Ship morale outside boarding

[Anolytic]

The morale of a ship should not just matter inside of a boarding. It should be a trait that has effect on a ship's performance in battle, and it should be possible, though hard, to destroy a ship's morale and make it surrender without boarding it. As has been mentioned an endless number of times, ships did not usually sink historically. They struck their colors or were demasted and boarded.

 

As an example, I was smuggling mid grade notes out of Gustavia yesterday in my Le Grosse Ventre when I was attacked by an Ingermanland. I promptly boarded him and killed almost all his crew and his morale. 

 

I was surprised that after attacking v brace when he had 12 morale left, he still had 4 morale, and attacking v brace again when he had 4 morale he still had 1 morale left and was able to disengage.

 

Honestly I made several huge gaffes in this battle - allowing him to eventually demast me and flee the battle with only 70 crew left - and should have been easily able to capture him, but in my opinion a ship realistically should be severely reduced when its crew has only 1 morale left. And me stern-raking it 20 times after he had only 1 morale left should have realistically made his crew give up and the ship surrender.

[ajffighter86]

In any case, good on you that you were actually able to turn the tables.

 

I love it when someone in a bigger, higher BR ship attacks what they believe to be an 'easy' target and end up having to leave the battle in a row-boat.

Edited June 19, 2016 by ajffighter86

[Eldberg]

I always thought that if during battle you've killed say, 75% of the crew, the moral should break and the ship will surrender.

Imagine you are a sailor on a ship like the Connie, 450 crew in total. During battle, 337 of your crew die. Blood, guts, body parts littering the ship everywhere, literally an inch of human flesh and insides scattering the deck... and you're going to carry on fighting? Yeah, not a chance in hell.

[Eishen]

we needa morale  system , but morale has to go up & down (and be hidden from enemy) ...in the first example morale should have raise after sucessfull disengage from that grenadier division travelling in a grosse ventre, and then again seeing the enemy vessel dismastled

[Anolytic]

Absolutely. Morale should continuously suffer slightly with fatigue from being in a tiring fight, and more when you are fighting at a disadvantage. Ships should get morale boosts for inflicting shocks (reload, crew, rigging shocks), and likewise loose morale for being afflicted by shocks. This would open up the great need for officers that boost morale, or reduces morale loss in the crew from either fatigue or shocks.