Collapsing National Morale

[mdsmall]

In the campaign I just finished playing as the Central Powers I won an unexpected victory in late August 1918 when British national morale - which had been in steady, gradual decline - dropped from 5% to 0% in a single turn and they withdrew from the war. While this had been my goal, I could not see what I had done in that particular turn to trigger this final collapse in British morale. I did not sink any more British ships just before they collapsed, nor had I destroyed any British land units below 5 supply strength; and while I had German subs on eight British national morale hexes at sea, the same number of subs on these hexes in preceding turns had not produced such a precipitous drop on British morale. Is there an accelerator factor built into National Morale such that once a Major gets below 5% any combat losses have a magnified effect on Morale? Or might there have been other things I was doing that suddenly came together to produce this result?

Michael

[Xsillione]

Hmm, not sure, but that is a bit big for just normal combat losses, 5% is around 2500 NM, so it could be an unexpected NM city takeover, or maybe an event for the UK, where the AI choose poorly or just had no choice. But there are no accelerator effect, at least not for most, with a failed run managed to extend with france the final 5% for 5 turns, sadly the US entered only a turn later, and so no save for the french, and from there, it was a lost cause.

Only the russians get constant bad event for low NM, even more if you delivered Lenin.

[mdsmall]

The strange thing is that the Entente had no combat losses on land or sea in the turn before the British morale collapsed. Nor did they lose any NM hexes on land. The only variable I can see is that I was occupying 8 British NM hexes at sea with my submarines. But my understanding (from this Forum) is that would incur 600 NM losses per turn (8 x 75) which is around 1.3% of British national morale. Perhaps there were some greater effects on UK ports from my sub action but I could not see that on the board, even after lofting the Fog of War at the end of the game.

[BillRunacre]

Did any other countries pull out of the war around this time, or were any British resources lost (including those in the Middle East)?

[mdsmall]

On the turn just before Britain withdrew from the war, the Central Powers captured Algiers. As expected, there was a script saying that French morale dropped due to that loss. It is possible that would have affected British morale too? Britain had lost all their NM hexes in Egypt many months earlier, in late 1917. There were no other NM hexes captured by me on that turn.


Michael

[BillRunacre]

I've just been through the scripts to take a look.

Algiers will only have affected the French.

As you've identified, your use of unrestricted naval warfare will have reduced British National Morale by 600 points a turn.

Continuous occupation of Egypt will deduct 50 NM points a turn from the UK.

That is it apart from the capture of resources, unit casualties, and having friendly countries surrender or withdraw from the war.