I've noticed in a couple of battles that my troops start fleeing as soon as the enemy is within bowshot, and one time before I even pressed "Start battle"! I checked EDCT for any hidden traits that could account for it but found none.
It happens mostly when I use older generals, and I know that two of them have been doing grand raids into enemy territory where they got at least a level of Starving before returning to own provinces to rest (including much bouncing due to conquering towns on the way), and one of them became mortally wounded at some point too but got that fixed by the time of the next battle.
A third has been stalwart in defending Emyn Arnen from countless sieges and has consequently intermittently been going low on supplies too. This is the case where a missile unit on the wall started panicking before I even started the battle, and the rest of them did the second I started the battle.
Conversely, generals that are Hungry do not have nearly as bad morale as those who have had a worse condition at some point. So yeah, based on this I'm suspecting the supply trait.
I think the reason is that the engine doesn't care about removing effects when you apply a negative trait point that reduces the level. Note that the vanilla EDCT has no such negative point awarding, but then again the vanilla EDCT is not exactly complicated...
I know that in EB, the Babylonian New Year caused the Seleukid faction leader and heir to permanently lose their movement points because the engine didn't remove the effects when the trait level was lost, and the same happened with the client rulers becoming impostors recently, they permanently lost the penalties given to them while taking over another city. I fixed that last one by adding another level to the trait and then when I was to remove the trait, I gave one point before immediately removing two again. This made the effects go away.
Obviously, as the supply trait has way more levels you can't simply jump up to a random non-effectful level and then bounce back down to nothingness as I could here. But it could perhaps behave better with antitraits than awarding negative points ("Affects ImprovedSupply 4" instead of "Affects supply -4"). For testing purposes you can see whether it removes effects by giving the trait an effect that is very visible, like movement points reduction or a vast increase in influence or whatever you prefer.
Of course, the same goes for the three other traits that are awarded negative points: Loyal, Disloyal and Wounded (the latter causing a double whammy on the morale combined with the supply trait).
Edit: Oh yeah, and when the general died in one battle, the troops that had been running away from bowshot range were quite happy to stand in the face of the enemy (and fail, as so many had died due to fleeing a short while ago).
Last edited by bovi; August 23, 2008 at 07:09 AM.
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We are aware of this engine flaw with removing traits (actually found out while traiting for GAFM), so I'll try to overhaul these traits to use anti-traits in order to shift between levels, as you suggest, in the next release (extra level works as well, but it won't do for this one). It will be a bit tricky, because I was initially trying to go for a more complex system than what EB uses for supply, so we'll see what we come up with in the end...
Of course I'm enjoying it . Otherwise I wouldn't get any old generals with permanent -25 to morale after all .
Perhaps mostly due to the challenge, I tend to prefer the horde factions of Dunland and Easterlings. It's enjoyable to send 5 stacks of panicky orcs into the vastly superior kingdom infantry, or to send a stack of wagons and raider cavalry to penetrate deep into the Haradrian empire, whose focus on cavalry means they get cut down by the wagons really fast.
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I do NOT answer PM requests for help with EB. Ask in a new help thread in the tech help forum.
================
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image. - Stephen Hawking
Possible problem with the supply trait
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Hope you're enjoying FATW.
. Otherwise I wouldn't get any old generals with permanent -25 to morale after all 
.
