How to keep morale up in peace time?

[wowzerz]

It's very difficult to keep my men's morale up because all they want to do is butt-♥♥♥♥ their enemies and bloodshed. It's really boring to keep my men's morale up in peacetime by just killing off small 15 member bandit parties one by one.

[mrmike_49]

leadership skill, lots of food types, keep size of army under control - see "REPORTS" MORALE to see what is causing low morale, and what helps raise it

[Morkonan]

If morale problems are severe, take a look at your Morale Report and it will tell you what the problem is. If it is truly a lack of combat, then garrison most of your men in a castle/town that you own until you can find something more warlike for them to do or you successfully get your stats up.

[wowzerz]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

If morale problems are severe, take a look at your Morale Report and it will tell you what the problem is. If it is truly a lack of combat, then garrison most of your men in a castle/town that you own until you can find something more warlike for them to do or you successfully get your stats up.

Wait, so if you garrison your men, they cannot leave my party no matter what?

[Nigrescence]

Have a tavern owner throw a party for your troops. Raise morale. Easily solved by throwing denars at it. For extra cheap morale boost, garrison nearly all of your troops in your castle or town, throw a party (because the cost is based on the amount of troops in your warband) for super cheap, and then take them back out of the garrison. They will have your new, higher morale without spending extra on them! Or if you are away from home, pay full price but keep their spirits up when you NEED it.

Other than that, high leadership, not having super-huge parties, diverse food types, and obviously if you are in a time of peace you can likely have a small party to ensure your morale doesn't become dangerous.

For specific details on morale, including the penalty due to your warband size, your bonus due to your leadership, and miscellaneous modifiers, view it under reports in the party morale report. The "recent events" bonus or detriment is the one most likely to change, and the one that is raised by victory, even against small bands. Food variety bonus is obvious, based on the food you have.

Easy way to figure a stable party size in slow times is to check the morale report at one of your castles or towns, and put troops until you feel there is a stable morale value if you assume the "recent events" bonus is 0 and assuming a single basic food source (I tend to carry just wheat - cheap and plentiful, easily replaced). So yeah. You should aim for a morale at least of 60 or more. The party morale report even does the math for you. You just need to modify for recent events to figure out your stable average.

Also, you could just start a war. Just sayin'.

[Nigrescence]

Originally posted by steal:

Wait, so if you garrison your men, they cannot leave my party no matter what?

I don't know about that, I certainly would assume if they are in garrison they don't count to party, but I've never had that happen to me. No, the point of putting men in the garrison is that the number of troops in your party counts AGAINST your morale total. So the larger your party, the bigger the penalty to your average morale value. If you reduce your party size, you increase your morale, and make it easier to keep your troops happy.

[wowzerz]

Originally posted by Nigrescence:

Have a tavern owner throw a party for your troops. Raise morale. Easily solved by throwing denars at it. For extra cheap morale boost, garrison nearly all of your troops in your castle or town, throw a party (because the cost is based on the amount of troops in your warband) for super cheap, and then take them back out of the garrison. They will have your new, higher morale without spending extra on them! Or if you are away from home, pay full price but keep their spirits up when you NEED it.

Other than that, high leadership, not having super-huge parties, diverse food types, and obviously if you are in a time of peace you can likely have a small party to ensure your morale doesn't become dangerous.

For specific details on morale, including the penalty due to your warband size, your bonus due to your leadership, and miscellaneous modifiers, view it under reports in the party morale report. The "recent events" bonus or detriment is the one most likely to change, and the one that is raised by victory, even against small bands. Food variety bonus is obvious, based on the food you have.

Easy way to figure a stable party size in slow times is to check the morale report at one of your castles or towns, and put troops until you feel there is a stable morale value if you assume the "recent events" bonus is 0 and assuming a single basic food source (I tend to carry just wheat - cheap and plentiful, easily replaced). So yeah. You should aim for a morale at least of 60 or more. The party morale report even does the math for you. You just need to modify for recent events to figure out your stable average.

Also, you could just start a war. Just sayin'.

I can throw a party with my troops? How? Is this new or something because i've never even heard of this lol..


Also, I've been using TweakMB to change stuff. I can change anything I want besides the morale section. The party morale section is greyed out, so I cant type anything in the boxes. Assuming that you use it, do you know why is this?

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by steal:

I can throw a party with my troops? How? Is this new or something because i've never even heard of this lol..

I think that even in Native, you can walk up to the inn keeper and ask him for a barrel of his best brew for your men.

