Morale Tests

[vaned74]

Given all the debate ongoing about morale - I set up a small test scenario and ran a few tests. Here is some interesting data just to reflect on.

General Test Setup:
- Generally took the small scenario, modified the extents to include Moscow for Soviet and Riga for Germans.

- Start date of June 1, 1944 - as I interpret the readme changes and national morale table, base morale for Germany is 60, base for Soviet after April 1944 is 60.

- Created 3 soviet tank brigades, placed in Moscow hex.

- Created 3 german pz divs, placed in Riga

- Created corps, army, army group, and GHQ units for both sides, filled those units with full TOE and leaders who rated 9's in all categories.

I will post some test results below. I have my opinions on German vs Soviet morale and overall that national morale may be too important a factor on the combat results, but, just data here for now.

[vaned74]

Test 1
Testing the effect of command chain length on morale improvement.

Setup - German PZ divs started with morale of 10, 40, and 70 (units named A, B, C)
Soviet tk brigades started with morale of 10, 40, and 70 (units named A, B, C)

Soviet units only attached to high command HQ
German units attached to Corps through to Army to Army Group to OKH
All leaders level 9
Units not on refit status, just sitting in a well supplied hex (ie light urban, far from any enemy unit, 20 hexes+ from enemy owned hexes)

Results:

Germany - 15 logistics phases
German A unit, start morale 10; final morale 36
German B unit, start 40; reached 50 morale after 6 phases; final morale was 55
German C unit, start 70; final morale 74

Soviet - 15 logistics phases
Soviet A unit, start morale 10; final morale 35
Soviet B unit, start morale; reached 50 at turn 8 (7 phases); final morale was 55
Soviet C unit, start morale 70; final morale 70

By my reading, all units have a base national morale of 60 + 10 for being motorized -> ie max NM base of 70

[vaned74]

Test 2

Same start conditions (A, B, C units, etc.)
Exception - Soviet units attached to Army which was attached to Front which was attached to Stavka (all leaders once again 9 in all stats)

Results
Germany - 18 logistics phases
A unit - start 10; end 39
B unit - start 40; reached 50 after 8 phases; final of 54
C unit - start 70; final of 76

Soviet Union - 18 logistics phases
A unit - start 10; end 39
B unit - start 40; reached 50 after 9 phases; final of 54
C unit - start 70; end 70

[vaned74]

Test 3

Testing effect of Refit
Same setup, A,B,C units, all attached through maximum command chain with best possible leaders (9 in all stats)

Germany - 25 logistics phases
A unit - start 10; set to refit on Turn 2 when morale was 12. In 7 additional phases gained 18 morale to reach 30; 8 more phases reached morale 50 (total 15 turns refit and 1 turn ready mode). Final morale was 54 (ie took 9 turns to gain final 4 morale points).

B unit - start 40; set to refit on Turn 2 when morale was 42. Reached 50 morale at turn 6 (4 logistics phases at refit to gain 8 points). Final morale was 57 (ie gained 7 points in final 20 turns).

C unit - start 70; stayed at 70 until turn 16 when reached 71; final morale was 76; turned refit off at turn 19 when morale was 73.

Soviets - 25 phases
A unit - start morale was 10; reached 50 at turn 17 (16 log. phases). Final morale was 51 (ie gained 1 point in last 9 phases)

B unit - start morale was 40; reached 50 after 4 log phases. Final morale was 54 (ie gained 4 points over final 21 phases).

C unit - start morale was 70; gained one point of morale in turn 14 (13th logistics phase). Final morale was 71.

[vaned74]

Test 4

Curious as to how units were gaining morale, especially German ones, above the base calculated NM of 70 more easily than Soviets.

Set up 5 German Pz divs, all attached as above; far from front. Placed C & E units on refit and left A, B, D units on normal ready mode. All units start morale was 70.

Unit A - ready mode, after 13 turns was morale 73
Unit B - ready mode, after 13 turns was morale 74
Unit C - refit mode, after 13 turns morale 72
Unit D - ready mode, 13 turns, morale 71
Unit E - refit mode, 13 turns, morale 73

Have not run Soviet equivalent test yet and recorded numbers.

