German and Russian Morale

[LoneRunner]

In a current MP game Germany captured Moscow. Russian morale dropped and German morale improved. As expected.

Russia launched a counter attack, recaptured Moscow, and the Russian capital reverted back to Moscow. Woohoo!

I checked the morale graph and German morale appeared unaffected by the loss. Ouch. I would think losing Moscow would be a pretty big deal to Germany and Italy but both countries seemed to shrug off the loss as nothing. Also, Russian morale appeared unaffected by the recapture of Moscow. That seems odd, Russia would be celebrating that victory.

The next turn Germany recaptured Moscow. German morale appeared unaffected by the recapture. However, Russian moral significantly dropped. Difficult to determine what exactly caused the drop in Russian morale because a couple cities were lost and Russia also incurred unit losses, but I am concerned that Russia morale got whacked twice for losing Moscow. If that's true, counter attacking Moscow would be a net loss to Russia.

So, a couple concerns here. German and Italian morale should receive a significant hit if Moscow is lost. Russian morale should not be hit twice for losing Moscow. The game scripts are a mystery to me, so could you check if either of those assumptions are true? Thank you.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

I wonder if Moscow could be handled like Verdun is in SC-WW1. The red NM objective never goes away and both sides can benefit from attempts to retake such a key place. Last year I was in an MP match where Verdun traded 6 times..and the incentive was there for both of us to feed that epic fire! [:)]

[BillRunacre]

Hi

Moscow will only have been hit once with any specific penalties on falling to the Axis.

That said, the USSR will lose points per turn that the city is in Axis hands, just as the Axis will benefit from the same. The effect is much more moderate than an initial loss, and the per turn loss/gain can be seen by clicking on the city, but it accumulates over time.

Unfortunately it's not really practical to have bigger hits/penalties every time the city changes hands, but if a place is frequently changing hands then the population would get used to it and not treat it as being as significant as when it first changed hands.

[LoneRunner]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

Hi

Moscow will only have been hit once with any specific penalties on falling to the Axis.

That said, the USSR will lose points per turn that the city is in Axis hands, just as the Axis will benefit from the same. The effect is much more moderate than an initial loss, and the per turn loss/gain can be seen by clicking on the city, but it accumulates over time.

Unfortunately it's not really practical to have bigger hits/penalties every time the city changes hands, but if a place is frequently changing hands then the population would get used to it and not treat it as being as significant as when it first changed hands.

Thank you for your reply Bill.

Sorry, but I'm not sure I completely understand your answer. Here's my questions:
1. "Moscow will only have been hit once with any specific penalties on falling to the Axis." Are you indicating that the Axis received a morale penalty when Moscow was recaptured? And USSR did not receive a morale penalty when Moscow was subsequently recaptured by Germany? How much of a morale penalty did Germany and Italy incur for the loss of Moscow? Did they get that morale loss back when the Axis recaptured Moscow?

2. "...the per turn loss/gain can be seen by clicking on the city, but it accumulates over time." In my game, Moscow is Axis controlled right now. I tried both left clicking and right clicking on the city. I don't see any information regarding per turn loss/gain of morale. I do see NM 5. My guess is that NM 5 indicates Germany should lose 5,000 morale if Moscow is recaptured by USSR. But according to your reply, that penalty only incurs once per game? Is NM 5 the per turn morale loss/gain?

Thanks for your help.

[EarlyDoors]

Pretty certain that some cities produce a National Morale swing when they are first captured

Such as Moscow and Singapore…ah Singapore

But no counter swing if recaptured

There is a small turn based NM increment per turn in addition but it is non-noticeable on the charts

[SittingDuck]

Apparently not coded to take hits or raises after the first time.

OK, I am going to speak about this from the standpoint of community mental health, and I feel rather well-enlightened as I work in the field (exclusively with American Veterans - love it).

Losing a capital city would be heart-rending. As the conqueror, it would be a massive rush.

