Matrix Games Forums

greetings, i are in the making of a mod and want your opinion about what is the better "global morale model", given two models, i find top morale recommended at 7.00, given that a unit with a base morale of 7.50, with a barracks in level 10 gives infantry automatically in guard status, not good thing (infantry goes to guard status in 8.50 morale rating), also, is a problem stablish a differential between troops base morale for major nations, so here goes my two models, all sugestions will be welcomed...

First Morale Model... (i go to use it in initial playtesting of my mod)
Rank I (Britain, France)... 6.50
Rank II (Sweden)... 6.00
Rank III (Austria, Russia, Prussia)... 5.50
Rank IV (Spain, Turkey)... 4.50
increasing base morale gives to troops and given sides in a battle more resistance to suffer a rout, to any and all units, and to the nation in battle, i think, the main problem for me not is about increase all nations base morale, i are very concerned here, because i want battles to more length, and so, with more casualties and more impact to the global game... the problem is about what is the better differential between the nations in the game, this model stablish an differential of 1.0 between the five main nations in the game, and give some resistance to weak nations for battle. (note this is base nation morale level, must add barracks bonus aside the model), and now here goes the alternate morale model...
Alternative Morale Model... (i will use it if in initial playtesting sides rout from battle very soon)
Rank I (Britain, France)... 7.00
Rank II (Sweden)... 6.50
Rank III (Austria, Russia, Prussia)... 6.00
Rank IV (Spain, Turkey)... 5.00/5.50 (to be set when i test them in battles)
i maybe do stablish Rank III morale to Rank II in the final stage of the mod making process, but for now want to stand differential to 1.00 between Britain and France vs Austria, Russia, Prussia, given the fact that the attaking side loses morale gradually through in battle time, at this time i are unable to realize what is better here, i need some playtesting for a final decision, for now i think if i set differential to only a 0.50, the losing morale parameter for the attacking side will upset national troop quality, so i go to give in the initial testing a 1.00 differential.

final notes... please note that this is for achieve more long battles, with more casualties and more impact, i has optimized the model for a campaign to 6 or 7 years max. not campaigns of more or less length, only with the length parameter in mind, i think the morale level and production times for units and so on must be different, and want to say that is very difficult to stablish a model in all parameters that will work perfectly in all given campaign length settings, i am awaiting yours repplies, and thanks in advance,

with my best regards,

Murat30 (Aka-Alaric_31).

you're going to have to modify all the countries not just the playable nations because then the minor countries armies will be worthless

Greetings and well meet, my friend, it´s good to see people taking part in my thread, i'm very pleased, must to say, thanks!. (as a side note)

well, i thinks you head to a good point to have in mind, i do not have begin the playtesting for now, maybe this night or tomorrow, because other projects keep my time off, aside playtesting i have review the file with countries morale, in the /data subfolder("Players2" file), well,if i made a ok briefing i find only three countries below base morale "4" (batavia, Greece and Syria), however your point is good, because i was thinking in bypass the main given morale model in my post and add morale to all major nations, so increasing differential between minor states and major nations and this will make foreign minor countries units worthless, as you say, however i disagree with the main model that gives two major nations base morale below "4" (Spain and Turkey) given i think any of the major powers can set all needed resources to setup a unit for the field much more better than any and all minor countries, barracks modifier is upset because minor countries too have barracks, so, given the example of building a unit in Hesse, base morale 4, 5 Barrack level,, in the starting main campaign, setup/builds a unit with 4.5 morale, so roughly better than units produced in the major nations (at some times) and Hesse Base Morale is in the main group of base morale for minor countries, "4" that is, some minor countries have better base morale, but given "homeland" provinces of the main powers are treated as minor countries i'm not going to make a increase in the base morale for the major nations before starting the initial playtesting, to keep down the given differential. again, thanks for the advice,

and with best regards,

Murat30.

I wouldn't assume major powers have superior morale just because of their size. Almost any minor country in northern Europe could field forces that division for division would beat the pants off the Turks.

Also, if you're going to modify files, it's better to create a custom scenario rather than modifying the main files. Go into the Scenarios folder, create a new folder with an "_S" at the end, like "CustomMod_S", then copy all the files you are going to mod into there. When you start the game, choose your custom scenario and your modded files will take precedence over the default files.

Good luck with your modding.

greetings, well i want to say something, but on a "basis premise" that we both have some reason, experience gained from historical confrontations ratified your post, but i think, from a global perspective that quality on the draft pool is somewhat or at least to a degree increased, directly proportional to the draft size, it is already modelled in the game, you can make control over draft pool to directly affect troop quality, but, i think at least, that units produced too comes from the draft, and so, it invites me to think these troops, not it all, and some napoleonic empires have restricted draft policies for the given epoch, it is a fact, but take care about that, it is know, also that for access the french imperial guard there are some given restrictions, strong complexion, and a minimal stature, and too to have taken part in combat for some campaigns through war times, is coherent to say that a nation with more population will have more men that qualified for these restrictions, at the other hand,, is more easy to make and small elite army, and this can be said to given minor countries some short of capability over major nations, but only to a degree.

glad to see you, and glad to have some good "mental fencing" (chess-like mental duel) here, hope to see you later, and thanks for your time,

with my best regards,

Murat30.

