Morale issue

[Junior]

Does anyone think they should fix how quickly your party loses morale? Unless i get in a decent sized battle every 1-3 in-game days and give my men all the loot, my morale is ALWAYS below average or very low. God forbid i do a quest where i have to travel a few days i lose so many troops, it's kind of silly.

 

[Ivan Khan]

Hmm, never had that problem. What religion are your troops? Maybe that is your problem?

 

[kalarhan]

you need to learn the morale system first.

Check your report for morale and it will tell you what is giving (+) and what is reducing it (-).

Character -> Party Info -> Right side of the screen, 2nd report

Remember to rest. Buy enough food. Have high leadership. Get a priest or camp follower on your party and pay them for fun and morale buff.

Cheers.

 

[goatmeal]

Also it's important to note that your party limit is not the same as your "party limit without morale penalty".

Consider your maximum party limit as the largest war host you can assemble but that it is very difficult for you to manage.  If you are at your max party size you need to be prepared and ready for something big like a siege or battle.  Roaming around at maximum party size is difficult to do.

Now it is a bit silly when your party limit is small, like say 50, and you are taking huge morale penalties....  But that is the way it works, I believe it's a straight % of your maximum and once you hit 60% or so you start seeing the party size penalty show up.

With no big negative factors from losing a battle you can sustain morale around 30 without seeing many or any desertions.  That means you can handle -20 in penalties from party size, food, and rest.  Create your party size as needed to stay in this sweet zone and leave the rest of your troops in your base.

The good thing is they made your party size scale based on combined champion leadership, so max everyone's leadership out and you shouldn't have any trouble roaming with a good sized warband and 0 morale penalty.  It's really just getting used to the system.  Max party size is not the same as max party size you can sustain in the field forever.

 

[DeltaGun]

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

The fact that you lose like 15 morale when there is bad weather (Even though the game never tells you unless you stop and check a specific menu every 10 seconds) contributes a lot to this.

 

[kalarhan]

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

The fact that you lose like 15 morale when there is bad weather (Even though the game never tells you unless you stop and check a specific menu every 10 seconds) contributes a lot to this.

stack positive stuff like food and leadership and you wont go below 99 unless you lose a battle. When that happens just pay 1000coins to a priest (that is on your party) and you are back to 99.

Cheers.

 

[DeltaGun]

Okay I just checked in game and you start to get a morale penalty at 50% of your maximum. I have 357 limit but I can only use 180 troops. If I use 357 I get -33 morale. So for each 1% you are over 50% of your party limit, you get -.66 morale.

Also I'm getting -9 from lack of rest even though I turned off rest effects morale.

 

[JuJu70]

Also I'm getting -9 from lack of rest even though I turned off rest effects morale.

Turn it back on, rest, check it is 0, and then turn it off.

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

You can easily counter it with a variety of food. Easiest thing - buy chicken or pork in village, use it for a day and then sell in town for profit. Get boar meat, it doesn't go bad. Basically if you can get 6 items with morale modifier of 6 and above you should eliminate the party size penalty completely.

 

[DeltaGun]

Okay I found the bug that was causing me to have -9 morale from lack of rest.

This happened because I had morale effected by Rest on, but once I turned it off, the -9 I already gained was permanent.

I'm still not sure what causes that random -10-15 morale though.

 

[DeltaGun]

Also I'm getting -9 from lack of rest even though I turned off rest effects morale.

Turn it back on, rest, check it is 0, and then turn it off.

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

You can easily counter it with a variety of food. Easiest thing - buy chicken or pork in village, use it for a day and then sell in town for profit. Get boar meat, it doesn't go bad. Basically if you can get 6 items with morale modifier of 6 and above you should eliminate the party size penalty completely.

My men are eating everything in the planet. Villages aren't restocking their goods often, so I have to go from town to town to get a good variety. By the time I get to the next town, they've eaten a lot of the goodies from the last one.

