Gravedigger's Morale Mod

[O'brien the Protector]

This is a simple mod, what it does, in technical terms, is kick the fun of EB into full gear. I know what your saying, "but how can EB become even more fun? ". Let me tell you, make the battles funner. How do you do that? You make them reasonably long, as opposed to unquestionably short. Right now the battles last anywhere between a few seconds and the time it takes to tie your shoes.
All that this mod does is increase morale, increase defense, and decrease attack rate. The units will still rout, but slower than in vanilla EB. In my games the fighting takes twice as long . This also makes the game more tactics based than based on how strong your units are ( geastae are no longer going to rout a entire army instantanously by themselves).

To install simply paste the file into RTW/data. I would recommend you backup your "EXPORT_DESCR_UNIT.TXT" before hand.

Gravedigger's Morale Mod V.5

[Admiral Nelson]

Does this make heavy cavalry charges to the rear of an infantry unit already involved in combat less... devestating?

[O'brien the Protector]

I could make it so in a future version if people want me to, but right now no. the attacked unit will rout slower however, which could give you time to reinforce them. That was my only beef with EB outside the ctd's, the battles weren't long enough for you to make any tactical manouvers. What was the point of hiding men in the woods if the battle would be long over before they could come? Many times the AI would rout when you charged them, even when they were the more powerful force. Now the units will have enough morale to withstand a charge and you will have to use more complicated tactics.


Please try to avoid double posting! - Trajan


I just uplaoded a new version, .5 . I foudn that the morales were too high and that gameplay wise the battles were too long and the untis would rout with too few units. The morales are now a little reduced and I have lessened the diffrence between weak and elite units ( which in my prevous version was increased). the link has been updated in my first post.


im not really sure what to include in future versions without suggestions.
What I have been thinking of doing is increasing upkeep costs, and of trying to sort out the cavalry buisness. I propose to strengthen cavalry as a whole, but make them more expensive. Also I would make the light and heavy cavalry have a bigger diffrence; heavy would be slower, better armoured, stronger, much more expensive. Light would be the opposite. Heavy would be used more for breaking formations and being the desisive attack, whilst light would be bettwer suited for complicated tactical manouvers, such as flanking or disracting, and as auxilary cavalry.

a second idea I have is making archers a little less pwerful, but have much more ammo and shoot a little faster ( exept the barbarian bowmen who already shoot fast enough).

[lurumagno]

Very funy!! thanks!!

[Zenith Darksea]

But 'Vanilla' EB units take so long to rout! Certainly compared to Vanilla RTW units, at any rate.

[Pontifexus Maximus]

I am pessimistic about making battles longer than usual. Even now it takes ages to kill one soldier surrounded by hundreds of enemies. I think that defence must definitely be decreased, in order to achieve realism. After all it is supposed to be historical strategy, not science fiction with soldiers-superheroes.
Those who reckon battles are too short are right, but the problem comes from the small number of soldiers per army, maybe.

[Iberus_generalis]

well i like the idea although i find the concept a bit unneeded for me... you see i play in VH VH setting.. and my battles take from 20 min to 3 hours sometimes... i do manneuver a lot, and don't chase down routing units until most of the enemy army is routing...but as RTW hasn't got a saving feature during battles sometimes long battles are counter producive....

[The White Knight]

Originally Posted by Zenith Darksea

But 'Vanilla' EB units take so long to rout! Certainly compared to Vanilla RTW units, at any rate.

Agreed. For me, when I'm in a less hardcore mood, it's even borderline over the top sometimes ("Die!! Please!"), even with triple speed.

[Renamed User]

I remember a quote from the RTW loading screens, but I forgot whose it was...

"In general, a battles are commonly decided in two or three hours, after which there is no hope for those getting the worst of it" or something like this

Realism, huh?
I think the fine line between good gameplay and good realism is different for everyone. I hope this mod adds to the length and "tacticity"-level of battle gameplay. My line dances with wolves of realism.

[Juggernaut]

I think what should be done is to decrease the number of soldiers dying in melee combat.
AFAIK most of the times the biggest casualties were sustained during rout, and only 5~10% of the army died from hand to hand combat, while in EB quite alot of soldiers has to die before the unit starts to rout.

[Matrix33]

I've read this subject and following idea has just came to my mind:
Is it possible to make fighting unit morale more dependant of
a) fight period (it would decrease proportionally over prolonged fight)
b) level of exhaustion
c) "eliteness" of the unit
d) "elitenes" of the opponent's unit
e) kind of opponent's unit (for example elephantes etc) - but this is surely already implemended but I would increase "weight" of this factor
f) pushing power of the opponent's unit (unit pushed back by enemy would loose morale
And all above would have this same importancy when determining morale checks as lossess.

Maybe all above is already implemented, I don't know. I lost my contact with Rome for about one year so please forgive me if I'm trying to discover already known land.
Just a thought
Regards

[Ludens]

I am afraid it's not possible to redesign the morale system. You can modify the unit's base settings, and perhaps the weight of some penalties can be altered, but what you are asking is impossible.

[Matrix33]

Thank you for this information.
That's a pitty.