Morale damage from attacks should be changed

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

In one of the later patches damage to morale from (non-strategic) air attack, missiles and artillery was applied. To add new options for those weapons, I guess.

But I think it does not work well for the game because of the rebellion mechanism on day change. It is basically an option to ignore your enemies forces and just bomb/shell his territories. Then they will rebel or become unproductive. Either way, he will die off.

This is far too simple. Plus the idea that my population will rebel AGAINST me and join the ENEMY - because of enemy fire, is ridiculous!

I think this mechanism needs to be tweaked, nerfed or removed again. Instead of damage to morale, I think artillery and non-strat bomber attacks should damage only productivity - not morale. Or at least very little. Missiles and strat bombers should still damage morale as now, but provinces should NEVER flip to the side that the fire is coming from. This makes no sense whatsoever and is very much NOT WW2-like.

I think it's good. Another way of defeating your enemy other than just traditional head-on offensives. Like it adds more layer to the game.

You think it is good that you can bombard an enemy territory and then the population you bombarded will rebel and join YOU?

Makes NO sense!

That's literally what surrendering is.

Plus artys don't even dish out that much morale dmg, it'd require hours upon hours of constant bombarding to drop a province's morale to rebellion lvl. And if your enemy's arty attacks ground, that's a 30 min. window for you to rush him with melee troops or counter-bombard without taking any dmg.

Z. Sakki wrote:

That's literally what surrendering is.

Plus artys don't even dish out that much morale dmg, it'd require hours upon hours of constant bombarding to drop a province's morale to rebellion lvl. And if your enemy's arty attacks ground, that's a 30 min. window for you to rush him with melee troops or counter-bombard without taking any dmg.

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

You think it is good that you can bombard an enemy territory and then the population you bombarded will rebel and join YOU?

Makes NO sense!

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

But I think it does not work well for the game because of the rebellion mechanism on day change. It is basically an option to ignore your enemies forces and just bomb/shell his territories. Then they will rebel or become unproductive. Either way, he will die off.

This is far too simple. Plus the idea that my population will rebel AGAINST me and join the ENEMY - because of enemy fire, is ridiculous!

BMfox wrote:

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

You think it is good that you can bombard an enemy territory and then the population you bombarded will rebel and join YOU?

Makes NO sense!

They don't rebel to the enemy notably, they can rebel to any other nation too.

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

But I think it does not work well for the game because of the rebellion mechanism on day change. It is basically an option to ignore your enemies forces and just bomb/shell his territories. Then they will rebel or become unproductive. Either way, he will die off.

This is far too simple. Plus the idea that my population will rebel AGAINST me and join the ENEMY - because of enemy fire, is ridiculous!

Why is it far too simple? I can imagine that the country being attacked will deploy their army and confront their attacker. It's not like the enemy will be able to do this uncontested?

London is bombed by the germans during the Blitz of WW2. Morale is dipping and Londoners go 'Oh no. Let's rebel and join Sweden!'

They did no such thing, did they? On the contrary; the more they were bombed, the more determined they got.

In fact: Can you mention one single case where some city bombed would rise against its own nation and join a third nation?

I absolutely like that strat bombers and missiles etc can lower morale, but the rebellion is out of whack atm.

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

Still, can you imagine this:

London is bombed by the germans during the Blitz of WW2. Morale is dipping and Londoners go 'Oh no. Let's rebel and join Sweden!'

They did no such thing, did they? On the contrary; the more they were bombed, the more determined they got.

If you're province drops to rebellion lvl because of enemy arty fire then that means you didn't contest him.

That means you just let your enemy shell your province for quite a lengthy amount of time (as arty have very low morale dmg) - a complete 180 of the Blitz wherein every single one of Germany's attacks were met with strong resistance. The two are incomparable.

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I don't think this is a game mechanic problem as the province's rebellion could've been avoided had you defended it and contested the enemy's bombardment. The issue here is your inaction.

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Also, BMfox has a very strong argument, you still haven't answered that.

London's morale didn't drop during the war. They had propaganda, which is present as propaganda offices here.

Claudio NVKP wrote:

London's morale didn't drop during the war. They had propaganda, which is present as propaganda offices here.

As far as I've heard

"The children were sent to schools in the countryside where there was no bombing, the adults enjoyed mornings tea in the bunkers."

I don't know if this is British propaganda or not.

Let's not get too off topic shall we?

Claudio NVKP wrote:

London's morale didn't drop during the war. They had propaganda, which is present as propaganda offices here.

Z. Sakki wrote:

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

Still, can you imagine this:

London is bombed by the germans during the Blitz of WW2. Morale is dipping and Londoners go 'Oh no. Let's rebel and join Sweden!'

