Allied depots and ships morale

[carburo]

This is a minor issue, but it annoys me to no end.

Could we have a say in when to answer our allies’ cries for help? And, if we are sharing depots, when they destroy theirs?
IMHO, the share depot clause is a lottery, too dangerous to be of any use. If you dare use your allies’ depots, chances are next turn they will happily move their encampment and leave your 200 000 guys starving in the snow. I simply never use it, but what’s the point of the option then. I would propose that for the first month out of supply, armies suffer greater fighting penalties, like starting battles fatigued, virtually without ammo, and without any supply caisson, but little starvation. This way, the disruption of supply could mean getting caught in a disastrous battle, but you wouldn’t lose half your army to an ally’s decision.

The cry-for-help thing is even worst. You ally engages in an adjacent province, brings your huge army as reinforcement, and by doing so takes you out of supply. This situation accounts for the heaviest casualties I’ve seen in the game. Once, the Spaniards’ cries draw my huge army in Bavaria (supplied by an adjacent depot in Nuremberg) to snowy Tyrolia. As a result I lost almost half the army and had to abort my invasion. As it is, a lot of my strategic maneuvering consists of avoiding allied armies. I have also resorted to the draconian measure of ordering my allies to concentrate on a province far from the war theatre and let me conduct the war alone. It would be healthy if we could simply deny the request for help.

One last thing; why is it that ships don’t gain morale with battle experience? After lots of fights, my ships remain stuck at its lousy starting morale.

[ericbabe]

Many of our beta testers considered allied sharing of depots to be too powerful even as it is now -- their objection was that it too easily allowed, say, Russia to operate in southern France if they are sharing depots with Spain. I think the uncertainty of sharing depots is a good check against relying on them, at least in a single player game. It's perhaps more useful in a multi-player game, where it's perhaps a bit overpowered.

We've had other players object to allies' abilities to summon your troops into their battles without any chance to ignore their summons. This is something we've considered addressing with a prompt to send your troops to help them (and by allowing AI players to ignore your calls for reinforcements as well...)

I'll put ship-morale on the list of things to consider adding. That's a good idea; not sure why they currently don't.

[carburo]

You are right about the depot sharing issue. I hadn't considered it from that perspective.
Good that you will consider the other two things.