HP shouldn't be affected by morale. Things like Movement speed, Attack Rate, dmg.. That is affected by morale.
Think about it: You aren't physically hurt by a bad morale, or if you are depressed. Your zeal is hurt though, and when you have less zeal, you swing your sword with less speed, less strength, and you don't run, you walk.
Do you ever see kids bolting to school every day? That's poor morale at work. Their health isn't bad, or else they wouldn't physically be at school, they'd be at home, sick.
Also, morale isn't JUST affecting the entire crowd, or group of soldiers all at once. Some suffer from low morale, and some benefit from high morale. It's just natural that some people are more zealous about what they're doing than others... It's just life, and diversity amongst humans; we aren't all clones. Sure, most kids won't really give their 100% in school, but don't you always get that one kid who literally does EVERY SCRAP OF WORK??? That person has a higher morale than others. You should take account for that population in your map.
What I suggest you do is have a series of locations. About 5 or 6 should do... ranging from 4x4 to 10x10 would be good. This way, you can take account for things that are more noticeable, and things that are less. A Hero Death might be not as noticeable as a Supply Ship or something Exploding, because there's tons of people dying (if it's a real war). Not all of the ships are asploding everywhere around you. However, the Hero's death may be stronger, so it should impact the units around him more.
For the "Affecting Certain units at Certain times", I really think a system where you have heroes is best. A vulture (Cavalier, or Knight, or something) could be replaced by a Jim Raynor ( A Cavalier with faster attack) when a good thing happens within that location radius. Horses aren't really affected totally by morale (As much as humans, at least). You can increase the attack rate (of the human, per say), and keep the "horse" the same. (Horse being movement speed). You can reserve that for upgrades, like at a "Stable" or something where you upgrade your training of Horse riders, or something.
As for ground troops, you can have things like Jim Raynor be the Zealous type, and the Regular Marine for the Not so zealous type. You could pretty much do this with almost all of the units that have the same hero sprites.
Some units (Like Ghosts) May have more of a gradient as to how "Zealous" They are. You have multiple types of ghosts, right? Why not take advantage of that? Or maybe allow a Ghost to be a Hero? Remember, The Regular Ghost has more range, along with the Regular goliath. They have a range advantage over their hero counter-parts.
Also, you could whore the Spells that SC has to really affect lots of things, because many people who have bad morale recover from it. A thing like a Queen's esnare should be vital to your project.
A TK could also be a bad morale thing, slowing down units around the death.
Now, Let's say you have 2 sides, and they're fighting. They're obviously pushing against eachother for territory, or turf. You could have an overall DC that affects ALL of the units.
Here's a Diagram:
__________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------->>>> <<<<< --------------------------------------------------------__________________________________________________________________________
Here you have a battlefield. Right now, everything is evenly set. They're in the middle. (Sorta.)
The Overall DC is a neutral value. (You select something). Overall morale is currently affecting nothing.
-----
Consider something like this:
__________________________________________________________________________
----------->>>> <<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------------__________________________________________________________________________
Here you have a sway in the battle, where Blue has gained territory. Now, the soldiers all know where they are, they know how much territory they gained. What you can do here is have a morale boost (or decline) for red.
Maybe something to ... Have a chance at interrupting their attack, maybe? So, every... 5 seconds or so, we make red ally blue, just for a split second or so...
Now, Lets sway it a bit more:
__________________________________________________________________________
-->>>> <<<<< -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------__________________________________________________________________________
Here, we would have a bit more of a problem for red. They're right at the back of their lines, so we take that into account. What we would do here is interrupt their attack for maybe a bit longer, and maybe just throw the interruptions a bit more frequently.
Hell, if you want to, you can even slow down the speed of their Heroes, or a few select units, by using the "move Units" principle, either by moving ALL of the units to the water for a split second (Be careful of interrupting blue's attacks though, you may make him miss his attacks on certain units).
So, there are many different things you can do to "Affect Morale"
If you need more Ideas, ask me, or someone else. I'm sure they can pump you full of stuff.
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 9 2009, 2:35 am by Pyro682.
None.