They did no such thing, did they? On the contrary; the more they were bombed, the more determined they got.

Because they actually fought back, they didn't just let the Germans raze London uncontested. The Blitz was a failure, didn't hamper productions nor break British morale.

If you're province drops to rebellion lvl because of enemy arty fire then that means you didn't contest him.

That means you just let your enemy shell your province for quite a lengthy amount of time (as arty have very low morale dmg) - a complete 180 of the Blitz wherein every single one of Germany's attacks were met with strong resistance. The two are incomparable.

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I don't think this is a game mechanic problem as the province's rebellion could've been avoided had you defended it and contested the enemy's bombardment. The issue here is your inaction.

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Also, BMfox has a very strong argument, you still haven't answered that.

The notion that 'you can just stop them from attacking' is moot. There is no way to stop every bomber/artillery action. Anyone past noob stage should know.

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

You are over looking that even if I do defend it, morale will drop anyway. No difference. That's also the answer to BMFox.

The notion that 'you can just stop them from attacking' is moot. There is no way to stop every bomber/artillery action. Anyone past noob stage should know.

It seems to me that it aren't the game mechanics that need to change. Rather it is you that needs to adapt his strategy to the game mechanics.

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

You are over looking that even if I do defend it, morale will drop anyway. No difference. That's also the answer to BMFox.

If you're unable to kill him then he's just the better man. Everyone starts with the same troops, resources and opportunities so it's either there must be something you did wrong or something he simply just did better.

As BMfox also said, placing garrisons also removes any chance of rebellion.

NoobNoobTrain wrote:

The notion that 'you can just stop them from attacking' is moot. There is no way to stop every bomber/artillery action. Anyone past noob stage should know.

What makes you say bombers can't be stopped?

• You can kill bombers with ints. An int stack will kill bombers pretty easily, especially if they're not escorted.

- If his bombers are escorted then stack your ints with your other planes for dmg spread.

- Int stacks could discourage him from using planes. As you're in defense, that's a win for you as the pressure is on him to cover ground.

• AA, sp or otherwise, will shred any plane. Their presence alone might be enough to deter any aerial attack.

• If you wanna be cheeky, you can disable or outright kill the enemy's airfields. Flying bombs, rockets, strat bombers - the choice is yours.

• You can also send in a force marched ac/mot. Inf to his airfield and ground his planes. Can only be done of he's inactive tho, and if he's smart then he'll withdraw his planes everytime he goes inactive so it's up to you to weigh things out.

For artys:

• You can rush it with melee troops. Artys can't stand against just about anything really in a melee as their def dmg is very low and so are their hp's.

- He's attacking ground so you can time your charge right after his arty ticks. That's a free 30 min. worth of ground covered.

- Mot. Inf or just regular inf really if he doesn't have anti unarmored units protecting the arty.

- Ac/lt/mech. Inf if it doesn't have anti armor.

- You can kill it with planes if he doesn't have aa.

• If melee is not an option then you can kill it with your own arty.

- Same with the melee option, you can wait for his arty to tick & attack ground then move in your arty to counter bombard. Since he's already used his attack, he won't be able to answer, that's a free hit. The more dmg he takes, the lesser dmg he deals so every little bit counts.

- If you can, use rocket artys as they're better in killing normal artys.

- You can can stack your artys with meatshields like militia for dmg spread.

- You can also just one up him by bringing an extra arty stack and make it a 2v1 arty battle in your favor.

• You can retreat until the terrain favors you. Terrain bonus is often overlook but it is very strong.

• If his stack has anti unarmor, anti armor & anti aa then you can't kill it unless you have one of your own or rrg stack or nukes. But even in these circumstances, there's still a silver lining. If it's a giant all-boxes-checked stack then that's probably the majority of his forces condensed into a doom stack. His interior might be largely undefended. An ac/mot/mech sortie to disrupt his back lines is an option, might be enough to force a withdrawal.

There are many many many ways you could've defended, saying there aren't any is just not an excuse.

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The thing with CoW is as long as you and your enemy's strength are within the same ballpark, it can always go either way.

If you can't do anything then the enemy's simply just better than you, skill-wise or in terms of resources. Maybe he's just better in microing or maybe that last war you had weakened your army and drained your resources, and your enemy's just exploiting your situation.

Losing is part of the game anyway. And if you think about it, for 99% of us, there's always gonna be someone better.

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All in all, if you just defended the province, it wouldn't have revolted.

I've said this before (for like 3 times now) but I'll say it again, arty have very low morale dmg. For him to bombard your province to rebellion lvl, with artys of all things, means you've just let him did it for free.

