23-12-2003 08:23									#1
	Morale and Attrition in unit combat Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

If civ retains a system based on units, as all civs have had, I think two simple changes could make a fundamental difference.

The more importan change would be the addition of a morale factor: morale would determine when a unit stopped fighting (besides annahilation). Haing such a system woul help in immense ways:
1. Allow the makers to make units more expensive and more important, given that they would be less likely to die, since combat would not always be to the death of one unit (yes, I remember the civ3 retreat function, but this is different)
2. Allow the implementation of Attrition (more on this later)
3. Change the significant of having veteran and elite forces-this would no longer mean HP differences while at the same time making elite units more important and powerfull
4. Allow significant modificaions to allow home bonuses, give Cv bonuses and so forth.

So, how would this system work? it need not be too complex. All units would have a scale graphically shown, and the level of morale would be measured by color (imagione for now, dark green for full, then light green, yellow, orange, red, and black).
Each unit would have a base morale-the level at which the unit resets when at rest and not in any dangerous situations. Now, how would morale influence fighting?

The simplest method is to program it so that the morale has a chance to go down each time a unit looses HP, or speds a turn in dangerous terrain-you can also add a chance for morale to go up each time damage is done to an enemy, or the units s in favorable terrain. Now, as morale goes down, it becomes easier for it to keep falling- a unit in dark green will be less likely to drop down than a unit at orange ad it is easier to go up from orange to yellow than yellow to light green...
How would this work in battle? lets take two units, each with 10 hps, one with 4 attack after all bonuses, the other with 3.5 defense after all bonuses-both begin at yellow morale- lets say the first two attackes fail, the attacker goes down to orange- it succeeds once, then again fails and goes down to red..it wins twice and goes back up to orange, then looses again, going donw to red and finally looses again, going down to black- once black is reached the attack is called off. After loosing 5 HP the attack failed, while the defense, loosing 3 HP's, holds on. The attacker lost, while his unit is still alive and capable of either retreating back to a city, or trying to regain some confidence on the field.NOw, if the attackres basehad been dark green morale, even with the same 10 HP, it very likely would have dirven the other unit form its positions, though certinly loosing perhaps as many if not more HP's- all the same, we have an inatsnce were an elite unit would do what a normal one could not, withou having to manipulate HP's, which is utterly unrealisitc.

How can morale work with attrition- as I said, attrition would be a signiifcant strategic change for a civ ganme- for example, if terrain like mountains and jungles were given huge attrition values (meaning armies trying to cross them would soon be wiped out simply by mother nature), it would make jungles and mountains real obstacles to invasion, not just ways to slow down something. If attirion and morale are mixed, it would mean that certain trips could only be made by very professional and well trained armies, while regular armies would fall apartt-again, increasing the value of professional units.

As for civ bonuses-one could very well add certain morale bonuses on defense or attack to civs, making them more defnsive or offensively minded- attrition morale losses for certain terrains could be modified, making civs better able to deal with their surroundings than foreigners, and finally you could institute dfense bonuses for units fighting for hom, or atatck bonuses if your civ is ideologially driven.

	23-12-2003 09:13									#2
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To further explain attrition:

Each tile would have an attrition value, whic corresponds to the probability of a unit loosing Hp for being in that tile that time. Some araes would have very low (though rarely 0) values, such as grassland, while mountains and junges ould have extremely high values. This is a compromise between making a terrain totally inaccesible, and makin it make soley a time difference for invasions- a player with guts (or a great, well trained army) might try an "impossible march" to ahcieve great strategic surprise- though most of the time, and with lesser forces such a move would be suicidal.

The value would vary with unit, tech, and civ.

For exmaple, cavalry units would be twice as likely to suffer losses- now, since they are more tha twce as fast, and this is a function of chance, in the end, they would suffer less than a infantry force crossing the same expanse of placid terrain due to greate speed- and would suffer far more looses in hah terrain since they would move as fast. With adances in engineering, military tech, discipline, and medice, the values of terrain would go down. Also, by givng civ bonuses you can chnage likely strategic decisions, making playing different civs more of a unique experience.

	23-12-2003 13:44									#3
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I implemented morale in Clash. The result is not yet satisfactory to me, though I'm on other coding areas now, but the main results of a morale system are:
Units live longer. Thus, fights take longer. It's possible to defend a city with a weakened unit because morale of the attackers wasn't strong enough, and if the defender can build a new unit in that city (or bring it from elsewhere), then the fight will be very long.
Thus morale requires units to be really expensive, else fights last forever. If you reduced an enemy unit to 0 morale, you probably want to wipe them out anyway, so it's going to take you a few turns to get rid of them. Beware that overall, morale calls for more micromanagement, and for fighting already almost dead units.
Some kind of attrition would be good.

	23-12-2003 19:19									#4
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I would favor the use of a greater range of attack/defend strength numbers (0-150) than is currently in place. A unit with a normal attack strength of 20 could have an attack strength of 21-25 based on its veteran status.

Attrition could be handled in the same way, only with the use of HP (again, this would mean that civ4 would have to use a greater range of HP than is currently in place)

How about attrition if you are outside your borders, and even higher attrition if at war and in enemy territory. Works in EU2...

	24-12-2003 21:43									#5
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare I implemented morale in Clash. The result is not yet satisfactory to me, though I'm on other coding areas now, but the main results of a morale system are: Units live longer. Thus, fights take longer. It's possible to defend a city with a weakened unit because morale of the attackers wasn't strong enough, and if the defender can build a new unit in that city (or bring it from elsewhere), then the fight will be very long. Thus morale requires units to be really expensive, else fights last forever. If you reduced an enemy unit to 0 morale, you probably want to wipe them out anyway, so it's going to take you a few turns to get rid of them. Beware that overall, morale calls for more micromanagement, and for fighting already almost dead units. Some kind of attrition would be good.

I do thin units should be expensive-they are in real life. I think if the HP numbers are kept low, battles won;t last too long-the example I have lasted less than a normal fight to the death battle. As for the problem of dealign with endless weak units (one that a lot of wargames have):
1. I have no problem with making it likely thast one HP units with little morale just vanish- the simple way of doing this is making attrition values jump up when morale is low-thus simply by attrition these units will vanish from the field.
2. It should not be advantageous for a civ to keep a lot of units on the verge of death unless they happen to be thier very last units in the game.

	25-12-2003 20:34									#6
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If you have played Chris Crawford's (another great game designer) 1941 he has a nice way of handling attrition. Each unit has a combat strength and a muster strength. A unit loses combat strength when it moves and fights, and can recoup when it rests. A unit retreats when the losses are beyond a certain percent, and a unit is destroyed when the combat strength drops too low.

I suppose you can include morale to increase muster strength.