[vaned74]

General conclusion is that a new unit with start morale 10 can be brought to 50 morale in about 3-4 months far from the front. To get beyond 50, even far from the front on refit mode, requires a good deal of time even if NM base is 70. At some point later, I will test conditions for what happens:

1) if unit base NM is say ~100 (ie by adjusting the morale setting) and start morale is 50 [ie base is far above 50]
2) if unit base NM is say ~30, (once again adjusting the morale setting) and start morale is 50

Effectively, all the debate I see ongoing aside, what I am curious about is how important is the base NM versus the ability to actually refit, restore a units morale through refit, good supply, and exceptional leaders.

[vaned74]

Another conclusion from the data -

The maximum morale gained ever seen by a unit in a single turn was 3.

The manual is a little misleading in that when I read it the first time, I expected my units to gain on average closer to 10% of their national morale if all things were pristine (leaders, supply, refit, location, etc). It is obvious from the data that gaining 10% of NM of 70 base (ie 7 points) even with perfect supply, location, weather, and the best possible leaders at all levels is indeed a very very very unlikely event.

[randallw]

I believe the rules are that once a unit reaches 50 morale then refit mode won't help it any more.

[alfonso]

Vaned 74

thank you very much for your study. I think that the aims, methodology and results section of your "paper" are of a high quality. But I would like you to elaborate further in the "Discussion" section...[:)]

I have two questions

a) If I interpret correctly your data, it is possible for a unit to go beyond the national morale by doing "nothing". Am I correct here? That would be for me a novel and unexpected result.

b) How can you explain the discordant results obtained by others (Pelton et al., 2011) who claim that there is 1.4% chance per turn per unit for a 1-unit morale increase above 50? It seems as if your data are one order of magnitude higher.

[vaned74]

HI Alfonso - not much of what I would call a "paper" but thanks for the note.

1) it is possible for a unit to go beyond national morale by doing nothing - always up to 50 as the manual clearly states there are conditions for morale to improve if below 50. I don't know if you can beyond NM once you are above 50 though.

2) If the rules in section 9 are correct, you can theoretically go up to 75 regardless of national morale; so long as die(75) is higher than current morale.

3) There were instances of German units getting to 76 morale by doing nothing, so I am not sure how this happened? My read is German NM in 1944 is 60 for base and 70 for motorized units (+10 for motorized).

4) As far as Pelton's or anyone else's data, I have no idea. All I did was set the scenario up as described, run turns, and record on my tablet.

[vaned74]

Another test - this time, same scenario just adjusted start date to June 1942. By my read this means:

Soviet NM for tank units is 40 base + 5 for motorized = 45

German NM for tank units is 70 base + 10 for motorized = 80

I then set the German units to a morale of 50 to start and the Soviet units to 50 to start and ran 10 logistics phases per side. Units on ready mode, factor 9 leaders all up the chain of command, far from the front, in urban hexes, well supplied.

Finale morale:
German A = 55
German B = 53
German C = 53
German D = 53
German E = 56
Soviet A = 53
Soviet B = 53
Soviet C = 52

In essence, this means that the Germans only slightly outperformed the Soviets in gaining morale beyond 50 even though the German base NM is 80 in this case and the Soviets is 45.

The rate of gain per turn is as follows:
German - 20 morale pts gained across all 5 units, 10 turns = 20/50 = 0.40 pts/turn per unit
Soviet - 8 morale pts gained, 3 units, 10 turns = 8/30 = 0.27 pts/turn per unit

[vaned74]

I hate to start a potential thread war, but, after studying these results and some more, I would note that it is possible that the morale gain for units under their national morale is not working correctly or is only successful on very rare occasions (ie some check is constantly failing or extremely difficult to pass).

If you look at the above results - ie 0.40 pts/turn for the German, 0.27 for the Soviet (note this is only a very limited set) this is not much more, and in fact in the Soviet case less, than the expected statistical gain a unit would see for morale less than 75 per the manual which states:

"The unit is in a very good supply and support situation and its morale is less than 75. If die(75)
is greater than the unit’s morale than a gain for this situation is possible."

