Any consideration to alter the battle morale in next version?

[CatoTheYounger]

Massive battles that are long slugfest can be cool. But when you out flank and even encircle your oponenet and charge from the rear to boot and they wont break for anything it can get tedious and take away the relevence of tactics.

Hammer and anvil strikes shouldn't be instant routs like in vanila but they shouldnt be bordering on useless either. I think some more ballancing should be considered to make tactics more relevant again.

Any such plans?

[Agrippa19]

I always find that barbarian units only need a little bit of tiring out before a cavalry charge or flanking manouver causes a rout. More elite units however they need a bit of morale sapping like seeing others rout or a general dying before they break and elite armies I find rarely ever rout till they're completely out manouvered. I personally don't think it needs to rebalanced very much if only a little. I only play medium difficulty battles though.

[Theoroshia]

I could see toning the numbers down a bit, but the morale is pretty good where it's at.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

For my part I'd actually have to disagree. The main value in the battles as they were has been actually allowing genuine tactics greater prominence. Manipular tactics are actually viable for the first time, for example!

Because of recent balancing tweaks, particularly around arrows, it is likely that v2.7 will finally appear with 'doubled armour and shield', but lethality only increased by 60-70%. This, I can assure you as I fight every battle, both large and small, has resulted in even grittier battles! They actually don't last any longer and casualty results are just the same (so the aim of the changes has been achieved), but by heck do they seem more in doubt.

There will, I'm sure, be updates to 'shorter battles' alternate EDUs to allow what you want - but overall as designed I think it's just brilliant.

[menawati]

I think the balance of offense vs defense and the the morale mechanics are really well tuned. It's one of the main reasons I come back to this mod time and again as it makes the battles a lot of fun. For example, 2 defensive heavy infantry units slugging it out face to face takes forever but you really do then notice a huge difference when you use an offensive AP unit on their flank and it chews through them. Also, I'm happy with the morale of legions and elite units being really high but they will still rout after repeated cav charges or use of 'frightens enemy' troops.

[tone]

What we have done for the next release though is, by increasing armour and shield values, and increasing lethality, we've made less well armoured units more vulnerable and easier to break, but also it means that some of the high charge, high impact units have more of a dramatic effect. I would say that the battles seem shorter on the whole now. My impression is that charges from the rear have a more dramatic effect than they did.

We've just got three new beta testers join so it'll be interesting to see what their reactions are to the changes.

[CatoTheYounger]

What we have done for the next release though is, by increasing armour and shield values, and increasing lethality, we've made less well armoured units more vulnerable and easier to break, but also it means that some of the high charge, high impact units have more of a dramatic effect. I would say that the battles seem shorter on the whole now. My impression is that charges from the rear have a more dramatic effect than they did.We've just got three new beta testers join so it'll be interesting to see what their reactions are to the changes.

Sweet. This is the Alpha and Omega of Rome mods and i love the longer battles. I was only realy reffering to the occasion when i have my oponent realy surrounded and they wont give. But i admit Sacred Band was often at the heart of this problem. Also cant wait for the new Garrison script. I dont mind the rebellions even though others have had issues with it. Im just waiting for the first rebellion capua bug to be fixed. Been playing Third Age for a while but i see another Rome campaign in the not so distant fiture. Probably want to read another roman history book first. Maybe some more Livy dont know.I also thought it would be cool if certain characters will show up automaticly at a young age around the time they would apear like Caesar Pompey Cato Bruttus Cisero and a few others. Most the rest could be random but that late republic era is amazing.

[High Fist]

I agree that the morale system could do with some work in a few areas. I mean if you kill an entire army and only a unit of for example, Gaellaci Elite Scutarii, they fight on till there's about 10 left.
I don't mind when it's two long lines of infantry slugging it out, but when I have encircled a unit on three sides and start charging them with 2 cav units, one after the other and they hold out for over a minute minutes at 3x speed... I haven't the patience for it.

[kahnage]

i must say, the longer battles i do appreciate (and I'm glad to hear that armour and shield values are getting doubled eventually. I always wondered how lightly armour barbarians have equal defensive stats to the civilised factions elites....) but when i just want to go on for an hour or two, the long battles can be....troublesome.

[High Fist]

Yeah, large battles can be pretty awesome, but when fighting much smaller forces it can be a bit of an annoyance. It just takes so long to kill people in this game!