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Reading the rules of GMT's Empire of the Sun, I am finding the victory conditions quite interesting. Japanese can win by reducing the political will of USA.

And, I am wondering, in this game, if there is a way to reduce the morale of a given country just by the losses that this country is taking.

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From the manual.

Morale Break Point—Most countries have a morale break point of zero. This means all the major urban
production resources must be captured to force them to surrender. If the morale drops below the break
point the enemy can be forced to surrender. Some countries have endless morale and will never surrender.

However, it doesn't mention which countries have the endless morale. Doesn't seem to mention battlefield losses as a morale factor either.

Just because GMT has it doesn't mean it is even remotely close to realistic.

USA's morale would never break in the Pacific War even if the Japanese had the A-bomb... unless they had 20 and started nuking cities.

WPP is won by holding on to more than historical for longer.

The Morale breaking is for countries that historically surrendered early and pretty specifically for Italy and France.

AlvaroSousa wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2024 2:35 pm Just because GMT has it doesn't mean it is even remotely close to realistic.

USA's morale would never break in the Pacific War even if the Japanese had the A-bomb... unless they had 20 and started nuking cities.

WPP is won by holding on to more than historical for longer.

The Morale breaking is for countries that historically surrendered early and pretty specifically for Italy and France.

Mmm - Japan could have never defeated USA. But, losses after losses, I am not so sure the political will would have not been impacted. That's why this victory condition is interesting.

Seems like a national-will-being-reduced-by-losses rule would only ever affect open societies. Japan itself didn't seem too fazed by its own staggering naval and air losses. I don't think the average Japanese citizen was remotely aware. If a Soviet general had told Stalin that the Red Army might lose 400,000 men invading the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido I doubt if he would have even blinked considering Russian losses up to that point.

Maybe US morale was more brittle after the Okinawa experience. However, the Japanese "Ketsu-Go Plan" of making the cost of invading the Home Islands too high for the Allies to accept, by committing the entire population of Japan to resisting an Allied invasion only seems to have made the decision to drop the atomic bomb all the easier in retrospect.

As brutal as war was there was a distinct difference in how Americans handled European soldiers to Japanese ones.

Also the number of military casualties in Europe were 10x more than in the Pacific if my source is correct.

~45k in Pacific
~375k in Europe

The Japanese would have to do a lot more damage than all of Europe for a morale break of the USA.