In this case, for a unit with a morale of say 52 on average, you would expect a 30% chance to gain a point; ie 0.30 pts/turn on average.

[wmcalpine]

Vaned74,

Excellent tests. I did some more testing today as well in the 1942 campaign game with new Russian builds (10 units) and did not see any morale gains larger than 3 per turn. A German infantry division sitting near OKH did get up to a morale of 59 20 turns after reaching 50, giving very similar results to that shown by you, though I did not check for leaders. For combat morale increases, I did get an infantry division morale up to 76 (6 above nat morale) but have not tested beyond a string of 10 successful combats. Quick attack or deliberate attack did not seem to make any noticable difference though, but my tests have been limited.

Bill

[Flaviusx]

What these tests are showing is that resting only gets you so far and yields diminishing returns. But combat will get you to and past NM soft caps. (If you win and are lucky.)

Possibly this could get adjusted so far as refitting in the rear goes, but I still don't see any problems at all so far as combat gains/losses go in terms of morale. Your best bet is to get a unit to a tolerable level via refitting and then feed it easy wins. This shouldn't be very difficult to accomplish for the Axis early on. You needn't wait until a unit is topped off in NM from refitting. This is actually slower than feeding it wins, has always been the case.

In my experience, the type of attack doesn't make a difference. Hasty or deliberate will do the trick. So: go to town and make as many attacks as possible, so long as you can win them, and if that means lots of hasty attacks, so be it. This is the reason the German army retains its sky high morale in 41, btw. It's well over the soft cap, but all the combat keeps it in shape and in many cases it will even record some gains. This goes to hell come blizzard, to be sure. But that's what March Madness is for.

[vaned74]

This may be true. I think the other thing they are showing is that base NM really means very little. What matter is:

1) starting morale (and here what really matters is that which is only above 50)

2) morale gains and losses above 50 from combat/interdiction, supply, blizzard, etc.

I think this may also point to some other issues that appear to be out of balance in the game:
* 1942- soviet morale of 40 is probably not the issue, in the released game it was 50 in 1942; 50 is easily obtainable, 3-4 turns of rest away from the front and your at 50 from start of 40
* As the game is tactically/operationally offensive slanted (both in terms of ease of maintaining tempo and ability to see CVs values on map too readily, ie not enough FOW in the front line, and ability to bring multiple attacks against the same hex) whichever side is on the offensive strategically is going to create a sort of ever building crescendo; this may explain the late war rapid declines of the Axis as morale above 50 once lost is seldom regained and morale above 50 is best gained on the offensive.

[Flaviusx]

Vaned, I agree with you fully about building crescendo, or what I think of as a vicious feedback loop. This does indeed accelerate optempo, probably too much. I do not think this particularly favors either side. What I do think is that it favors whoever has the initiative and is on the offensive, and has the potential to get really out of hand. So it all depends on what point in the war you are looking at.

It's in my view a real flaw with the morale system, and why morale is king in this game. It used to be a lot worse than now, we've done a variety of things to ratchet the effect down. But it's still there and is inherent in the system.

So far as the late war goes, if I had to point at any single thing as the major problem for the Axis, I'm still going with retreat losses. They're just too high imo right now, and reward flat out attrition. But a morale runaway adds to this.

[vaned74]

I would agree that retreat losses, especially in cases of low odds wins by the attacker (ie 2:1 or 3:1) are too high. I am wondering what effect morale has on retreat losses though? I was under the impression that high morale units were not as prone to high retreat losses?

If higher morale units take lower retreat losses (and I don't know how much would be enough) - perhaps higher morale across the board in the game (both Axis and Soviet) is a good answer? Maybe both sides play at 125% morale setting - Ie, would it give the Soviets more staying power early in the game and the Axis more staying power late in the game?

[Flaviusx]

What an interesting idea about pumping up morale for both sides. Somebody ought to try that out and see what happens.

[randallw]

ORIGINAL: vaned74

"The unit is in a very good supply and support situation and its morale is less than 75. If die(75)
is greater than the unit’s morale than a gain for this situation is possible."

