Suggested re-work of prestige and morale

[mrchuck]

1. Fleet morale.

This never seems to go higher than 1, and usually times out after a while, usually all happening in peacetime from what I've experienced. So most of the time, it's irrelevant.

It should go up 1 after every major victory, the more so if the VP ratio is high e.g. > 2:1 or something. Conversely it should drop after defeats. This is in addition to event-based changes.

What does it do anyway?

2. Prestige from battles.

Why is the gain never more than 1 or 2 even after a heroic victory? The clear incentive for gamey-ness is to sink maybe 1-3 large enemy units and then run away so you can get another 2P next battle, which is how I suspect some of the very high P results being logged by players are obtained. This is highly unrealistic and there is no reward for inflicting a crushing defeat instead of an ordinary one--quite the opposite.

My suggestion is to scale the P granted in line with the VP ratio, like morale, and conversely, lose P for 'unable to challenge' in a sea area. Where the enemy is unable to challenge, this could be a +P as well.

This should have the effect of encouraging players to defend all the empire instead of just the bits that are easily defended, and punish mindless expansionism in a realistic way. It should also tempt players to go for a really big victory and weigh the possible risks of that.

Perhaps this could be tested at some point to see how it plays? I think overall it will cause P totals to go up, but there's also increased possibilities to lose P if you are overstretched. I don't believe the current mechanisms are severe enough in that respect.

[thedoctorking]

I'd say also if you flee from an enemy force, you should suffer some prestige and morale hits, especially if the enemy force was actually not much stronger than yours. This also should result in breaking the blockade if one was in force, at least if the fleeing force represents a significant part of the enemy's blockade strength (enemy ships that flee a battle shouldn't be counted as part of the blockade force for the turn they fled, at a minimum).

And I am really unclear what the actual effect of fleet morale is. It doesn't seem to be taken into account in any of the tooltips that I can see.

[WLRoo]

Not completely sure what Morale affects myself.

I think it tends to cause fewer ships to deploy, and be more likely to keep out of the action when Morale is low; but as stated it tends to stick at 0, boosts or penalties not lasting for long.