How works the morale system in Empire: Total War

[p.jakub88]

I. Introduction.

The morale is one of the most important factors during the land and naval battles.

Morale is related even to fatigue and experience of the particular unit on the battlefield.

I would like to write a tutorial, which explains the basics and some advanced aspects of morale.

Credits to: Taw, Kaunitz and The Hedge Knight - for help and support in morale modding.

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II. Morale overview.

Every unit has its own morale level.

If you "mouse cursor over" an unit card in Grand Campaign, you would know its morale level.

Bodyguard units and elite units have very high morale by default.

The examples of lowest morale units: militia, armed citizenry, conscripts.

The morale during a battle depends of those factors:

---> fatigue (i.e very tired unit = low morale)

---> experience (i.e very experienced unit could withstand more than "fresh" recruits)

---> and other bonuses or negative factors

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III. Examples of positive and negative morale factors during battle.

You will notice a text description on a unit card, when a factor is taken into the "count" --> but only the "biggest" value at a certain period of time is shown on the unit card visible as a text description.

Most commonly encountered morale factors:

---> general alive / dead

---> friendly units nearby

---> under missile / artillery fire

---> winning / loosing current combat

---> tired / exhausted / confident etc

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IV. How to modify the morale values.

First of all, not all morale factors could be modded directly (it is almost impossible to "rework" the whole morale system in Empire: Total War).

For land units morale: head to the "kv_morale" db table inside patch.pack.

For ships morale: head to "kv_naval_morale" db table inside main.pack.

Positive values mean a "bonus" for morale, "0" means no effect - and negative values of course some disadvantage.

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V. Morale levels.


Every unit could have different morale levels during a battle:

---> eager

---> confident

---> steady

---> shaken

---> wavering

---> broken / shattered

If the unit reaches the "lowest" morale level possible, it will be "out of control", but there is a big chance that its "turn back" from routing (this depend of the unit type).

A very negative morale factor for an unit is the dead of general or admiral during the land or naval battle.

If this factor is "mixed" with other negative factors (loosing current battle, under fire, many casualties, etc) the unit could rout from the battlefield.

Very tired unit could lose their morale very easily, so wise tactic is to keep them fresh as long as possible.

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VI. Examples of dangerous morale levels.

Let's say, that the line infantry unit is still "fresh", but formed the lines and are involved in firing from muskets.

In the same time, they are under heavy artillery or musket fire from small range.

Then, suddenly the enemy cavalry comes and attacked them from the rear or flank.

The line infantry unit is tired from firing all the time, so it has no "fatigue reserve" for fighting against cavalry.

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VII. How to prevent the morale drop.

Commonly encountered situation, is the cavalry charge against unprepared lines of line infantry.

Best tactic, is to form square and fix bayonets as soon as possible.

If this is impossible (no researched yet), try to avoid running and "spare" some unit fatigue for such engagements.

Sometimes better is to fall back a bit, than risking being massacred by cavalry wedge...
Reinforcements give some morale boost for the units on battlefield.

Make sure the artillery or infantry have their rears and flanks covered --> if possible.

"Throwing" the general unit into the "heat" of the battle could be sometime a good idea, unless he will be not killed....

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VIII. Summary.

I only "gathered" all the info that i know about the morale mechanics in ETW battles.

Any feedback about this tutorial will be appreciated!

If i missed something very basic or very important in the morale topic (or i made errors), please tell me this as soon as possible.

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[Kaunitz]

Oh my, you’re flooding the boards with questions. Maybe we should combine all the morale-topics in one topic? ( topic 1, topic 2, topic 3)

Positive Factors


permanent factors

• Base morale (for all units) in kv_morale_tables
• unit’s individual morale (in unit_stats_land)
• any boni stemming from units’ experience

temporary factors

• flank/rear support (see diagram in this link; kv_morale)
• on a hill (kv_morale)
• inspired (kv_morale; applies when there is a friendly unit with "inspires allies" ability present within a certain, unkown range)
• friendly troops nearby (applies when there are no enemy units around and/or more friendly units than enemy units around; not moddable; may have more than one "step")
• square formation (doesn’t show up ingame but we know that there is an effect ! not moddable)
• winning close combat (not moddable)
• general alive (not moddable)
• enemy routing (applies when there are routing enemy units within a certain range; not moddable)
• supporting army (not moddable)
• kills inflicted on the enemy (“blood bonus” in % of the “killing” units strength?; kv_morale)
• charge bonus (kv_morale; According to my experience, this bonus applies once a charging unit actually makes melee-contact with the enemy; The duration of this effect can be set in charge_timeout)

Negative factors



permanent factors

• casualties suffered in this battle (total_casualties_penatly_x% (of units starting strength); kv_morale)

temporary factors

• under small arms (=musket) fire (kv_morale; the unit has to suffer kills due to the fire; it is not sufficient when bullets fly by or don’t do enough damage to kill someone)
• under artillery fire (kv_morale)
• enemy numbers nearby (not moddable; might be the reverse of “friendly units nearby”)
• friends routing (=panic in kv_morale; note that a unit only observes its front and flank areas to detect routing units; you can alter the corresponding distances in kv_morale)
• frightened (kv_morale; when enemy troops with “scares enemies”-ability are within fear range. fear range can be set in kv_morale, but it seems to be capped at 100m, and can’t be set any lower)
• horses frightened (kv_morale; When enemy troops with “scares horses”-ability are within fear range)
• single flank threatened (kv_morale; It’s really hard to figure out when a flank counts as threatened. I’d need to do some tests in multiplayer mode)
• multiple flanks (=rear) threatened (kv_morale)
• recent casualties penalty (kv_moale; in % of the units’ starting or rather current(?) strength; =shock casualties; triggered when a certain amount of casualties is inflicted in a very short amount of time, which can be set in recent_casualties_shock_treshold" (in ticks; 1/10 seconds?)
• extended_casualties_penalty (kv_morale; amount of casualties suffered in a certain time (longer than recent casualties; maybe "recent tresh." x a certain multiplier?)
• fighting cavalry (kv_morale; not sure if it really works)
• army destruction (kv_morale; applies when there is only one friendly unit left on the battlefield)
• general dead (kv_morale)
• general died recently (kv_morale)
• general fled recently (kv_morale)
• surprised (kv_morale; I don’t know exactly when it is triggered? Is it sufficient for a hidden unit to show up, or does it have to shoot/charge, etc.? The duration of surprise can be set in “surprise timeout” in kv_morale)
• attacked in flank/front/rear (kv_morale; note that routing units can still bestow this malus on your units)
• tired/very tired/exhausted (kv_morale)

