Set basic morale to Very Green

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Collecting players opinion on the subject.

In my understanding there are a lot of positive morale modification sources (facilities, promotion, monolith, prototypes, High Morale ability, SE) and just one negative (SE). SE MORALE actually gives -3 to +3 morale. So it zeroes on average. Facilities and promotions, though, boost it in only one direction: up. I was thinking why don't start from the lowest and work your way up as it naturally set in all strategical games? Most likely game designers decided to hand over a free morale upgrade to the player at the very game beginning. Boring.

The only real but rather small downside to this is that some factions innate -1 MORALE will have no effect at very early game. Newly built units won't go below Very Green. Negative MORALE regains its importance somewhat later into the game by slowing down promotions and diminishing effect of Command Center on morale, etc. By that time innate modifiers are not the only source of faction characteristics anyway.

The upside is a clear six grades morale system with each one of two facilities contributing 2 grades = 1/3 path toward the max. No faction can stamp Elites out of the assembly line even with both facilities. Unless someone design faction with +2 MORALE innate effect.

[bvanevery]

You seem to be anti-Elitist.  I'm wondering why.  You think they dominate combat?  You think they move too fast?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Not at all. Elite is cool stuff. Too easy promotion though, renders morale facilities useless and that it what I like to correct. As you correctly expressed yourself, I'd like to keep my dynamic range wide throughout the game.

Although now when promotion stuff is corrected I don't see much pressing need for that modification anymore.

[bvanevery]

I made the Cyborg factory later in the game and more expensive to build.  So it's not a given that you the human player are gonna summarily whip out a Bioenhancement Center in every base.  I never bother to build those individually if I don't get the Cyborg Factory.  I just don't see the need.  I've learned that crummy morale works just fine if you've got big enough weapons.  There's always mindworms and +3/+4 PLANET ratings.  Why should I care if someone gets Elites?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Yep, yep. More expensive Cyborg Factory is a solution. I probably withhold this modification then.

[Juffos]

I played with the Thinker-Doer mod with verygreen-default enabled, and it made the native life a HUGE nuisance, which isn't bad at all. But, it also made -morale SE have almost no consequence which is super bad. I think the native life is best at 1-1 land combat and green starter morale, that would include -morale along with the -planet against the native life - if you wanna count your filthy energy credit tokens, the planet will punish you for it!

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I played with the Thinker-Doer mod with verygreen-default enabled, and it made the native life a HUGE nuisance, which isn't bad at all. But, it also made -morale SE have almost no consequence which is super bad. I think the native life is best at 1-1 land combat and green starter morale, that would include -morale along with the -planet against the native life - if you wanna count your filthy energy credit tokens, the planet will punish you for it!

I've set land psi combat base odds to 1:1 already. Not sure if it is released already or still in play testing. You tell me.

The problem with morale (as with any other scale in this and other games) that it is limited. It is not practically feasible to use up all the values on the scale and don't regret about cutting your effect in border cases at the same time. You will have either one or another problem regardless of the nature of the effect or its usage mechanics. Everything you said about negative morale SE effect having almost no consequence in early game is an absolute truth. You will experience same exactly frustration observing similar thing that is happening on the other side of the spectrum in mid-late game when most of units in the game will be Elite. This time positive morale SE effect will have almost no consequence. Players are bound to bump either lower or upper boundary of unit morale level simply because the width of the unit morale scale (7 points, 6 steps) is easily saturated with available morale modifications: +4 from facilities, +1 from monoliths, -3 to +3 from MORALE SE, and unlimited number of promotions!!!

My thought is that limitation on upper side are much more visible, longer lasting, and painful (more units and and more fighting) than on lower one. Therefore, I feel like relieving major problem in mid-late game outweighs short lived inconvenience at the beginning.
Others may feel different, of course. I suggest you play whole game through and then compare your own feelings on morale boundaries.

[dino]

With no collateral damage and increased armor values, Elite is no longer a gamechanger and an issue imo.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Nope. They are not.

However, I wasn't against Elite in first place. I was against positive MORALE SE having almost no effect when units are Elite at production. Same exactly problem Juffos described just on another side of the spectrum.

With moderated promotions you'll still have some Elites but not 90% of them all.

[dino]

But there is an effect of a positive morale, because you can skip investment and maintenance cost of bioenchancement centers.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

True. They do compensate each other.
I agree this is not a hard science but more of a feeling. Past mid game I often see AI running tons of Elite units and that annoys me. A little. However, not that much to insist on this modification. That is why it is off by default.

My another point is that Very Green -> Green transition is the biggest one among them all: 17% improvement vs. Commando -> Elite one which is just 9% - about twice as less! It would be shame to lose this most important step.

[bvanevery]

-3 to +3 from MORALE SE,

Only -2 to +2 in my mod.

My Extremist does not make you a combat master.  Some people complain that my Extremist is useless, and that's entirely the point, to be useless.  Unless you're the Cult of Planet and can have it without consequences.  When I was still doing Fundamentalist and had +1 MORALE in there, the AI loved it.  It would fixate on gaining the early game +1 MORALE bonus, because it did make a difference to combat effectiveness.  It would swallow -2 RESEARCH to get it, and for the growth of the AI faction, that would suck.  So I had to turn this horrible thing useless.  With MORALE gone, there weren't enough play mechanics remaining to split between 3 Politics categories.  So I focus on only 2, the difference between Democratic and Police State.  Extremist is for wackos only.

I also toned down the MORALE penalties.  You'd have to be Wealth Eudaimonic to get -2 MORALE.  This is definitely something that players will do, because you get +2 ECONOMY for that.

Fine balancing, is something you have control over.  AFAIAC, my system works.  Don't hand out big bonuses or big penalties.  Definitely don't rock the boat in early game.  It leads to snowballing advantages.  That's why it's hard to get GROWTH in my mod.

But there is an effect of a positive morale, because you can skip investment and maintenance cost of bioenchancement centers.

In my mod, to even get those comes late game, and it's difficult because it's up a pure Conquer research path.  You have to really really want it.  If you actually need them to win the game, IMO you're a poor player.  You should have done something else already.  But it's still in there as a "toy" if you so desire.  I "soft remove" a lot of features of the game this way.  They aren't gone, but they're put late enough to be irrelevant, at least to a good player.

My Cyborg Factory comes similarly late, and is helluh expensive.  You aren't going to just get it.  If you can get it, TBH you didn't need it.  You should have won already and you're just toying with your victim.

Granted, this is all calibrated against stock AI.  Haven't lately tried combining it with any form of Thinker Mod AI technology.  Those late deferments were also to provide protection against Thinker Mod exploits.  Especially boreholes.  All the game blowouts, are deferred as late as possible, as I can reasonably do, and still have the game fully playable with a stock binary.