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| Thread: How alignments affect morale in H4 | |
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 16, 2002 06:17 PM |
bonus applied. |
Edited By: kevyip on 16 Apr 2002
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How alignments affect morale in H4
The manual is pretty vague on this. After much experimenting, I arrived at the following...
In HOMM4, each troop in an army has its own morale value (like HOMM3). Assuming there is no artifact or hero with skills that enhance morale, the morale of each troop can be calculated as shown below...
For Life, Order, Chaos, Life, and Death troops:
+1 morale if troops (including oneself) from the same alignment are present.
-1 morale for the presence of each alignment with which there is an "alliance" (see "Town Alliance" in manual).
-2 morale if Might troops are present.
-5 morale for the presence of each alignment that is different and with which there is no alliance.
For Might troops:
+1 morale if Might troops (including oneself) are present.
-2 morale for the presence of each alignment that is not Might.
All the values above are ACCUMULATIVE. The morale of a troop is the accumulative total of all of the above that applies to that troop.
Each troop can be either a hero or a stack of creatures.
In applying the morale additions or substractions above, we only count the number of alignments that are present, not the number of stacks.
The manual uses town names to explain alliances. But it would be clearer here to use alignment names, as follows:
Life is in alliance with Order and Nature.
Death is in alliance with Order and Chaos.
Order is in alliance with Life and Death.
Chaos is in alliance with Death and Nature.
Nature is in alliance with Life and Chaos.
Alliances cannot be "relayed". E.g., although Life is in alliance with Order, and Order with Death, that does not mean Life is in alliance with Death.
Let's illustrate all of the above with some examples.
In an army composed of Druid (Nature), Berserker (Might), Crossbowman (Life), Pirate (Chaos), Orc (Chaos), Thief (Chaos), and Necromancer (Death), each troop's morale would be as follows:-
Druid (Nature) has -8 morale due to the accumulative total of the following:
the presence of Nature (+1),
the presence of Might (-2),
the presence of Life (-1),
the presence of Chaos (-1),
the presence of Death (-5).
Berserker (Might) has -7 morale due to the accumulative total of the following:
the presence of Might (+1);
the presence of four other different alignments (-2 x 4 = -8).
Crossbowman (Life) has -12 morale due to the accumulative total of the following:
the presence of Nature (-1),
the presence of Might (-2),
the presence of Life (+1),
the presence of Chaos (-5),
the presence of Death (-5)
Pirate, Orc, and Thief (all Chaos) each has -8 morale due to the accumulative total of the following:
the presence of Nature (-1),
the presence of Might (-2),
the presence of Life (-5),
the presence of Chaos (+1),
the presence of Death (-1)
Necromancer (Death) has -12 morale due to the accumulative total of the following:
the presence of Nature (-5),
the presence of Might (-2),
the presence of Life (-5),
the presence of Chaos (-1),
the presence of Death (+1)
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Maximum negative morale, of course, is only -10. Anything below that is treated as -10 (my guess).
More examples are below, with the alignment and morale of each troop in parentheses:
Army #1: Knight (Life, -4), Death Knight (Death, -4)
Army #2: Knight (Life, -5), Archer (Nature, -5), Death Knight (Death, -9).
Army #3: Knight (Life, 0), Priest (Life, 0), Wolf (Life, 0), Archer (Nature, 0)
Army #4: Knight (Life, -1), Barbarian (Might, -1)
Army #5: Knight (Life, -6), Barbarian (Might, -3), Centaur (Might, -3), Death Knight (Death, -6)
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Krishhh
Adventuring Hero
still learning spells
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posted April 16, 2002 06:40 PM |
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Nice post, shows that you really shouldn`t mix allignments much. 5 alligments in 1 army and the best morale is -7. Wow.
You should take one chaos out and put a order creature, but then again it would make it too similar. every magic alligment would have -13(-10)and might would have -11(-10). Also I`ve heard that if you choose the death path instead of the demonic in Necro the undead cause -2 moral even to order and chaos.( but I don`t know for sure)
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Promising student of magic.
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 16, 2002 07:02 PM |
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Quote:
Nice post, shows that you really shouldn`t mix allignments much. 5 alligments in 1 army and the best morale is -7. Wow.
You should take one chaos out and put a order creature, but then again it would make it too similar. every magic alligment would have -13(-10)and might would have -11(-10). Also I`ve heard that if you choose the death path instead of the demonic in Necro the undead cause -2 moral even to order and chaos.( but I don`t know for sure)
Thanks. The thing is that morale calculation in H4 is made more complicated with things like "alliances" and the fact that Might troops merely have "associations" (the word the manual uses) with other alignments -- so complicated you would need a calculator.