Fatigue effects

In fatigue_effects_tables, there is a column labeled „morale”. I haven’t figured out what it does to morale. Actually I didn’t notice any effect at all. However, this could be due to my personal morale-settings.

Duration of morale-effects

I don’t think that there is a way to alter the duration of temporary morale effects. As it is now, some of them stay rather long, others just a second or two.

Morale-drops

Now, the intuitive method to determine the morale status of a unit would be to add all positive factors, substract all negative factors and then compare the result to the morale-status-thresholds (impetuous, eager, confident, steady, shaken, wavering, broken, shattered). Unfortunately, according to my experience, it doesn’t work 100% this way. E.g. I suggest setting negative values slightly higher because there seems to be some “friendly units nearby” bonus at work most of the time.

You can set your own thresholds in kv_morale. The “shattered”-threshold is set automatically, as it is any number below “broken lower”. In contrast to broken units, shattered units cannot rally anymore.

The wavering-mechanism is also a riddle to me. My “theory”: The wavering-threshold usually overlaps with the broken threshold. It seems that as soon as a unit’s morale reaches wavering-threshold, it wavers for a set amount of time (waver_base_timeout in kv_morale). If it suffers any casualties during this time, it will rout once the wavering has “timed out”. If its morale drops below “wavering lower” during “wavering” however, then I guess it routs immediately.

The rallying routines are even more obscure to me. Note that some time needs to elapse before a routing unit can try to rally (broken finish base timeout in kv_morale). It’s quite strange that with my personal settings, units never rally more than twice in a battle, even when they haven’t suffered any casualties (and they've been exhausted when they've rallied for the first and second time!). A thing you always have to consider is that routing units “run” and thereby usually loose a lot of fatigue, which in turn results in morale-mali and a decreased chance to rally.

[p.jakub88]

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I' m not flooding ---> i asked about different things in Mod Workshop Section.

I only gathered all the info, that i know about morale in one tutorial.

As i said: if i made any errors or anything wrong in my tutorial, please correct me as soon as possible!

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[daniu]

“blood bonus” in % of the “killing” units strength?

I also tend to that theory.

in ticks; 1/10 seconds?

I wonder about the measurement unit too.
1/10 of a second still seems pretty large for the "broken" timeout (nominally 600, at least in NTW); that would be a whole minute, seems a lot to me. It does sound about right for the other timeouts though.

What's your interpretation of the "resistance to morale shock" trait? It definitely doesn't cancel out the "recent casualties" effect altogether... cuts it by half maybe?

[Kaunitz]

I wonder about the measurement unit too.
1/10 of a second still seems pretty large for the "broken" timeout (nominally 600, at least in NTW); that would be a whole minute, seems a lot to me. It does sound about right for the other timeouts though.

Yeah, I don't really know. I guess the "easiest" solution to find it out would be to alter "waver timeout", because the unit info box shows how a long a unit wavers.

What's your interpretation of the "resistance to morale shock" trait? It definitely doesn't cancel out the "recent casualties" effect altogether... cuts it by half maybe?

Yes, what is sure that it doesn not cancel out recent casualties. Maybe it reduces the recent cas. - morale-penatlies by one step (e.g. no effect at 6%, 6%-effect at 10%, etc.). But that's also just a guess. These things are hard to figure out. Sorry

[p.jakub88]

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Daniu and Kaunitz ---> this isn't a discussion thread, but it is a tutorial!

Too many posts inside this thread --> will make the people confused!

If you would like to add something, first prove that this is true!

Thanks in advance for understanding!

No offense of course!

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EDIT: I would like to apologize for my post above, it was rude. This is not an appropriate behaviour on the ETW forum (and in any other places). If i offended someone, please forgive me. I am not a genius or a judge to have a right to write such things.

[p.jakub88]

• friendly troops nearby (applies when there are no enemy units around and/or more friendly units than enemy units around; not moddable; may have more than one "step")

Hello Kaunitz,

I returned to this topic after long time, because i wanted to edit once more the unit morale in land battles for my own purpose.

the "friendly troops nearby" factor is nearly always visible on the unit text box in battle when moused over (as you wrote in this thread).

It is strange, because i played custom battle, when i had only one unit on my side (so where are those other "friendly troops nearby"?).

I played a siege wooden fort battle: UK vs France - one 12 lb howitzer battery vs french marines.

I only managed to delete the text description of this factor from in-game battle (i edited a db table), but i'm afraid that it is still working.

There is no line in kv_morale table being connected to this (as far i know).

So, my question is: it is possible to delete this positive morale factor from ETW battle - i mean nor positive values or negatives simply removed?

Thanks in advance for any help


Best wishes

Jakub

[poa]

Hello.
I need help, my heavy 1st, 1st, & 2nd rates ship of the line keep fleeing from sloops & brigs on auto-resolve,
and i need to resolve this bug/game feature.

What values do i have to change so that the bigger ship win on auto-resolve ?