Soviet Morale

[Chris21wen]

How do you deal with low Soviet morale? Game time is June 42 and all of my infantry units are gradually losing morale, even units that have been nowhere near the front. Units at the front will lose morale gradually but I would have thought units not at the front nor been under any from of attack that I know of would improve. This does not seem to be the case or if it is it increases very, very slowly.

I've posted two pics, 11 turns apart and as you can see there's been little change in morale, up or down. Some units have changed position to construct forts but none have been in contact with the enemy nor attacked by air. The leader has not changed and if I understand leader stats correctly morale 6, good for a Soviet.

So what's the secret?

[Chris21wen]

11 turns later

[morvael]

I don't see a big difference between two pics. You are bound to lose some morale as it is over national morale in that period (and before that it was higher). It will start growing back in fall/winter 42.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: morvael

I don't see a big difference between two pics. You are bound to lose some morale as it is over national morale in that period (and before that it was higher). It will start growing back in fall/winter 42.

Only on support unit changed nothing else has and that's the point, it should slowly increase.

If I understand this you are saying that a units morale will fall to the level of the national morale despite not being in combat etc!! Not something I realised, not something I thought would or could happen. Does this effect every single Soviet unit?

I've looked at the manual and I'm struggling to work out what the rules are for the Soviets, there have been a number of changes that seem to contradict each other. Could you tell me what they are please.

[morvael]

You can't expect the morale to go up if national morale at this time is 40.

If unit morale is higher than current national morale it may be reduced due to fatigue, failed leader rolls and replacements (they come with lower morale, even lower than NM).

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: morvael

You can't expect the morale to go up if national morale at this time is 40.

If unit morale is higher than current national morale it may be reduced due to fatigue, failed leader rolls and replacements (they come with lower morale, even lower than NM).

I forgot the manual isn't up-to-date which is why I couldn't understand your figure of 40. I've found the relevant bit about morale in the readme. I assume that every turn all units do a morale check and a leader morale die roles affects the result. I don't mean combat morale checks.

I'm not having a dig at you here but Matrix/Developers in general. They seem to have a very lax attitude when it comes to updating manuals. WitP AE is very, very bad having never been updated since the game came out. WitE is better in that someone has included changes made in the form of notes but nothing recently. I dare say other manuals are suffering from the same problem.

[swkuh]

My understanding is that past authors of manual rewrites or updates were volunteers from player community (thanks!) Believe the "what's new" file is from the development team, and that's useful.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: rrbill

My understanding is that past authors of manual rewrites or updates were volunteers from player community (thanks!) Believe the "what's new" file is from the development team, and that's useful.

That's what I believe to be the case with the manual as well. Don't know how many people there are working on the Betas but it appears to be morvael only. Both do or did, in the case of the manual, a great job. It's not these I'm having a go at.

My beef is with Matrix/developers. Surely I can't be the only one to find the updated game documentation poor to non-existent in many Matrix games. I go even further to say the majority of the gaming industry is lax in documentation. In many cases a game will come out with such significant changes to the one described in the manual that game would not be playable without a significant readme file. This usual comes with 'We didn't have time to update the manual' . Rubbish! If they can produce a readme they can make changes to a PDF manual. Printed documentation excluded here.

Wanted to get that off my chest for a long time, almost a long as I've been playing computer games, around 30 years.

[gingerbread]

It does look like the 50 minimum NM for Brigades and smaller could be broken. All the SU and also the RB & TB should get to 50, but they seem stuck at 45.

What morale setting are you playing with? I don't know if a setting lower than 100 has an effect on the 50 minimum.

As to TS original question about how to cope: See Loki's AAR and the discussions about the Training Army concept. It's a good read in any case.

[morvael]

It shouldn't be broken, otherwise all other special NM rules would be broken. But replacements come at lower morale level, and so may not allow it to fully grow.

[Chris21wen]

Delete what was here.

Should've checked morale setting first. I'm playing on difficult so morale is set to 90 and the figures are correct.

[randallw]

The manual is a big piece of construction, and updating it every time there is a new patch would be "what, more stuff to do?" for the Matrix people.

[swkuh]

Well there's a job opportunity for someone.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: rrbill

Well there's a job opportunity for someone.

actually what I'd suggest is to start putting together a series of discussion posts in the war room exploring the implications of 1.08 and then create some sort of stickied 'guide to guide' post. At least that will make it easier to find the key points?

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: randallw

The manual is a big piece of construction, and updating it every time there is a new patch would be "what, more stuff to do?" for the Matrix people.

That is no excuse in any walk of life.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

ORIGINAL: randallw

The manual is a big piece of construction, and updating it every time there is a new patch would be "what, more stuff to do?" for the Matrix people.

That is no excuse in any walk of life.

true to a point but we also need to be realistic. The formal WiTE development cycle is over, in effect its now a legacy game as they concentrate on WiTW and that iteration of the game engine. All the good things from 1.08.xx is down to a few people putting in a lot of effort.

Its like Pride of Nations (another game I love for its depth and scale). For reasons irrelevant here, the financial model behind the game was messed up (when AGEOD were with Paradox). Now the designers do dig out some (essentially unpaid) time to apply improvements to the core game engine but they can't do the events that really drive the game. Thats become a bit of an unpaid job picked up by a few of us for them (& to be fair AGEOD then evaluate the results and incorporate it into patches). is this 'right' - no not really. Is it the only way a superb game will ever reach its potential? Yes, so I'm taking a very pragmatic approach and putting in as many hours as I can manage.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: Chris H

ORIGINAL: randallw

The manual is a big piece of construction, and updating it every time there is a new patch would be "what, more stuff to do?" for the Matrix people.

That is no excuse in any walk of life.

true to a point but we also need to be realistic. The formal WiTE development cycle is over, in effect its now a legacy game as they concentrate on WiTW and that iteration of the game engine. All the good things from 1.08.xx is down to a few people putting in a lot of effort.

Its like Pride of Nations (another game I love for its depth and scale). For reasons irrelevant here, the financial model behind the game was messed up (when AGEOD were with Paradox). Now the designers do dig out some (essentially unpaid) time to apply improvements to the core game engine but they can't do the events that really drive the game. Thats become a bit of an unpaid job picked up by a few of us for them (& to be fair AGEOD then evaluate the results and incorporate it into patches). is this 'right' - no not really. Is it the only way a superb game will ever reach its potential? Yes, so I'm taking a very pragmatic approach and putting in as many hours as I can manage.

Thanks for the time served and threading about 1.08 sounds like a great idea.

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Delete what was here.

Should've checked morale setting first. I'm playing on difficult so morale is set to 90 and the figures are correct.

Indeed, but your report made me review that piece of code and improve it, especially for support units. So in the end it was useful [:)]

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: morvael

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Delete what was here.

Should've checked morale setting first. I'm playing on difficult so morale is set to 90 and the figures are correct.

Indeed, but your report made me review that piece of code and improve it, especially for support units. So in the end it was useful [:)]

At least my moan was productive.

[micheljq]

ORIGINAL: randallw

The manual is a big piece of construction, and updating it every time there is a new patch would be "what, more stuff to do?" for the Matrix people.

As far as I know the manual is updated each time a new official patch is here.

Michel.