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morale of new units - 8/25/2005 6:51:09 PM   
carburo

 

Posts: 108
Joined: 7/8/2005
Status: offline 		This is minor thing, but I find it odd that newly produced units are way better- I’m assuming we all build our new units in the more “barracked” provinces- than the veteran ones. This renders combat experience almost unnecessary. I think it should be the opposite. IMHO, combat experience should have more weight than the barrack level.

It’s a lot easier to raise a new elite army in your developed provinces than to raise the old units’ morale through combat. New units shouldn’t be elite, except guards, which are supposed to be a collection of veterans from other units.

I would propose that barracks help decreasing the resources and time needed to build a new unit, but would diminish its effect on the morale.
Post #: 1
RE: morale of new units - 8/25/2005 6:55:07 PM   
Reg Pither


Posts: 196
Joined: 9/19/2003
From: London
Status: offline 		I absolutely agree with your first paragraph, though not sure I agree with your possible solution...

(in reply to carburo)
Post #: 2
RE: morale of new units - 8/25/2005 8:19:47 PM   
ericbabe


Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline 		We could cut back the morale effect on barracks. They are already a very nice development: make it .1 morale per level instead of the .25 that it is now?


(in reply to Reg Pither)
Post #: 3
RE: morale of new units - 8/25/2005 8:51:27 PM   
Bruckner

 

Posts: 9
Joined: 8/18/2005
Status: offline 		And make combat 0.25?

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 4
RE: morale of new units - 8/25/2005 9:50:52 PM   
carburo

 

Posts: 108
Joined: 7/8/2005
Status: offline 		That'd be fine. But I think the problem is really a little more complicated.

Even making the barrack effect at .1, France and GB -and with time, any human player- will get elite fresh units; and the funny thing is that indirectly, combat experience seems to actually decrease morale. Unless you have like 30 month of training, the reinforcements you get from the draft have, paradoxically, lower morale than the new units (I would expect the new units draw recruits from the draft too). So, any high morale unit (a new one for example) losing guys in battle will over time lose morale through reinforcements even if from time to time it gets some increase from combat experience. My experience is that the units I start with gain morale very slowly (but lose it very fast when are heavily beaten in a battle and take in 2k reinforcements the next turn); and the best among them steadily lose morale through the casualties/reinforcement process. We need higher combat experience bonus to offset the loss of morale due to reinforcements.

The solution I see is making the base morale for new units lower for every nation, and making the gains through combat bigger and different. Barracks and the national bonus should have an impact, but never make starting morale higher than say 3.5 or 4. After that, combat experience could give .25 for France and GB, .2 for Sweden and Russia, etc. This way, we’ll keep the differences between nations, but new units would be weak for everyone, albeit not equally weaker.

Just my idea, don’t know if this is doable.

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 5
RE: morale of new units - 8/25/2005 10:01:26 PM   
carnifex


Posts: 1295
Joined: 7/1/2002
From: Latitude 40° 48' 43N Longtitude 74° 7' 29W
Status: offline 		There should be a morale cap on freshly produced units, maybe something like base national morale + .50. All further morale gains should come through combat experience (which should be increased).




(in reply to carburo)
Post #: 6
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 6:41:56 AM   
Mynok


Posts: 12108
Joined: 11/30/2002
Status: offline
quote:

The solution I see is making the base morale for new units lower for every nation, and making the gains through combat bigger and different.


The problem is that this ensures that the lower morale nations will never win. With the morale rules as they are, Turkey and Spain can get an army capable of winning battles. With the above changes, they will never win a battle except against the AI in detailed combat.


(in reply to carnifex)
Post #: 7
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 10:09:04 AM   
Ralegh


Posts: 1557
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline 		I agree with the basic premise - that combat experience should be a more important determiner of unit morale than the barracks they were built in - and would even take it further to say that combat experience should be more important than nationality. The effective morale of your starting units should be significantly better than anything you can easily produce, and certainly better than reinforcements. And I think a unit's morale should go up even if it loses a battle - it is a measure of combat experience, after all.

I think the impact of nationality should be done away with when building units, and the men drawn from the reinforcement pool rather than the population at large - so if you pay for men to be trained longer, then you get better morale in both reinforcements and new units. Building particular types of units would still have higher morales - as a bonus over the basic to represent the additional training time that is already reflected in unit construction.