In this case, for a unit with a morale of say 52 on average, you would expect a 30% chance to gain a point; ie 0.30 pts/turn on average.

It's possible that the two qualifiers ( good supply and support ) are getting in the way. If a unit is on a supplied rail hex and full support squads, then it should not be a problem.

[Peltonx]

Nice stuff, your finding what I have been talking about for months.
Stuff I clearly tested and posted but was ignored, much like 1v1=2v1, spamming airfields and fort decay. All were fixed but many weeks after the issue was put on forums.

1.There is a softcap on moral when siting:

Softcap is 50 hard cap is 60. You are seeing the same thing 5 other poeple have tested.

2. There is a soft cap and hard cap for National moral.

Soft cap is national moral and hard cap is NM +5. You have not tested this but I have gotten the same results and so have 3 others.

vaned74

I am wondering what effect morale has on retreat losses though? I was under the impression that high morale units were not as prone to high retreat losses?

This is an area that clearly based on history is not reflexed in the game. Russin troops had little training on tactics and what training they received was on attacking. There moral lose and loses should be high.
German troops were generally highly trained and retreated/ withdrawing to safer lines was not seen as something bad.
Retreat results should not be the same for Russians as Germans based on historical results not even close to the same.

NM appears to be broken and not working as designed. Its snowballing effect can be seen in late war AAR's

Below for the 2 by 3 staff are quotes from many players who see and have tested the NM system themselfs.

krupp_88mm "i agree pelton hardcaps are just plain silly"
Flaviusx "It's not a "hard" cap, it is a soft one."
Flaviusx " The infantry division in this example could have gotten some morale gains if it were lucky (and that's the only way it could get them as it was over cap.)" 0 for 5 thats really unlucky, heheh
JAMiAM " As the unit is an infantry division, it gets no boosts beyond the NM level, and unless it's getting lucky morale rolls from its chain of command, you shouldn't see much, if any, of a morale increase."
JAMiAM " Actually, your screenshots show that the morale aspect of the game is working as designed."
Q-Ball "The Germans, on the other hand, if they are in the 60s in Morale after Blizzard, don't really gain it back. There is a die roll to make Morale gains, but you have to get very lucky to gain even a point through rest, once you are in the 60s."
Kamil " I have to say, that at the moment I see only one way national morale influences actual morale of units - keeps them from getting too high above fixed value. I agree with Pelton, that otherwise its impact is next to 0. "
Joel Billings " Although I agree that the rise to national morale that comes from sitting around seems slow, another factor is the chance to gain or lose morale from combat. If I understand things correctly, it is much easier to gain morale from succesful battles when below national morale (the lower the better the chance of a gain). On the flip side, I think it is easier to lose moral from losses when over the national morale (although I'm not 100% sure of this)."
Q-Ball " You are also right I think on the down-side; units above National Morale always lose morale when they lose a combat. Units under it, do not necessarily. This also means that no matter how you baby the Wehrmacht infantry, it is bound to lose Morale over the long-haul. Slowly, but that's as it should be, as it's ground into dust.That is probably the real point of national morale"
Naughteous Maximus "I'm going to agree with Pelton on this."
Flaviusx "If pressed, I suspect the Soviet NM for the late war is too high. (I also think it is too low in 42.) "
Pelton "I will add I have to agree on the early war NM levels for russians."
randallw "So, asking for a direct answer, is the morale system working as programmed?"
Emir Agic "Second, as Pelton said, why NM is based (only) on time line and is not much more dependent on situation (what player has achieved)? Why NM shouldn't be linked more to winning and losing battles rather then automatic rise/decline depending of in-game year?"
randallw "I believe the rules are that once a unit reaches 50 morale then refit mode won't help it any more."
vaned74 "This may be true. I think the other thing they are showing is that base NM really means very little.this may explain the late war rapid declines of the Axis as morale above 50 once lost is seldom regained and morale above 50 is best gained on the offensive. "

Pelton







As Q-ball imply's lowering national moral levels for the German makes sure it will get ground into the dust.

Pelton