To regain it, only to lose it again would be crushing. As in, a loss of heart. No more fight (at least for it). So indeed, had Moscow been recaptured, hope and morale would be restored to the Russians. Should they have lost it again, in general, there would be no fight left (at least for that city) - at least nothing like was once exerted. And even any rebound would take herculean effort for building a heart to do it. Further, it depends on if 'Moscow' would represent to the Russian people what, say, Berlin, London or Paris would to those associated peoples. That right there is an argument that could be had, and is both cultural and temporal in nature.

But to say that there would be no morale loss after having recaptured it and then losing it again? Sorry, that's 180deg off from human nature. That would be soul-crushing to a nation (again, should they hold the capital or any objective in such high esteem). It would indicate, much more than the first loss, "We've lost - we're overcome. We prize this, and we cannot overcome them." Doesn't mean there wouldn't be any fight, just that there would be a massive sense of lose and futility, in general.

Bear in mind that for the various resistance movements that sprung up, all of them took time - not just from the logistical standpoint, but also from the psychological standpoint of people having to get over their shock, misery and sense of despair. And THEN being motivated to do something about it.

[BillRunacre]

ORIGINAL: LoneRunner

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

Hi

Moscow will only have been hit once with any specific penalties on Moscow falling to the Axis.

That said, the USSR will lose points per turn that the city is in Axis hands, just as the Axis will benefit from the same. The effect is much more moderate than an initial loss, and the per turn loss/gain can be seen by clicking on the city, but it accumulates over time.

Unfortunately it's not really practical to have bigger hits/penalties every time the city changes hands, but if a place is frequently changing hands then the population would get used to it and not treat it as being as significant as when it first changed hands.

Thank you for your reply Bill.

Sorry, but I'm not sure I completely understand your answer. Here's my questions:
1. "Moscow will only have been hit once with any specific penalties on falling to the Axis." Are you indicating that the Axis received a morale penalty when Moscow was recaptured? And USSR did not receive a morale penalty when Moscow was subsequently recaptured by Germany? How much of a morale penalty did Germany and Italy incur for the loss of Moscow? Did they get that morale loss back when the Axis recaptured Moscow?

Ah sorry, I should have said:

The USSR will only have been hit once with any specific (i.e. scripted) penalties on falling to the Axis.

There are no other scripted benefits or penalties to either side should the city change hands... except that if it is in Axis hands from January 1943 onwards then the USSR misses out on a one-time boost of 7,500 points and a further 100 NM points a turn, which over time is quite considerable.

Though if Moscow is liberated after that point then it does receive these bonuses.

2. "...the per turn loss/gain can be seen by clicking on the city, but it accumulates over time." In my game, Moscow is Axis controlled right now. I tried both left clicking and right clicking on the city. I don't see any information regarding per turn loss/gain of morale. I do see NM 5. My guess is that NM 5 indicates Germany should lose 5,000 morale if Moscow is recaptured by USSR. But according to your reply, that penalty only incurs once per game? Is NM 5 the per turn morale loss/gain?

Thanks for your help.

The 5 is what it says on the tin. This is the pre-set NM value for a city (once the capital moves elsewhere Moscow becomes a city with city stats). Though see above for what the USSR misses out on for losing and not recapturing Moscow.

[SittingDuck]

I really wonder, if NM... how often do the big pool nations really get threatened by having it crash? 100k NM vs France's 22k and multiple events that knock it down + unit loss. Seems like not that big an issue?

I could be wrong.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

ORIGINAL: SittingDuck

I really wonder, if NM... how often do the big pool nations really get threatened by having it crash? 100k NM vs France's 22k and multiple events that knock it down + unit loss. Seems like not that big an issue?

I could be wrong.

Where I have seen a noticeable difference in a countries armed forces ability to fight with a major disparity in NM is in SC-WW1, which I played for a year straight in a couple of dozen MP matches. (e.g. Germany has 115% NM and Russia 62%-and Russia has a two to one ratio of troops in the field. They just can't compete...which seems logical.)

I don't have as much experience in WaW but it does seem to hold true here too..citing the above example as a reference.

[SittingDuck]

So you are saying there is a form of unit morale degradation correlated with the NM degradation?

[ThunderLizard11]

ORIGINAL: SittingDuck

So you are saying there is a form of unit morale degradation correlated with the NM degradation?

Yes - unit morale takes a hit based on NM - I think it's described in the manual in detail.