New Idea - Morale

[Retrospect]

Perhaps some of these ideas could be used to replace the cultural defence of cities, which I always found a little unrealistic.

 

[IronClaymore]

Perhaps some of these ideas could be used to replace the cultural defence of cities, which I always found a little unrealistic.

Definitely. This.

Lets compare two cities in world war two: Stalingrad and Singapore. Stalingrad had its defenses blown to all hell, was bombarded into rubble and partially surrounded. The attackers had armour, heavy artillery, endless waves of aircraft and well-supplied infantry. And it held. The defenders didn't even dream of giving up. They built makeshift defenses, and rebuilt them over and over when they were destroyed. Fought house-to-house, for months on end.

Then we had Singapore, which, in the way of artillery bombardment, only really saw light infantry mortars. Which was at the very limit of the Japanese supply lines. That was the supposedly un-takable fortress, the jewel of British south-east Asia. That could only be assaulted by boats due to being on its own swampy island. And it was taken in a week. Of course, had the soldiers and civilians known what would happen to them after the city was taken, I'm sure they would have fought to the end, using pointed sticks and throwing rocks once the ammo was gone, right down to the last housewife braining soldiers with a rolling pin.

Yes, history buffs, I'm massively oversimplifying things, and the Japanese had taken the water supply, but morale played a huge part in these battles, and not just the morale of the defending units, but of the city itself. Simple culture would not be enough to account for this - no way was an inland industrial city no one had ever heard of more cultural than an ancient trading hub.

Perhaps city morale could function like the current crime/pollution system. More morale gives automatic buildings that improve defenses and bombard defense, and improves the chance for militia units to suddenly appear when an undefended city is attacked, while bad morale causes crime and reduced defense and espionage defense.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Interesting ideas there.

I was saying earlier that morale and other emotions should be a property but I like some of the applications you're mentioning.

I also somewhat don't fully appreciate the cultural defense mechanism. I have a lot of plans for a project to cover a major overhaul on defensive measures for cities and some of those contributed thoughts may find light in the mod when I go to tackle that end.

Both defense and emotional states are projects that would stem directly off of my current Combat Mod project, extending some of the interactions I'm building there. So this is pretty close on the radar actually. But its still going to take some time to get what I'm working on completed and playtesting to make sure its balanced and so on before I can go back to the table and choose the next most pressing project. So its hard to say how soon any of these concepts will manifest really. But yeah... loving this thread and all the ideas presented here!

 

[Faustmouse]

After reading trought this threat I realized, that an idea I posted long time ago could fit here as well:

Using sacrifice-atlars to sacrifice some slaves or population to increase the morale of your troops. The aztec-wonders (Pyramide of the Moon und such) could have an effect even stronger.
What about the climate-simulation? I think the weather would also have a huge impact of the morale...

 

[Sgtslick]

SMAC used morale instead of promotions, and social engineering choices (civics) effected morale. Peace loving green economy civics for instance mean troops don't want to fight. Also consider the anti-crime promotions being affected by civics and morale. A police state - power civics enhance these while democratic & free market civics would decrease them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm going to have to have a long chat with AIAndy on how I want to implement this and how what he's set up already could be used to achieve it. But I'm officially leaving emotional effects such as Morale out of the current Combat Mod project until I'm on top of the rest of it. Once the other things being worked on there are sorted out, I may consider this a cherry to add on top. I don't think it would be hard to setup, just a bit time consuming is all - mostly a lot of xml work with his Mission Outcome and Property methods.