Low Morale on Armies

[Ralston]

Ive got about 120 years on an Austria save and Ive been doing really well with the HRE and annexing Hungary etc. So i would be really loathe to let this go.

Around 1560 Provence leader dies heirless and France goes to war with me over their lands.

I should be wiping the floor with them as Im allied with Polish Commonwelth, Bohemia etc.

My armies appear to be at full morale, but the second a battle starts my troops only have half morale and Im not even winning fights with 2x as many troops as the other army. This happens even when my allies attack something. Is this a bug or something unique to this kind of a war?

Before anyone asks my army maintenance is full and we have the same military tech level.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bbqftw]

Please report on whether France has defensive because you obviously dont

You can also expect between 1620 and 1710 that France has 20% extra fire damage. 25% morale lead with more potentially from prestige, PP, defender of faith means that one good roll can indeed start your guys off with a halved morale bar

 

[I_am_Nemo]

IIrc, once you enter combat, the morale bar displays your force's morale as a percentage of the morale of the highest morale force involved in the battle. That is, if your max morale is half the of your opponent's max morale, your armies will show as having 50% morale before any morale damage is taken.

To verify, remember your max morale value, pause the day the battle starts, and look at your army's morale value - if it's the same as max, then it's just a matter of how morale is displayed.

But also, yeah, France tends to run obscene levels of morale, so you'll be taking a ton of morale damage against them.

 

[Ralston]

I think i understand a bit better. And yeah France has defender of the faith. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Tacticus101]

Bare in mind that high moral means that not only are they lasting longer in battle, but they also do more moral damage to you. Battles with a large moral gap can end very quickly as a result.

However, it doesn't mean they do more casualties. If you time the arrival of your armies so that rather than joining the battle at the same time, they join the battle bit by bit then you can keep reinforcing, keep the battle going and ensure you win eventually.

 

[bradles0]

go to the ledger (bottom right, next to menu), go to table of contents, select army quality. Look at France's moral, look at your moral. Displayed Morale is the percentage moral of the max moral of the highest army, so your morale is displayed as a percentage of France's. Keep in mind that France probably has some military ideas, as well as Elan.


To counter high morale, feed your army new units to keep pushing your moral back up (try to still initially engage at combat width), because you can't lose moral if you aren't fighting. 100% army professionalism helps with this since units in reserves take less morale damage.

And you will have this same problem when you fight brandenburg/prussia.