I still haven't experimented much on how alignments in your own army affect the morale of enemy armies. I'll find out by playing around with a custom map.
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Akarius
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 16, 2002 09:46 PM |
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Good post
It's the reason why I don't take "charmed" foreign monster for the battle and keep them to wander the map and patrol "fog" area.
I prefer to have good morale troop... 
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 16, 2002 11:13 PM |
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Edited By: kevyip on 16 Apr 2002
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Thanks
The least harmful way is to mix troops from two alignments that are in an alliance, such as Order and Death troops. The morale would be zero. And it would hopefully be boosted with skills, artifacts, and spells.
One of the tricky things is that there is no three-way alliance. For instance, Order is in alliance with Life and Death. One would think that Life and Death are also in an alliance, but they are not. So there is really no way to mix more than two alignments in an army without having some of the troops suffer considerable loss of morale.
If you must mix three alignments, mixing two from the same alliance and Might troops would be the least harmful. For instance:
Knight (Life, -2), Archer (Nature, -2), Barbarian (Might, -3)
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UnkaHaakon
Responsible
Famous Hero
happily tilting at windmills
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posted April 17, 2002 12:02 AM |
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Offtopic: Bonus Applied
Thanks for the time and effort you put into clearing this up. Although at first the consequences of low morale don't seem as bad as in Heroes 2 or 3, from sad personal experience, I know this is not the case. 
Keep up the good work!
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malkia
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted April 17, 2002 03:12 AM |
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Quote:
For Life, Order, Chaos, Life, and Death troops:
+1 morale if troops (including oneself) from the same
For Might troops:
+1 morale if Might troops (including oneself) are present.
Might
I can't understand well those lines (and can't run the game cause my home computer is now dead) - You are getting +1 morale per each stack of units of your own including yourself - or only +1 to the fact that there is stack like yourself present? If latter is the case - then you can always make +1 morale if you split your army (actually only put one unit there)
Say i have
5 Pikemens
will they got more morale than
4 Pikemas, 1 Pikeman?
thanx for the info anyway!
____________
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 17, 2002 03:21 AM |
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Thanks for your thumbs up!
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 17, 2002 04:04 AM |
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Edited By: kevyip on 16 Apr 2002
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Quote:
I can't understand well those lines (and can't run the game cause my home computer is now dead) - You are getting +1 morale per each stack of units of your own including yourself - or only +1 to the fact that there is stack like yourself present? If latter is the case - then you can always make +1 morale if you split your army (actually only put one unit there)
Say i have
5 Pikemens
will they got more morale than
4 Pikemas, 1 Pikeman?
thanx for the info anyway!
If you split them up, each stack will get +1 morale. But if you split them up further, each stack will still get only +1. They have +1 morale for one reason only: the presence of Life troops. The quantity of Life troops has no effect.
But having more troops with +1 morale is indeed more desirable than having fewer.
If you have only one troop with +1 morale, you have 10% chance of it getting morale bonus (the "shining eagle" thing). If you have seven troops with +1 morale, you have 70% chance of having ANY ONE OF THE TROOPS getting morale bonus. The chance of any one PARTICULAR troop getting morale bonus is, of course, constant at 10%.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted April 17, 2002 11:06 AM |
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You won't get higher morale for splitting troops.
If you split you increase the chances of having either of the troops getting high morale but on the other hand fewer troops will get the morale bonus (or penalty if morale is negative).
I had thought allied troops didn't give a -1 Penalty, but after having checked this again it appears that you are right. They do give a -1 morale.
Another thing to consider is that for Morale influences only your best hero counts.
So having two heroes with Leadership then you will only get the best bonus. Also be aware that the Morale bonus does include artifact bonuses.
So if one hero has Advanced Leadership and another hero has a +1 Morale artifact, then you will still only get the best value. In this case +2 to from Advanced Leadership.
Transfer the morale artifact to the Leadership hero and you'll get +3 Morale.
On the other hand if a hero is knocked out then I believe all bonuses that hero bestowed on the troops are removed. So in the above case the troops would get still get +1 from the second hero if the Leadership her was taken out (but no bonus if the Leadership hero had the Morale artifact).
Two more additions which (at a glance) were left out:
- Presence of Undead: -2 Morale
(No extensive checks but the penalty does not apply to non-undead Death aligned troops.)
- Mechanical, Elemental, and Undead troops always have a Morale of 0.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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