Why the hell is my morale so low?

[armzngunz]

Seriously, Denmark and Russia has the same morale, yet for some reason, when the russian stack of 16 attacks the danish 24 stack, the danish stack is instantly dropped to half the morale ALL THE TIME. Just, why? Why is warfare in this game so ♥♥♥♥♥♥? It's just such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ system, anything random that happens makes or breaks a battle, sometimes an equal force always defeats the other and stackwipes for no apparent reason, hundreds of variables that feel almost unchangeable and you just have ot either cross your fingers during every war, or take a hundred loans to pay for 40k mercenaries.

[Valar Morghulis]

General, Dice rolls, Terrain, etc.. Seriously this has been answerd a thousand times. Oo Sometimes RNG hates you, sometimes it loves you. I had times where I thought I'm fighting a lost war but somehow managed to fight of every army that came for my troops. And sometimes I think how the f'ck can I lose this.

[armzngunz]

Originally posted by Valar Morghulis:

General, Dice rolls, Terrain, etc.. Seriously this has been answerd a thousand times. Oo Sometimes RNG hates you, sometimes it loves you. I had times where I thought I'm fighting a lost war but somehow managed to fight of every army that came for my troops. And sometimes I think how the f'ck can I lose this.

It's a very boring feature though, any fun playthrough can instantly be ruined by these mechanics. I finally start having ufn in this game, then get punished, because apparently having fun is a nono, so the game has to find ways to screw the player.

[Valar Morghulis]

Well in real life there were many factors which could lead to a defeat. I personally don't like the dice roll system neither, but you either deal with it or dont play the game, because as far as I know there isn't a mod out there that changes the combat system.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

That isn't RNG. That's lack of knowledge.

You do NOT have the same morale.

The Russians in your case have basically double what you have.


Whichever side has the highest potential maximum morale determines what the morale's scale is.

Then your current morale numbers are put on that scale

If you appear to lose half your morale instantly, then they've stacked basically double what your army's maximum morale is.

[armzngunz]

Originally posted by kaiyl_kariashi:

That isn't RNG. That's lack of knowledge.

You do NOT have the same morale.

The Russians in your case have basically double what you have.


Whichever side has the highest potential maximum morale determines what the morale's scale is.

Then your current morale numbers are put on that scale

If you appear to lose half your morale instantly, then they've stacked basically double what your army's maximum morale is.

Smh such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ system...

[kaiyl_kariashi]

how is it a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ system? The best army, with all the advantages won handily in a straight fight.

There was no other possible outcome.



At that level of difference even the re-enforcement tactic probably wouldn't be enough to change the outcome.


Instead you need to look at why you were so badly outmatched and how to avoid it next time.




What was your and the enemiess mil tech.

What was your ideas and how many did you have, and same for them.

Did you have a morale or discipline mil advisor.

Is your prestige negative or theirs really high.

What kind of unit composition were you running?

[armzngunz]

Because it doesn't really add anything to the game other than as another way to punish the player.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

How does it punish the player?

Because you don't automatically win no matter how badly you play?



The combat mechanics work the same no matter who you are, player or ai.

If you don't know to play, then it's a good opertunity to analyze what you did wrong and either figure it out yourself or come here and ask how to do better.


But we're gonna need more info than just 16 vs 24, Russians vs Danes, and apparently double morale to figure out which your problems are arising.


What mil tech are the two of you at.


What idea groups do both of you have and how many of each do you have.

What is your prestige and their prestige.

What sort of Army Composition are you running?


Did you have a Morale or Discipline advisor? (always assume the ai has one and counter it, and you'll either be right or you'll be better)




There's some more advanced techiques for fighting superior enemies, but we'll cover those later.

[Kagemin]

How does it punish the player? It just adds a bit of randomness, it will help you just as often as it will hurt you.
If you regularly get screwed in battle, chances are there's something else besides the dice. Take a moment to pause the game during combat and take a closer look at all the modifiers, read the tooltips, and figure out what else factors into it.
Once you get a hang of it you can more or less ignore the dice, there are so very many things you can indirectly influence combat through that the dice won't matter outside of very even fights.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

he's not even talking about the dice.

These are static, unchanging, predictible modifiers. That can be accounted for and countered.



Dice are not even going to play a factor with how completely outmatched his forces are, based what information we have.

