Raising Morale

[TheOx]

Hey starting as the train wreck that is Spain in 1792. Naturally they have pretty low morale to start with. The question is, how do I raise the base morale? Is this a function of the stuff you buy with Army Experience? (not the ones for individual units, but the nationwide ones). Is there any other way, or do I just need to keep saving those points?

[Franck]

In the economic screen, move the sliders for draft age (min and max) and months of training. It will modify the moral of your draft.

I'm still unsure as of other way to raise moral. So I'M interested in the answers.


(ie some nationwide upgrades help in some situation. I believe patriotism gives +.5 if your defending)

[Mike Parker]

For someone that might know.  If you have low morale divisions can you lower your war readiness, then up your training time and such so your replacements are higher morale, then up war readiness again to sort of fill in your divisions with high morale troopers?

[Joram]

Fighting is the only other way to raise your morale.  Troops get a varying amount of morale every time they fight though I don't remember the particulars.
 
Mike, that's an interesting tactic, theoretically I think it would work though only in specific situations where you are a nation where all your troops are low morale.  Certainly wouldn't want to try it with France, Britain or Russia.  But with Spain or Ottomans, may be a tactic.  To be honest, don't know how effective that would be considering the generally low number of troops you get as replacement compared to the size of your army generally.  You'll have to let us know if you can make it effective.
 

[Ironclad]

Each level of barracks raises the morale of new build units in the same province by 0.1. In the case of artillery (advanced economy) this is determined through the level of factories/barracks with the former having the larger impact.

[TheOx]

Seems like Britains new units are a few morale points ahead of Spain's even with comparable barracks in the province and identical economy settings. Is this true or am I seeing things?

[Ironclad]

Thats because the base morale is different to reflect the much higher quality of British units.

[TheOx]

Ah, thats what I'm talking about. Why can't I have high quality units as Spain if I invest in them? Say after 10 years of reforms and infrastructure builds I can't have a quality training program?

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: TheOx

Ah, thats what I'm talking about. Why can't I have high quality units as Spain if I invest in them? Say after 10 years of reforms and infrastructure builds I can't have a quality training program?

This sounds funny, but I believe its based on the fact that certain societies were believed to produce an untrained man made of sterner stuff than others.

That is, their "morale" as an attribute, is naturally higher in the raw men of certain countries as opposed to others, even before being trained/drilled/blooded.

Not sure what the true values are from country to country, but this theme is pretty common for games covering this era.

[TheOx]

Well, there goes my dreams of Spanish conquest! [:D]

[dude]

Well as Turkey one of the things I did do was move the draft training slider all the way over to the right to give new drafties 16 months of training... and that made their moral 4.5... and yes this will help in upgrading existing depleted units. 

As a test I moved a few units into a low forage area to reduce their strength.  I even transfered some men out of the best moral units to really deplete them but and it kept their higher moral... once they were fairly low I moved them somewhere where they would not lose men... as they gained reinforcements their moral increased even more.  The problem with all this is the time it took.  In my first game as Turkey... even after 10 years when I thought I had a decent army with good moral I got my butt kicked.

Also work on getting one barrack very high and only build your units there.

I'd love to know how anyone else has played the lower moral countries... especially Turkey or Spain... your moral sucks but if you go for quanity over quality you can't afford the larger army.  So you're SOL either way.

Another thing to do is not to fight an offensive war.  Get the Patriotism upgrade as soon as you can.  This will give your units a .5 morale increase in their home territory.  Plus any defensive battle you fight gives you a 6 point bonus in detailed combat while the attacker loses 2(?) points a day.  Also if you get the choice to choose "Easy March" at the beginning of the combat that too will raise your moral for the battle. 

I've had a much smaller lower morale defensive forces defeat a larger forces all the time.  You just need to pick the right location on the map to defend.  Look for funnel points… places the AI will have to send his units.  You’re lower moral units can overwhelm the units the AI will frequently send in piecemeal and if you can hit them before they deploy with some Artillery even better.  Now with all that said... against a human you're probably SOL.