EDIT: buying more meat seems to help. Usually I stay away from it (because it rots), but it is keeping them from eating everything else as fast.

 

[kalarhan]

My men are eating everything in the planet. Villages aren't restocking their goods often, so I have to go from town to town to get a good variety. By the time I get to the next town, they've eaten a lot of the goodies from the last one.

Move troops to your refuge/castle. If you keep a huge army they will eat like crazy hehe 

Alternative: you can tweak it so food would last longer. I do miss the feature that some mods have to autobuy food.

Oh and when you camp remember to send some troops to get forage.

Cheers

 

[JuJu70]

Also I'm getting -9 from lack of rest even though I turned off rest effects morale.

Turn it back on, rest, check it is 0, and then turn it off.

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

You can easily counter it with a variety of food. Easiest thing - buy chicken or pork in village, use it for a day and then sell in town for profit. Get boar meat, it doesn't go bad. Basically if you can get 6 items with morale modifier of 6 and above you should eliminate the party size penalty completely.

My men are eating everything in the planet. Villages aren't restocking their goods often, so I have to go from town to town to get a good variety. By the time I get to the next town, they've eaten a lot of the goodies from the last one.

So you have 350 men? That means they consume 2/3*(350)= 233 units of food a day, so if you have 6 high morale booster items + 2-3 low morale boosters like bread and grain you should last 3-4 days. But otherwise, welcome to the real world. Use refuge to your advantage,and rest at night (it gives you a small morale boost)

 

[illperipheral]

As far as I can tell, the random "your party lost <x> morale" messages seem to be morale boosters wearing off. If I pay a priest 10 times for 200d each, I get +20 morale, but then a week (or something, not sure exactly how long it lasts) I'll get a -20 morale message.

I've never specifically checked that the numbers line up but it seems to be the case.

I think in the party morale report these types of things are listed under 'recent events', hence why they aren't permanent +morale bonuses.

 

[edwardecl]

Also I'm getting -9 from lack of rest even though I turned off rest effects morale.

Turn it back on, rest, check it is 0, and then turn it off.

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

You can easily counter it with a variety of food. Easiest thing - buy chicken or pork in village, use it for a day and then sell in town for profit. Get boar meat, it doesn't go bad. Basically if you can get 6 items with morale modifier of 6 and above you should eliminate the party size penalty completely.

That's something I was wondering, why doesn't boar meat go off?

 

[JuJu70]

Also I'm getting -9 from lack of rest even though I turned off rest effects morale.

Turn it back on, rest, check it is 0, and then turn it off.

I also have a problem with morale. It only takes about 1.5 days to go from Excellent to Average even if I win every battle AND give the men some loot AND have plenty of food AND am not at party size limit.

You can easily counter it with a variety of food. Easiest thing - buy chicken or pork in village, use it for a day and then sell in town for profit. Get boar meat, it doesn't go bad. Basically if you can get 6 items with morale modifier of 6 and above you should eliminate the party size penalty completely.

That's something I was wondering, why doesn't boar meat go off?

probably because it's cured

 

[Borzag]

Boar meat doesn't go bad because it's good for you!  Anyway the morale management thing is an enjoyable concept, in Vanilla Warband morale seemed to be just an indicator that there is something like morale at all, I've only had it drop to very low maybe three times during the two years (!!!) I've been playing the game. Now that you need to actually DO SOMETHING about it, it brings a nice level of complexity, which is a positive thing imo.

 

[Ivan Khan]

Boar meat doesn't go bad because it's good for you!  Anyway the morale management thing is an enjoyable concept, in Vanilla Warband morale seemed to be just an indicator that there is something like morale at all, I've only had it drop to very low maybe three times during the two years (!!!) I've been playing the game. Now that you need to actually DO SOMETHING about it, it brings a nice level of complexity, which is a positive thing imo.

Agreed. I especially like how morale concerns affect sieges. If you do not plan to keep morale up it is hard to maintain one. And, the drop with conquering is effective at controlling a blitz of the map like in Native Warband.