In other mods, there are other options. In Viking Conquest, you can:
- use the host in a tavern, same as in Native
- have your camp followers entertain the men
- find a whоrе in a tavern
- hire a highly skilled whоге to set shop in the hideout
- hire a famous cook for feast in the hideout
- throw feasts for your troops (different from feasts for lords) in your cities
- pays the right kind of priest (gothi or bishop) to raise their spirits
- pay money to support your fighters families.
- etc, etc, etc...

But frankly, I have only used these to try them out. I have never needed them, because it is easy to keep morale up by keeping a small party unless you are on the war path, and by providing 10 different kinds of food when I need to move a large army.

My character can lead about 300 men with no size penalty, though. Check your morale report to see how many your guy can lead.

[Nigrescence]

Why would you assume that I use something that is basically cheating? If you're cheating, why not just cheat for things that you know help with morale? Different food types, all the gold you need, etc. No, I don't use TweakMB and don't assume that I do.

Anyway, as said, talking to the tavern keeper will give you the option to treat your troops. I provided a ton of useful information about morale that you can use. I suggest you read it and consider it. It feels like you basically ignored everything I said other than the party.

[wowzerz]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

Originally posted by steal:

I can throw a party with my troops? How? Is this new or something because i've never even heard of this lol..

I think that even in Native, you can walk up to the inn keeper and ask him for a barrel of his best brew for your men.

In other mods, there are other options. In Viking Conquest, you can:
- use the host in a tavern, same as in Native
- have your camp followers entertain the men
- find a whоrе in a tavern
- hire a highly skilled whоге to set shop in the hideout
- hire a famous cook for feast in the hideout
- throw feasts for your troops (different from feasts for lords) in your cities
- pays the right kind of priest (gothi or bishop) to raise their spirits
- pay money to support your fighters families.
- etc, etc, etc...

But frankly, I have only used these to try them out. I have never needed them, because it is easy to keep morale up by keeping a small party unless you are on the war path, and by providing 10 different kinds of food when I need to move a large army.

My character can lead about 300 men with no size penalty, though. Check your morale report to see how many your guy can lead.

I went to the Tavern keeper and there's no option unless you mean the "Id like to buy every man who comes in here tonight a jar of your best wine".

[Nigrescence]

Also, I can think of a few reasons why you cannot edit morale, if I guess what TweakMB does. It is because morale is indirectly determined by a number of factors. You could likely change the exact factors that alter your morale, but there is no independent morale bonus (other than the base morale bonus of +50, which I guess TweakMB isn't clever enough to target).

[wowzerz]

Originally posted by Nigrescence:

Also, I can think of a few reasons why you cannot edit morale, if I guess what TweakMB does. It is because morale is indirectly determined by a number of factors. You could likely change the exact factors that alter your morale, but there is no independent morale bonus (other than the base morale bonus of +50, which I guess TweakMB isn't clever enough to target).

I worded what I said wrong. I mean there's this option where I can change the morale bonus my leadership skill gives me, but it's grayed out so I can't change it. Many people have said they can change any thing in TweakMB, including the morale options.

[cqqks]

Originally posted by steal:

It's very difficult to keep my men's morale up because all they want to do is butt-♥♥♥♥ their enemies and bloodshed. It's really boring to keep my men's morale up in peacetime by just killing off small 15 member bandit parties one by one.

Your post is somewhat vague. Tell us where you're at in your game. Have you you started your own kingdom and these 'men' you're talking about, are they nobles who have joined your cause?
Or, are you a noble in someone else's kingdom, and is riding around with too many troops?

[wowzerz]

Originally posted by cqqks:

Originally posted by steal:

It's very difficult to keep my men's morale up because all they want to do is butt-♥♥♥♥ their enemies and bloodshed. It's really boring to keep my men's morale up in peacetime by just killing off small 15 member bandit parties one by one.

Your post is somewhat vague. Tell us where you're at in your game. Have you you started your own kingdom and these 'men' you're talking about, are they nobles who have joined your cause?
Or, are you a noble in someone else's kingdom, and is riding around with too many troops?

I'm a noble for Swadia, I've got a lot of troops but in war time I find it easy to get their morale to excellent. In peacetime, it gets hard because I have to grind battles against small bandit parties instead of attacking enemy nobles. I don't want to cut any of my soldiers because of my future plan to be king which will require a lot of men.

[Tuidjy]

Don't you have a garrison? Take a city or castle, and stash your troops there!

[Fire and Glory]

Yeah, if you garrison them then they won't leave, pretty handy if you lose a battle or just take a nasty amount of casualities.