021 3:33:58 AM

juv95hrn

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Still a point up here and there from capturing and recapturing major cities or maybe losing sufficient of a troop category could add and detract a point here or there, even if only temporary. I understand the rigid system, but yes it feels a bit preordained, since its a game after all. A bit more "chrome" in this regard wouldnt hurt, and potentially open up more valid game tactics, when the NM changes are written in stone. Not sure how, but Id like to see it.

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