[Ficelle]

Warfare in this game is 100% fine
It is why a player can dominate the world with pretty much any nation, assuming the player understand the combat mechanics
Heck, you can win most wars outnumbered 3+ vs 1 if you have enough room to move

Now, people with no clue about combat mechanics at all throw their armies at the enemy, die horribly, and complain about bad RNG
Common attitude, not only in this game...


If you have same starting morale than the enemy and yours drop like a stone, mind you, there is reasons
But i guess it is another one of those players with 5 morale attacking enemy with 10 morale and not understanding he has half the morale the enemy has right from the start, hence the half bar...

[armzngunz]

The way I see it, the battle system in Hoi as an example is much better, there I feel like smaller countries have a much better chance to win, you can eventually bleed out a bigger enemy, in EU4 you either win or lose, no middle ground.

In EU4 there is no way to turn a war you're losing around, no way to recover if you've already got bad morale, choosing other ideas instead of military ones and bam, you will be losing against a power who has more morale until you get ideas giving you more morale. Imo morale should just be a number you can't change much, maybe it could get lowered as war exhaustion increases and losses increase.

[Zorlond]

Put simply, Lucky Nations. It's a cheat modifier the devs put in to brute-force "difficulty" so that their preferred nations blob uncontrollably and become effectively unbeatable for the player, outside some random fluke occourance that the player can jump on.

And if you're playing for achievements, well, you're stuck with Lucky Nations set to Historical. And before you ask, no, the player can never have Lucky Nations. If you pick a nation that would normally get it, it just vanishes.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

It works exactly like that, you just have to know how to do it if you're going for a less Combat-focused playthrough.



if you GREATLY outnumber them but they have better troops though the difference isn't beyond twice your strength, you can split your forces to meet the combat width and gradually send in re-enforcements to keep adding morale/men to the fight until the enemy breaks, and then keep the pressure on till their army is weak enough that you can quickly carpet siege and then break them.

If you want to be particularly micro-managy, you can even order your previous army to retreat once the new one arrives so it can start healing back while you're cycling units in, though you have to be careful doing this or you'll order a full stack retreat.



If they are simply too strong for even that to work, just avoid fighting them directly and focus on Counter-Sieging until you can get a White Peace or they'll accept a Money bribe to end the war, and then look for allies who can take them for the next war.

If you have a particularly siege focused army you might even be able to Counter-Siege so fast you can actually get some territory out of the war instead of merely trying to end it intact.


-----------------------------------------

Lucky nations doesn't affect morale or any other combat modifiers.


You, as a player, will NEVER lose a battle, war, or game because of Lucky nations.

The bonuses are simply too trivial compared to all the advantages a player has.



Lucky Nations just encourages ai nations who historically dominated to be more aggressive, and give them a minor advantage compared to their ai neighbors.

Even an average skilled player, as long as you know the basics, will play circles around them.

However, that does imply you have spent time getting a solid grasp on the basics of MP management, Economic Management, Diplo-game, and solid understanding of the combat mechanics.

Those are the bedrock fundamentals.

[Zorlond]

Originally posted by kaiyl_kariashi:

Lucky nations doesn't affect morale or any other combat modifiers.


You, as a player, will NEVER lose a battle, war, or game because of Lucky nations.

Let's see here...

+1 Monthly splendor

Easier access to combat abilities like +20% Cav/Inf ratio, +1 Combat bonus in provinces with same terrain as capitol, etc...

−25% Mercenary cost

Yep, cheap mercs, that's an easy one.

-20% Advisor cost

All those military advisors count. Plus morale, discipline, lot of options.

+25% Manpower recovery speed

Won't affect one battle but will very much affect the war.

+10% Fort defense

That fort slowdown is gonna screw up your war plans.

+5% Siege ability

While the AI's war plans will go even faster.

−1 National unrest

Counters war exhaustion quite nicely.

+1 Yearly legitimacy

Legitimacy decreases unrest among other things, so another counter to war exhaustion.

And this is all just the combat benefits. A lucky nation is also going to be more stable, richer, and grow faster than the player can, so all these benefits snowball rather dramatically. There's a reason why "Big Blue Blob" is a thing.

Next time, actually learn what the modifier does before throwing a unilateral judgement on it. And of course, these are just the modifiers that have been disclosed. If you assume devs never lie about everything they do for AIs, you're gonna have a big shock coming, kid.