The province's rebellion was the result of your own action, or inaction really.

BMfox wrote:

It seems to me that it aren't the game mechanics that need to change. Rather it is you that needs to adapt his strategy to the game mechanics.

newbgamer101 wrote:

London's morale certainly did drop during the war. Especially during the battle of Britain. You think people wouldn't be a little worried if bombs are falling on the houses left and right of them? If they have to hide in the subway tunnels every time they hear the air raid siren? Sure they had propaganda, but it didn't help nearly as much as you give it credit for

The RAF wasn't destroyed, production wasn't crippled, and it certainly didn't break British morale.

Propaganda helped of course but the biggest reason for morale remaining high was the operation itself being a failure. It did nothing significant really, other than killing off any chance of a German invasion of Britain.

It's like, if a man holds you at gunpoint, sure you'd be rocked; but if he ends up shooting himself in the foot? Ehh, not really.

You're comparing different parts of the war. Of course if your armies are fist deep in the enemy's... um... capital, your morale is gonna be pretty high. But if the enemy is just across the channel (narrow enough that people swim it from time to time) and are bombing you day and night, you're gonna be a whole lot more worried. And still, practically no one in England ever thought of betraying Britain and joining the Nazis.

So I guess your analogy is right, but I see it a different way. Yeah you're gonna be rocked, but you're never gonna go "hey how about I join you and we can find other people to hold at gunpoint".

My point is that although morale may drop, no province would ever turn to the enemy. We can see this even in the battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad, where the cities were pretty much bombed out of existence, but the Russian civilians remained loyal to the Russians throughout.

I realized a part of this conversation that hasn't been mentioned at all. The Russian civilians, as you mentioned, didn't revolt because they were in their own nation. They were in a core province. Same with London, it was the capital. However, what if you were something like Greece in WW2, and you got invaded by Germany. You would probably go join turkey or some other nation that was nearby and could offer support (joining a 3rd nation not involved in the conflict). That example is one, but there are a few more. Belgium, being occupied by Germany, would have probably revolted to the allies. With this in mind, disabling revolts in core provinces could be a valid fix for this issue.

newbgamer101 wrote:

You're comparing different parts of the war. Of course if your armies are fist deep in the enemy's... um... capital, your morale is gonna be pretty high. But if the enemy is just across the channel (narrow enough that people swim it from time to time) and are bombing you day and night, you're gonna be a whole lot more worried. And still, practically no one in England ever thought of betraying Britain and joining the Nazis.

So no, you're wrong, there were certainly ideas of betraying Britain, not to join the Nazis necessarily, but a betrayal of Britain nonetheless.

newbgamer101 wrote:

My point is that although morale may drop, no province would ever turn to the enemy. We can see this even in the battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad, where the cities were pretty much bombed out of existence, but the Russian civilians remained loyal to the Russians throughout.

I could be wrong here but I think rebellion was added mostly for balancing, not for realism.

Expansion as we know it, is very beneficial. It provides resources (both in the form of loot & additional production) and strategic depth. Expansion also means elimination of competition.

It's an absolute win-win to conquer land basically; so morale, non-core penalty, and rebellions were added in order to balance it out.

It's that simple really, at least that's the way I see it.

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But I figured you're never accept balancing as the reason for rebellions and that you're never gonna abandon the realism-hill so fine, let's entertain your examples of the battles Stalingrad & Leningrad with the mechanics of the game.

So first of all, we know that Stalingrad & Leningrad didn't surrender. These 2 cities were reduced to rubble and I'd imagine the morale of the local population must've been at an all time low, but the thing is, the Soviet army never retreated - instead they just dug in the rubble. The garrison was never dislodged.

If we're to reenact the battles of Stalingrad & Leningrad in the game then these 2 cities would've been at 0% morale due to the devastation they endured. With 0% morale, rebellion seems inevitable, but because the garrison was never killed, the garrison system will come into play and no rebellion would occur - completely in accordance with what happened in real life. What would happen instead is that you would just read "an uprising in Stalingrad/Leningrad was suppressed by the local garrison" in the news.

So in real life, Stalingrad & Leningrad didn't surrender because there was a garrison; In CoW, provinces also would not surrender if there's a garrison - So I don't know what your angle is with realism here.

Thinking further about this, I think I should specify, that my problem is not so much with the morale effect of bombing and shelling. It is the rebellion mechanism that needs tweaking.

As for all the pointless arguing about how to prevent bombing and shelling: don't waste your breath trying to explain me how to. Of course I know how, but I challenge you to play a game where you can stop ANY such attacks. Or even most of them. Unless your enemy is noob, there will always be more targets for his bombing than you will have defense.