The role of "morale" in the game

[Eugene Shutto]

Let's talk about morale. What it does?
-I know with high morale party get campaign map speed bonus.
-Some perks working with morale too, like medicine and scouting.
-Some perks give me a boost of morale in the battle.
But how does it help in the battle? Troops still deserting if I'm loosing the battle. May be they fight better ? I don't think so. I haven't seen any morale impact in battle, have you ?
Perhaps it helps in simulation battles? I can't say for sure. Have someone tested it ?

Let's take perk " inspiring defender " + 20 morale bonus when party under attack. What if I have 100 morale already, because it's easy. So no bonus then ? What if I have 50 morale , so + 20 from perk =70 , and how it will help me ?
I bet I'm not only one who is curious how does it work .

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

The lower their starting moral the easier they will route as units near them are killed. I don't know the exact workings but it's very obvious if you snipe down a garrison as militia start with low moral do to technically always being over their party limit. As you kill them you will see break points where some rout then more and more as you keep killing. I'm not sure how the game knows what units to make rout but at least in siege it seems to be one in proximity to those being killed.

In campaign overall though it barely matters as it must drop to 10 or lower for troops to disband. It will basically never happen.
CASUAL

 

[Eugene Shutto]

So they do fleeing away in battle due to low morale? I would say will be good if we could see morale condition in the battle.

 

[Apocal]

So they do fleeing away in battle due to low morale?

Yes. The best way to see it in action is to do a siege and watch how many defenders break and flee for the keep.

I would say will be good if we could see morale condition in the battle.

That would be nice, yeah. But right now morale is superfluous because by time it starts to break, you've already killed so many dudes you're going to win anyway. It is also flat busted for mounted units because of its area of effect nature, so they'll almost never run for it, despite riding the means to do so.

 

[ElCrisp]

This is a comment on the moral system in general, but it strikes me as silly, having a moral system in which troops route but dont have the chance to rally and rejoin the fight.
Along with the problem that fights are over to quickly so you could never really have a situation were troops route and re enter the fight for a meaningful impact.
If there was a need to actually eliminate routing units it would also give cavalry one of their more realistic roles on the battlefield of persuing fleeing enemies and stopping them from regrouping. It can be sort of fun slaughtering fleeing units but currently its probably dumb / pointless to do so as you should turn all your attention realistically to the units that have yet to flee.

Unless there are some hidden regrouping of armies or something I am unaware of, on the field breaking a troops moral is the same as having killed it.

 

[Apocal]

This is a comment on the moral system in general, but it strikes me as silly, having a moral system in which troops route but dont have the chance to rally and rejoin the fight.
Along with the problem that fights are over to quickly so you could never really have a situation were troops route and re enter the fight for a meaningful impact.
If there was a need to actually eliminate routing units it would also give cavalry one of their more realistic roles on the battlefield of persuing fleeing enemies and stopping them from regrouping. It can be sort of fun slaughtering fleeing units but currently its probably dumb / pointless to do so as you should turn all your attention realistically to the units that have yet to flee.

Unless there are some hidden regrouping of armies or something I am unaware of, on the field breaking a troops moral is the same as having killed it.

Yeah, I agree with all this.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

i have lost some battles because all my men suddenly ran away when it looked pretty even because i went in with to little moral...But sometimes i went in with to little moral and it went well to...Think it depends on the situations they are facing...Are you using good tactics and they hit a lot not taking to much damage and losses they stay, but if its the other way around that it goes bad they flee. Personally i like the suprices not knowing whats gonna happen even if i do know were going in with low moral and it can be an risk.

Think you going down also affects the moral in some way but dont quote me on that, its just an theory i have in my mind so far since it looks like they are under performing in some small way when i do...

Can warmly recommend you doing an commander only play thru, almost never lifting a finger in combat except if your lines get breached ofc...
This way you get more eyes on your men to see how they react in different situations....Only problem is that you have such high leadership skills that moral isnt an issue later on though but still you can see whats the difference up to that point if you remember all the details on the way

 

[Eugene Shutto]

Only problem is that you have such high leadership skills that moral isnt an issue later on though but still you can see whats the difference up to that point if you remember all the details on the way

Yeah , I've got 125 moral level to get disciplinary perk , at this point moral is 100 and never go down no matter what .
Do you think moral helps in simulation battles?

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

Do you think moral helps in simulation battles?

No clue but tactics does though for sure which is naturally my second pick of choice next to charm playing as an commander

 

[Eugene Shutto]

No clue but tactics does though for sure which is naturally my second pick of choice next to charm playing as an commander

In 1.5.4 tactic perks are good , except lvl 25 . And it's finally worth it. Can't say the same about leadership though, many perks for governors only , hope devs will add secondary effects like in other perks.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

In 1.5.4 tactic perks are good , except lvl 25 . And it's finally worth it. Can't say the same about leadership though, many perks for governors only , hope devs will add secondary effects like in other perks.

Yeah leadership became weak now after the update for sure and a lot from there came in under Steward and some switched places...Its a mess for sure ^^ Also disappointing that they took away the deployment before battle perk in tactics and really are hoping that they are working on it atm

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

This is a comment on the moral system in general, but it strikes me as silly, having a moral system in which troops route but dont have the chance to rally and rejoin the fight.
Along with the problem that fights are over to quickly so you could never really have a situation were troops route and re enter the fight for a meaningful impact.
If there was a need to actually eliminate routing units it would also give cavalry one of their more realistic roles on the battlefield of persuing fleeing enemies and stopping them from regrouping. It can be sort of fun slaughtering fleeing units but currently its probably dumb / pointless to do so as you should turn all your attention realistically to the units that have yet to flee.