[TheOx]

Seriously though, does this mean elite (or even decent) armies are limited to the big players (Britain, France, Austria, Prussia)?

[dude]

Yes.... which is why I went and modified the 1820 Balanced Scenario to have a little more fun.

[TheOx]

Crapola.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: TheOx

Seriously though, does this mean elite (or even decent) armies are limited to the big players (Britain, France, Austria, Prussia)?

With a little bit of combat experience and your draft sliders set to maximum morale you ought to be able to get your guys to a decent morale score.

Just means your units come out of production with lower values.

[Hard Sarge]

come on guys

overall, Joram, Ironclad and Dude have it right, but you are missing the overall point, you are in charge of a Nation, you can't run every nation like it is France, if you do, you lose, play the nation, and uses what you got and do what you do good

Turkey and Spain, need to fight, but that don't mean you got to fight France or Russia, pick who you think is the best power, and be there friend, make treaties, make deals, and fight the left overs, improve yourself until you can do something else

also, timing, Russian just loses a 2 year war with France, there morale is at the bottom of the barrel, most of there troops just marched back from the POW camps of Paris and you got 1 million men on there border, DOW, the Russian Army is not ready to fight, you may not have the best trained troops, but they are better then the defeated Russian Army, and you got hordes, use them, each battle they will get better, upgrade and train, build barracks, build from the best, take over land, see what there troops are like

make protectorates, and see what there troops are like, if they are good, or better then your standard, make them the Core of your army

each Nation is very playable, just you can't play each one the way you did the other

[dude]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

come on guys

overall, Joram, Ironclad and Dude have it right, but you are missing the overall point, you are in charge of a Nation, you can't run every nation like it is France, if you do, you lose, play the nation, and uses what you got and do what you do good

Turkey and Spain, need to fight, but that don't mean you got to fight France or Russia, pick who you think is the best power, and be there friend, make treaties, make deals, and fight the left overs, improve yourself until you can do something else
...

I didn't miss the point... I just said I wanted to have a little more fun [:D] so I modified the files to up the morale for a few countries. When I run Turkey I usually make very long term alliances or pacts with Russia just so I won't have to keep troops on that border so I can use them elsewhere. I also said one of the best things to do was fight a defensive war with the lower morale countries since you can get bonuses to your morale when fighting in your own country... not to mention that the upkeep costs are less if I recall.

I didn't try and run Turkey as France... especially since I've never played as France [:)]. I wanted to point out the lessons I learned the hard way. But even after 10 years of improving my army and infrastructure I was no match for an Austrian army when I tried to attack him in Austria. I waited for him to go to war with Prussia and while his army was away I marched into Austria, only to see him quickly move back before I could get to Vienna and was nearly wiped out.

I also don't particularly like the strategy of just hitting someone when they are nearly depleted of troops... it just leaves them open to France (or another strong power) again in a few turns. What I've noticed is that if you just keep picking on a country all you are doing is leaving them open for the French to walk in again and gain yet more point and concessions. I prefer to have decent neighbors and a good defense against them myself. This probably sounds stupid to most who constantly keep picking on their neighbors just to get quick victories and points when they are down, however all I ever see that do is aid the other guy in the lead (usually the French.) I prefer to keep the other nations intact against France as much as possible. I mean what good is an Austrian or Prussian army that's been wiped out and can't then help me latter in a war with someone like France?

This is one of the drawbacks I see with the games like this that base winning solely on something like the Glory Points, it can be a bit too cut throat for my tastes. I play a different kind of game based more on objectives than just a point lead. I really enjoy COGEE but I do wish there were some alternate winning conditions for each country (even if that means multiple winners based on some objectives being reached.) Generally what I do is set myself some goals… work towards them, then I see how long it takes me to reach that goal and how long I can retain them… then I quit and start over without worrying too much about the point lead.