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Morale
Morale is a unit stat which reflects a unit's willingness to stay in combat in the face of adversity. Various things affect morale.
General
These effects are valid for commanders and units:
The fire
bless effect Superior Morale adds one moral per point spent.
Being
blessed gives all non-independents +1 morale.
Sermon of Courage or Fanaticism
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Being exposed to
Fear aura or spells with fear effects temporarily lowers morale. This seems to recover by 3 approximately every 5000
ticks. No single or combination of fear effects may lower morale by more than 5, however.
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Blood Rain lowers the morale of all units on the battlefield by 4.
Dark Skies lowers morale of enemies in the caster's dominion by 1 per point of the caster's dominion in the province.
Being in friendly
dominion increases morale by 1. Conversely, being in hostile dominion lowers morale by 1.
Being in the home province gives a morale bonus of 1.
Commanders
In addition to the general modifiers, several magic items will boost a commander's morale.
For 5 gems:
Dragon Helmet (+5),
Fire Plate (+2), and
Ring of the Warrior (+2). The
Shroud of the Battle Saint will
Bless a commander even if not sacred, which adds at least +1 morale.
For 10 gems: Bear Claw Talisman (+2), Green Dragon Scale Mail (+4), Red Dragon Scale Mail (+4), Blue Dragon Scale Mail (+4), Fire Brand (+2), and The Black Heart (+2).
A handful of artifacts also boost their wearer's morale.
The
Slave Collar (+20) provides a huge morale bonus … at the cost of being a cursed item that applies the Feeblemind
affliction.
Some items, such as the
Berserker Pelt or
Lychantropos' Amulet will make a commander berserk at the start of a battle, while the
Flesh Eater and
Hell Sword give the
Berserker trait, causing the commander to go berserk when they first take damage.
Units
In addition to the general modifiers, units are affected by:
Flat modifiers displayed in the army setup menu. These are based on the leading commander's leadership value and number of squads, as well as mixing undead, demons or living creatures.
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Being in a squad with any
undisciplined units lowers morale by 1. Note that all undisciplined units get this penalty, it merely extends to any disciplined units they share a squad with.
Being in sparse line or skirmish formations without the
skirmisher trait lowers morale by 1.
Starvation lowers morale by 4.
Routing
Every round of battle, the game checks for units which must make a morale check. This affects units that have1):
Suffered heavy losses since its last morale check, and overall casualties are at 20%. "Heavy losses" is defined as one "wound" per two squad members. A "wound" in this instance is at least one or more hitpoints of damage that lowers a unit to below 80% of its maximum hitpoints.
The squad less than five units in it, and has taken damage this round.
The unit has been subjected to a spell or effect causing fear, such as the spell Terrify or the effect of a
Fear aura.
The entire army has taken 50% or more of its starting health in casualties. If there was only one creature and its retinue, the retinue is not considered for this.
Practically, taking a morale check makes a roll for whole squad as follows:
Morale roll: (Squads average morale + squad survivor bonus
2)) + DRN
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The squad survivor bonus is a value of 0-5 that reflects the number of units in the squad that have been killed. If the fear roll exceeds (but not ties) the morale roll, the squad or commander routs.
Furthermore, if an army has lost 75% of its starting health, it will rout automatically. Province defense units count as a quarter of their total HP for the purpose of this calculation. Combat summons from spells like Horde of Skeletons count as part of the army's current health (but not its starting health), and thus can prevent an army from routing after losing far more than 75% of its units.
Exceptions