Postdata.- allow me to invite all other interested members and thanks for the advice for make a subfolder, i do not know about it before read your post.

increase the time of training to get a good moral more or less 20 months

Rank IV (Spain, Turkey)... 5.00/5.50 (to be set when i test them in battles)

Moral indeed did not go what needed to the Spaniards, reason why to put a moral so low does not reflect the reality, the main deficiencies of the Spaniards were:
1) Commanders of terrible quality, in most of the cases.
2) Bad organization of the army and the nation.
3) Regular army badly equipped and instructed.
4) Its monarchy was without a doubt worse of Europe and mainly the its heir Fernando VII, has been treasonous, incompetent and a killer one. (It sent congratulations to Napoleón, whenever its army overcame to the Spanish troops or allies).

However Spain had a series of advantages that made a bone very it last to nibble:
1) Moral of steel resistance, an extreme religiosidad that it identified to the nation with the church, without forgetting that Spain is the nation been but old of Europe.
2) the Spanish due to his history, has known to remove the maximum benefit to his territory, a great surface 504,000 Km2, (Spain is the country of Europe with but mountainous surface). Many rivers and at that time ample zones with very few resources to supply.
3) Deficiency of worthy ways of such name.
4) Its worse directed army badly equipped and, tapeworm a tendency to the heroísmo, almost suicidal.
5) the guerrilla arises from but the deep thing of the Spanish town throughout all her history, (it is not necessary to forget that she reconquers it of Spain against the "Moors" begins with a guerrilla activity year 718 in Covadonga, Asturias), without forgetting the long resistance against Rome. The main effort like regular army in most of the peninsular war (of independence for the Spaniards), made the British, but ample zones of the country released the guerrillas to them, and the regular troops who depended on the Meetings of Territorial defense, as the war advanced and that the country was freed were units of guerrillas who integrated themselves in the regular army.
6) the aptitude of violence, sacking and scorn that the French, acted since the invasion began helped enough to that almost all the Spanish people, except a very small minority of the class leader, was united to the resistance.

In my opinion, you give too much to Sweden and not enough to Russia. Russia had excellent quality troops and guards every bit as capable as the French. In fact, every country had some top quality troops. Spain even had some guard troops.

Morale is an issue but experience counts as much.

The quality of the French is largely in part to superior leadership and command and control and also to years of warfare in Italy where the troops and junior officers learned their craft. In fact, a comparison can be made to WW2 - Germany did not have superior equipment but their tactics, training and especially some 'visionary' senior officers like Guiderian put to task the outdated methods of WW1 army mentality. The Napoleonic period is very similar.

In the early campaings of the late 1700's, Austria was the vastly superior army and often gave the French a thumping until radical changes mostly brought about by a young artillery captain made BG changed French tactics. Napoleon also fired most of the incompetent officers and promoted the vastly more capable junior officers in rank. He changed the notion of being in charge because of family/political power to one of capability demonstrated on the field.
Many of the other nations did not make such changes hence the lack of any real leadership in most other nations of the time. The one notable exception was the English who didn't change the practice but did have an entrenced tradition of training 'nobles' for military operations and allowing for distinguished officers to rise higher than in other armies.

So if you mod morale, it should be the same for all armies in production and different only for what is currently fielded based on past experiences/wars. Morale should really be won on the battlefield anyway.
Experience can be modded to improve based on training (barracks development) but only to a point. Then it should be won on the battlefield.

The real differential should be the support provided by leadership and infrastructure. I personally think many of the other armies should suffer greater attrition and have less depots to deploy than say, France, to represent the vastly different quartermaster organizations of the various armies. And, of course, the Leaders are where you should get the real advantages through initiative, morale, etc.

Very well said, gdpsnake. Very well said.

greetings, thanks you for the advice, i are working on it on my game, only have start to play CoG but have some good ideas to achieve in the future, glad to see you in my topic,

with my best regards,

Murat30

Greetings and well meet, glad to see that i must say some very good points, and glad to see you in my topic, please allow me to share a page or guide at this point, i see around 100 views of this topic and maybe some do not know these page...

http://www.napoleonguide.com/

and my personal sugestion at this time...

http://www.napoleonguide.com/armystat.htm
http://www.napoleonguide.com/bonguard.htm

given the said good points seen in yours previous post it is difficult to debate all in one post, i have stay today off the forum playing CoG for much time, have got my first two battles and have seen that upgrades make a great differential between nations, found it very well implemented, and to say some about it i think the better choices in the starting process will be these that make effect over the tipe of troops more to be used, in one of my battles, france vs britain, in the third month of the campaign, france was having more troops, around 40000 over britain in a total of 160000 to 120000 but britain win, i think the main difference is that britain have "target practice I and II" and france do not have it, too must say france is the attacking side and this have will reduced their morale.
in the napoleonic epoch, all major nations except france make a restriction about recruiting a huge army, the main reason for it is fear by the monarch of an army rebellion in their nation, so on, i think that the command of the forces are given to loyalty more than to dexterity in the field of battle, this is another restriction, as you well say in previous post, that napoleon and france do not face with.
well, about modding and making games the main problem is to decide between "realistic game" or playability and fun, fun or "addictive environmet" for the player of a given mod or game, i give sometimes more to playability than to realistic, of course i do not can discuss that is no realistic give sweden better base morale than russia but it increased the playability, and i have make a total remake on the units cost too for give small major nations in the game chance to field more troops, and more good troops, i want, the "basis premise" that i keep on mind all the time is the following... "to give all nations a production capability that really can affect the game and make an army at the choice of each player" well, if you allow me, i will make some post sometime when i have more experience in the game, at this time i are thinking in stablish for each branch of the armies a quality differential between troops that form each branch, it will cost me some time, the parameters to be applied and modified are "costs" and "defense multipliers", for example, retain guards infantry at "1" defense multiplier and militia at "0.5", infantry at "0.8" but need test.

thanks for your time and hope see you later, feel free to make any sugestion you may have,

and with my best regards,

Murat30.