MORALE AND RELATED ISSUES

I’ve been giving some thought to how to handle morale and related issues in Have a Heart.  Lots of games allocate a numerical value to each side representing its confidence and willingness to fight.  As the number diminishes due to attrition of various sorts so the task of the player gets harder -units quit the field and those remaining are harder to motivate, eventually the army collapses unless it wins. It’s a system I like.

In Have a Heart we will talk of Morale Points and they will be generated by counting up the respective number of units and commanders and cross referencing on a table to give the number of Morale Points available to each side. Each ordinary unit and individual sub commander will count as 1, and each veteran or elite unit and General as 2.  To add an element of chance a die role will be involved in producing the final total.

As an example here is part of the Army List for the Texcoco force.  It will generate a minimum 8 Morale Points.  I should say 'Obsidian' below, represents a range of weapons, CD = Combat Die and DD = Defence Die, I hope the rest speaks for itself.  If not let me know.

Unit	Arms	Armour	Range	CD	DD	Extra
Eagle Knights	Obsidian Atl-Atl	Cotton	2	D:12+1	D:10	Ferocious Specialist up 1 dice for shooting
Jaguar Knights	Obsidian Atl-Atl	Cotton	2	D:12+1	D:10	Ferocious Specialist up 1 dice for shooting
Cuachic	Obsidian Atl-Atl	Cotton	2	D:12	D:8	Ferocious Specialist up 1 dice for shooting
Warrior Mixed unit	Obsidian Missilery	Cotton	2	D:8	D:6	Stubborn
Warrior Mixed unit	Obsidian Missilery	Cotton	2	D:8	D:6	Stubborn

Morale Points will be spent rallying units, paying for a fierce attack or a stubborn defence and simply just lost due to enemy action.  This means that the decision to launch a fierce attack and possibly take prisoners (which would generate extra Morale Points) has to be weighed against the wider needs of the army.  The intention is that the player in each turn must choose a tactical priority and get it right to win.

I'm also thinking of incrementally adding the 'Lull Cards' post first turn rather than having them all in the deck from the get go. Thus friction increases as combat continues.