Unless there are some hidden regrouping of armies or something I am unaware of, on the field breaking a troops moral is the same as having killed it.

They won't re-join the fight they run from, but if you retreat your party and attack again all the routed units are deployed again.
Also if it's a siege "sally out" fight any routed enemies will actually go back into the militia and garrison and you will have to fight them again after you finish siege camp and launch a siege battle.

 

[JDZ5]

There's a lot of ambiguity with morale in this game. We need to get down to what the morale system does for the gameplay both on the map and in simulations.

The purpose of morale on the world map is so the player can keep his army running efficiently, and if high enough can lead to bonuses for that army as you've listed. Nothing terribly wrong with that and it adds to the simulation aspect of Bannerlord that everyone loves. Cool as-is, nothing crazy but it works.

Now morale on the battlefield is supposed to simulate panic caused by overwhelming casualties, being outnumbered, or certain events such as horse charges. Instead I have entire formations retreating only to see them run through their own reinforcement wave when the battle is far from over. Re-routing would fix that issue, but the mechanic itself is somewhat flawed because the only "morale" simulation I've seen are with heavy causalities. For me personally, I want to see strategies based around morale, as in, the AI or player purposefully trying to break their enemies morale in simulations. This would include going after commanders of formations specifically, repeated charges with multiple horse formations, destroying siege equipment, surrounding their formations, high-ground... Giving a whole new range of depth for the player to experiment with, and defend against. You have to PLAN and really buckle down on an objective, very rarely should formation just be randomly retreating because they've lost a few guys (even though they have more on the way). The point is right now morale is overly simplistic. You kill more, they retreat. They kill more, you retreat.

Now it may seem I'm asking for a more "realistic" battle, but I'm not. This is just a more complex morale system to make the game more dynamic and fun. And to inevitably everyone on the verge of posting "muh realism idea" don't. Save those ideas for the modders. Realism for the sake of realism isn't fun, go play SCUM and watch your character bend over to take a #2 every 30 minutes.

 

[stevehoos]

Again a VC feature: " Side loses a leader" moral hit notification would be a welcome addition.

 

[MakinTorf]

repeated charges with multiple horse formations

Thats a great idea. To have the possibility splitting up your party into more different formations. shouldnt be so hart to have 2 different formation changes in one of your party group but it would make the choices for battle formations so much better ... at least looking. AI could have some problems with that.

This would include going after commanders of formations specifically

yeah, feels a little bit strange that in armies every lord have its own formation, but if the infantry looks all the same it feels a little bit awkward. Also couldnt be so hard to just make some graphical changes of just one of your formations and also have to decrease moral on the battlefield when he falls.

surrounding their formations

dont know when this should happen because they are fighting and/or routing only.

high-ground

now you got some idea. i want to see a third possible way for battles. it would included only a big minimap, dots, and a curser. i think about a strategic like game. the dots are the troops on your battle field on the map and you control them with your mouse.
that would not only give you a hole new perspective for the battlefield and the fight, it also would give the game a higher range for strategy playing gamers.

 

[Eugene Shutto]

Next update promises morale debuffs. But not a single word about morale system rework. I'm so curious to see. Now I don't care about my party's morale cuz I have 125 leadership and morale level always 100 no matter what. I think every each point of leadership should give just 0.1 morale , so 125 of leadership will give 12.5 morale bonus what allows morale not being always 100.

 

[Adryl]

They won't re-join the fight they run from, but if you retreat your party and attack again all the routed units are deployed again.
Also if it's a siege "sally out" fight any routed enemies will actually go back into the militia and garrison and you will have to fight them again after you finish siege camp and launch a siege battle.

I'm not sure if this is true anymore... I remember fighting some big sieges against 750+ men who sallied out to attack me and after the battle they had zero defenders. Can't imagine we killed them to a man. They must have broke and run at some point.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I'm not sure if this is true anymore... I remember fighting some big sieges against 750+ men who sallied out to attack me and after the battle they had zero defenders. Can't imagine we killed them to a man. They must have broke and run at some point.

That's good if true, it's annoying.
Did you have to build the siege camp still though? If you've already finished camp and they sally out I think you can immediately take the fief when you win.

Also, I think garrison units that rout during the final siege normal battle will actually be in your garrison after you finish! Can't say 100% but whenever I take a fief VIA sniping alone I have surprise units in my garrison!

 

[nyarlathotep1975]

Maybe morale will become even more important. I joined a fight against Khuzait. About 400 Khuzait vs 500 NE. Khuzait it seems always attack even when in a bad spot, while at least the empire made a defensiv stance even when in a good spot. After 50% Khuzait died, the rest started running away.
After that fight I got 65 renown, normally I get 10-20 at this level and 27 relation with the party I was helping. Normally I get around 4-10. I noticed this in 3-4 fights in different games. Could ofc be unintended by the devs.

 

[Eugene Shutto]

Maybe morale will become even more important. I joined a fight against Khuzait. About 400 Khuzait vs 500 NE. Khuzait it seems always attack even when in a bad spot, while at least the empire made a defensiv stance even when in a good spot. After 50% Khuzait died, the rest started running away.
After that fight I got 65 renown, normally I get 10-20 at this level and 27 relation with the party I was helping. Normally I get around 4-10. I noticed this in 3-4 fights in different games. Could ofc be unintended by the devs.

Even mounted troops fled? Usually mounted stay until the end.
May be they ran out of morale and realized they left a kettle on a campfire.
I really hope they make morale more important with next update, so we can win in battles without total massacre.
P.S. hate Khuzaits