As flow on changes to maintain balance, I would:
1) Make the current reinforcements settings produce lower morale troops
2) Allow training beyond 20 months to impact morale
3) Allow recruitment as reinforcements to reduce province population, and get rid of the reduction to manpower when a division is built
4) Remove the nationality default morale setting, using the reinforcement pool instead - or make it a much smaller modifier
5) If the player reduces the time for training for the reinforcement pool, this should push out lower quality recruits into the draft pool, ready for placement in either new divisions or as reinforcements.
6) I know we currently pay cash for troops in the reinforcement pool (under going training) - we should also pay for troops in the draft pool (waiting for placement). At the moment they flow through there so quickly we don't notice, but with these changes there would be incentive to allow the number in the pool to grow at certain times.

One further enhancement - I think morale should go up a little while a unit is in a corps or army (or down a little when they aren't).

_____________________________

HTH
Steve/Ralegh

(in reply to Mynok)
Post #: 8
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 10:56:49 AM   
Reg Pither


Posts: 196
Joined: 9/19/2003
From: London
Status: offline 		One of the problems with this whole issue is (as another poster pointed out) the way in which the game uses Morale as a measure of Quality. In my view, Morale should be a variable factor that can go up or down depending on all sorts of circumstances, but Quality should be based on battle experience, so will only ever go up unless lower Quality reinforcements are drafted into the unit. I'd therefore much prefer to see Morale and Quality as two separate (but related) statistics. But, as this would probably mean a rewrite of the whole game, I won't hold my breath...

(in reply to Ralegh)
Post #: 9
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 1:27:43 PM   
KarlXII


Posts: 259
Joined: 8/21/2005
From: Stockholm
Status: offline 		I fully agree with the last post.

Unfortunately that will probably not happen due to the design of the game but there must absolutely be an increase for battle experience regardless of it being lost or won. That is fundamental. As it is now, it doesn´t matter if you have units that have survived for 10 years in the campaign, they´re not better than newly produced troops which is totally wrong I think.

/Karl XII

(in reply to Reg Pither)
Post #: 10
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 2:14:29 PM   
Hard Sarge


Posts: 22741
Joined: 10/1/2000
From: garfield hts ohio usa
Status: offline 		I got to disagree with your line of thought Releigh

what army of this time period, trained troops for 20 months, let alone more then 20 months ?

before joining a combat unit

and if a war was not going on, most of the troops were not doing any training

the Russians and Turks of this time period, were not poor troops, because they didn't get enough time in barracks, and for most of them, that lived though there first few combat actions, didn't become good troops

modern day (and not that current) I went though 13 weeks of training as a Marine, then there was ACT for a few weeks, and then you were sent right into combat (and my time frame, we had heavy and long training, it was cut close to in half earlier and later on)



_____________________________


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Post #: 11
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 5:55:18 PM   
carburo

 

Posts: 108
Joined: 7/8/2005
Status: offline 		No matter how accurate the models we can think of now, If we start proposing complex changes and a whole redesign of the game chances are we won’t get any improvement. We should try to find easy to implement solutions, even if they don’t completely fix the problem.
I have a simple proposal, but I would like to here possible drawbacks I might have overlooked:
1. Substantially increase the morale gained, and the probability of getting the increase, from combat. Has to be high enough to offset the negative effect of reinforcements due to “normal” casualties. Could be made dependent on the casualties if the increase in morale is applied before the unit is reinforced, as the new recruits will then lower the gain. A unit badly depleted after a battle could lose morale simply because it takes lots of new recruits as reinforcements.
2. Lower the effect of barracks on the morale of new units.
3. Lower the base morale of new units and make differences among nations smaller.
This way old units with combat experience will usually be better than new ones, and every country, after a few battles, should have at least some hardened units that should be able to defeat the other’s new units.
Side issues:
Units should get a severe morale hit when surrendering. Honestly I don’t know exactly how the game works here, as my units seldom surrender. But I don’t want units rewarded for surrendering.
If we start fielding more low morale units, maybe the current effect of artillery fire on morale will need to be lowered a little.
In my games cavalry seems to gain morale much faster than infantry does. This needs to be evened, or we’d end up with armies made of elite cavalry and crappy infantry, or all-cavalry armies.

(in reply to Reg Pither)
Post #: 12
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 6:08:04 PM   
Gem35


Posts: 3420
Joined: 9/12/2004
From: Dallas, Texas
Status: offline 		I agree with Ralegh, There should be some more emphasis on troop training "value". As of now it is'nt much of a strategy to set a training time because of the high benefits of barracks levels. The way I see it, more control should be allowed in developing draftees and battle tested soldiers, tone down the barracks morale mod, and eliminate the Nats mod. I like the idea of morale affecting whether a division is attached or not. I would also like to add that I enjoy this forum and the excellent insight offered, especially by Ralegh, you Sir are a nice fellow to have around.

