Morale vs. Experience Level

[b&i_c]

OK, if you've played SMAC, then you know that when you fight battles, instead of just going from normal to vetern, as in Civ II, you go from Green to Disciplined to Hardened to Vetern to Commando, and then to Elite. I think that it is great that they include so many levels of experience. The problem is that they call these levels morale, which I think should be totally different.
This next part I'm basing on that Firaxis is implementing some way for armies not to always die in battles, because I mean how often does the losing side get totally eliminated?

OK, I think that "morale" level should be affected by how far it is away from it's home city, how many battles it has won/lost lately, and what kind of terrain it is going through.
So, if a unit was defending its home town against a bunch of obsolete units that it had been kicking butt against, in a nice warm sunny grassland, its morale would be "ecstatic", or something like that, and its combat ability would be greater.
Whereas if you have a unit fighting halfway around the globe on a cold tundra losing a battle for the umteenth time, it isn't going to be very happy. Get my drift?

Any thought?

OK, if you've played SMAC, then you know that when you fight battles, instead of just going from normal to veteran, as in Civ II, you go from Green to Disciplined to Hardened to Veteran to Commando, and then to Elite. I think that it is great that they include so many levels of experience.

This part of your idea I like.

OK, I think that "morale" level should be affected by how far it is away from it's home city, how many battles it has won/lost lately, and what kind of terrain it is going through. Any thought?

This part I'm not sure about. A Elite unit should not loose anything because he is away from his home turf. That is why we trained some unite to be elite. The Navy Seal were in Kuwait City for several day before the ground war started, and the Iraqis did not find them at all.

[b&i_c]

Well I'm sure they weren't as comfortable as they would be on home ground, but you're right, the amount that "bad" morale is affected should be porportional to what its experience level is.

[Theben]

Morale is something that can change quite often in the middle of a battle, whereas experience only changes over long periods of time & personnel changes.

I'd say that if a unit was in a peaceful civ, its experience would decrease over time. That's about it.

[NeoBlade]

Morale determines how brave your men are.Experience deterimines how well trained they are.In shogun:Total War your men run away if during battle they're morale gets to low(IE:Were loseing).My idea for a simple implementation is that morale determines how much damage a unit will take before it "Disengages" or,better,"Run away like the cowards they are." Morale is partly dependant on Expirence...a Veteran unit is always more cocky and brave(READ:Foolhardy) then some green recruits.However,Morale slowly gos down as you go farther and farther away,your goverment type(Democracies get a morale penalty),enemy unit(Phalanx will practicly refuse more or less to fight a Tank,unless your polish..j/k) and to a much lesser extent,terrain.(Tundra,desert,Jungle)Terrains a special case..the longer you stay in terrain the more of effect its morale hurting has..thus,you can stay in the jungle for a couple of turns without any ill effect but too long and your men will probably be ready to mutiny.

When it comes to a realistic simulation of battle..this is simple.Granted,interface and gameplay will get more complicated if you implemented this.

I chould go on,I have many ideas and process to make a turn based gae into the most realistic game you chould get.To realistic,for my tastes.

[TechWins]

I don't really like your idea B&I.

[colossus]

Basically we should think about how many levels of moral/experience the game could accomodate.

The problem of moral is that it is difficult to influence. Soldiers' pay, supplies level, government performance, causus bellum, the enemies, etc really affect the moral level. And these are out of civ's scope. Moreover, as theben had noted, moral is highly variable over a short period of time. So we better forget about moral.

Experience level is more concretely affected by training level and battle experience so we can easily manipulate it. Civ2 has 2 level of experience, normal/veteran, civ3 may have more levels of experience. Personally I think 3 levels is appropriate, normal+0%/trained+50%/veteran+100%, for balance between ease of calculation and fun.

Moreover, I think higher experience level should be harder to get. For example, a normal unit has 50% chance to get to trained level if it wins a battle. But a trained unit has only 25% chance to get to veteran level if it wins a battle. There is no theoretical reasons behind but it make the game funnier as players will then treasure their veteran units which is difficult to obtain.

[Rasputin]

problem is how complicated do we make the game beofe it becomes less fun to play...

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I think it gets too complicated for civ. I think it'd be a swell idea for a wargame, but not civ. For instance, different unit types would have different morale depending on what sort of unit or force they face. Their defensive position (terrain) would affect it. The comment that being in the jungle would demoralize you holds up - unless you are a partisan or a Vietnamese or Rwandan or any other situation you can think of where it would actually be advantageous. Too many variables, way too complicated. I'll stick with veteran or not.

[Iskandar Reza]

Originally posted by b&i_c
.......because I mean how often does the losing side get totally eliminated?

......

I like this part, though I'm not sure how it could be implemented without causing the attacker frustration. Maybe a point format like public works in ctp, So that they will be better able to defend attacks from that same civ. After all, people eventually learn from their mistakes and it becomes harder and harder to attack them.

[Iskandar Reza]

By point format I mean that the unit on the board disappears if it loses the battle (eliminated, destroyed) but you get some points that act as combat modifiers so that you're better able to defend against the country who kicked your butt the last time.

[Rasputin]

perhaps an option to withdraw/retreat when the units strength drops to critical....

[Iskandar Reza]

like ctp? maybe only if the terrrain is clear, like retreating rovers in smac/x

[Rasputin]

you cna retreat in ctp ?? didnt know that, i only palyed it twice so i gues si got a lot to learn..

the path of retreat would have to abide by the usual ZOC rules

[Iskandar Reza]

well in ctp2 you could