_____________________________

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(in reply to carburo)
Post #: 13
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 6:20:20 PM   
Jordan

 

Posts: 171
Joined: 6/21/2005
From: California, USA
Status: offline 		I agree that battle experience should be the primary factor for increasing permananent morale. Gameplay factors should increase or decrease morale on a temporary basis, which means that your decisions and management of the troops will be more important. Losing big battles, losing a lot of men to forage, being far from home, should not only affect the troops directly invovled but have an effect on all other troops as well (albeit to a lesser degree).

I would like to see feudalism affect morale (does it?). Also, I would like to see more upgrades (especially nation specific upgrades) similar to Patriotism that can increase morale on a permananent basis.

Although I don't know that it could make it into the game, I think barracks time should be factored into what types of manuevers a division is able to perform. 6 months to form column, 10 to form square, 12 to form line, another 3 to march in line, whatever. Maybe a longer time periods would give a unit better flanking bonuses, reflecting the idea that longer time periods means a unit has trained with other units. The reinforcement pool should also be the pool (with training times and advancements gained from training baked in) from which you raise new units. You pay the costs and the extra-time for unit specific training.

(in reply to Hard Sarge)
Post #: 14
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 7:07:58 PM   
MarcelJV


Posts: 343
Joined: 5/9/2005
From: Mohrsville, PA
Status: offline 		Simple solutions. Ok here is what I think.

1. Draft pool. New units come from the draft pool, that is if your current pool is 50 000 then you could select to build 5 units of infantry and the pool will drop by 50 000.

2. If there are not enough drafts then a population point is used instead and the base morale is equal to 2, which should be the lowest setting you can make in the draft pool.

3. Base morale for a unit is equal to the draft morale of the units, so if you had all the drafts you need in the pool then the base morale = draft morale, which most poeple set to 20 month and 21-30 year olds so 5.2

4. Barracks. Base level of barracks will affect the morale of the unit produced as follows. Level 5 barracks have no effect. For each level under 5 morale is modified by -0.1, for each level over 5 morale is modifed by +0.1. So barracks effect will be from -0.4 to +0.5 (can you go above 10 on barracks?).

5. Battles. Every unit that participates in a battle gains 0.1 morale.

6. Reinforcements. Not sure how it affects unit today but I would reduce morale by the difference in the level of the draft pool and the destinations units current morale, based on the percentage of the unit that is being replaced. Lets do an example. Unit has 10000 men max at a morale of 6.0. We add 1000 drafts at morale of 5.0. 1000 men is 1/10 th of the unit maximum. The difference in moral is 1 so we take 1 x (1/10) = loss in morale. 1 x (0.1) = 0.1 loss in morale. If you had 1000 men and added 9000 men then the drop in the above example would be 1 x (9/10) = 0.9 loss in morale. If the drafts have a higher morale then the unit then increase the morale using the above formula.

6a. Exceptions: Guard units recieving replacement have replacements start at a morale of 8.0 not what the draft pool indicates.

7. National Morale modifiers. Increase or decrease by national morale levels. Assuming national morale is above 0 then increase the base morale of drafts by the current national morale / 1000 (max national morale). If national morale is 0 then no change, if less then 0 subtract morale of the new units or draft morale. Round to the nearest .1.

What do we think.
That is all.

(in reply to Jordan)
Post #: 15
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 8:16:47 PM   
ericbabe


Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline 		I think that a division that participates in many battles but that suffers serious damage in each battle should on the whole LOSE morale. I've nursed some units through battles, playing Turkey, taking care to keep them undamaged, and have been able to get some fairly high levels of morale throughout the course of a campaign. I think the current levels of morale increase aren't too bad, but you can't expect to create a high morale army through these rules, instead have to concentrate on a few elite divisions that don't suffer much damage.

I believe that both the winner and the loser of the battle receives the morale bonus for the battle.


(in reply to MarcelJV)
Post #: 16
RE: morale of new units - 8/26/2005 8:50:06 PM   
carburo

 

Posts: 108
Joined: 7/8/2005
Status: offline 		Eric,

Agree about the effect of casualties. A unit losing its veterans and replenished with new recruits should lose morale. This is already in the game I think, as low morale recruits lower the morale of the units they reinforce.

The real problem is that now there is no point in nursing your units. My green divisions have much better morale than anything the old ones can get through battle. If I want an elite Corps all I need to do is build 7 new units in my 7+ barrack provinces. The starting morale for new units and recruits should be much lower than it is now, regardless of the nation or the age of the recruits or the month of training. Veteran units should be better than green ones, not worst.

In my games, it takes years of war to make one of the starting units go from 4 to 5. But I can build 6+ morale units in my capital from the first month.

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 17
RE: morale of new units - 8/27/2005 3:48:54 AM   
Ralegh


Posts: 1557
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline 		I think this whole line of argument is actually due to players liking long games.
Up until very recently, I only played games to 1000 glory, and had no significant problems with the way morale worked.
Now that I am playing longer games (and hence have the time to build up barracks to significant levels), it does seem sillier.
(Especially in the beta of the next patch, where textiles are more available and waste can be significantly impacted by the player)

_____________________________

HTH
Steve/Ralegh

(in reply to carburo)
Post #: 18
RE: morale of new units - 8/27/2005 7:06:25 AM   
Alaric_31

 

Posts: 65
Joined: 7/5/2005
Status: offline 		greetings everyone, i think it is a matter of game experience on the player, enough experience gives the player the choice to know what morale in the draft pool will not drain significantly the morale of the units from the beggining, a newbie player, even the experienced player can make trouble in its mind about what morale is enough for the draft pool to not drain the morale of the units and give them chance of improvement trough battle, in the long therm and how things are now i think the playing balance is addecuated because with a draft pool of around 4.5 the most powerfull of the nations can be more drained than weaker nations, i find this very right for play balance, it is only what i think and was wanting to share with all of you. i hope if morale settings are changed them still stand moddable, i like very much to mod the games i play with so far i can, thanks for your time.

with my best regards,

Alaric.

_____________________________

There is no plan of battle that survives the contact with the enemy.

(in reply to Ralegh)
Post #: 19
RE: morale of new units - 8/28/2005 2:06:27 AM   
Castaños

 

Posts: 2
Joined: 8/28/2005
Status: offline 		After enjoying the game quite a lot I find the recruitment of new units is not very well balanced.
There’s no reason to try to “nurse” any of the initial units, just build up your barracks and the new units will be a lot better than any of the “veteran” units, and I find that this is nor realistic nor fun. I prefer to take care of my veterans and watch them become elite units after years of victorious battles, and that’s something that with the system the game uses is so difficult it is worthless the effort.

Instead of using the barracks to determine the morale value of the new units and need labor to recruit them, I think it will be better if:

1. The barracks determine only the number of units that can be trained or recruited in the territory.
So, in a province with barracks of lvl 7 you can train or recruit 7 divisions at a time.

2. The morale of the new units depends of the training period you set at the “construction” time.
With a unit of infantry, set the minimum time at 1 or 2 months, and a morale base of 2. For each additional month of training the morale goes up .25, to a maximum of 4 or 4.25 for all countries, with the exception of Turkey, that will have a maximum of 3 or 3.25 (They were very inferior to the European armies at that time, they systematically lose every war with Russia and Austria)
If I not remember badly 4 or 4.25 is the morale of the “regular” units, I don’t find logic that a newly recruited unit starts with a “seasoned” or “experienced” rating or more, I think that’s something you can only have with combat experience or a LOT of months of training. For that reason I find that this moral will be too the maximum morale you can put to the draftees.
If you want to maintain some advantages for England or France they can have a plus in the monthly gain of morale or can have a + 0.5 morale when they finish the training, or a better morale to the draftees.

3. Instead of using labor to recruit units, use the draft pool and lower the population of the province in where the units are raised. I find it makes more sense.

4. At any province you can raise any type of cavalry or infantry unit, if you have the advances needed. Uhlans and lancers were recruited in a lot of different provinces, and with lvl 7 of barracks it’s not an easy job…
With minor changes it can work without problems.
To raise “light” infantry troops you will need the “skirmishers training” and some countries will have the option to take it only after 1805 (Prussia, for example), to make guard units (other than the one or two regiments every country had at that time) the advance of “guards”, to recruit rifles another advance (available first to England and later on to the other countries) and so on.


And for the morale of the units “on the field”, make an advance of .1 for each battle, +.1 if victorious, - modifiers of the replacements.
And there is the problem of the sieges… if you starve the defenders they die like flies in the first months, but after that they seem to have food aplenty (maybe they eat the corpses of their fallen comrades?) and it takes a lot of time to starve them to death.
Because if you assault them the problem is that the morale of the attackers will always drop with the replacements, and they not seem to gain experience for besieging or assaulting the fortress.

Best regards,
Castaños

P.D. I pray you excuse the faults and grammatical errors, English as you can see is not my native tongue…


_____________________________

El diablo es el perpetuo optimista. Lleva toda la eternidad creyendo que puede hacer al hombre peor de lo que es

(in reply to Alaric_31)
Post #: 20
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