Morale plummets - why?

    The first 3 games of S1 I have played were all on the 19-player map, and at the end of every day, morale in newly conquered provinces went up, as it always has in games of both S1914 and S1 in my experience when you have a big enough garrison to prevent uprisings.


    But for the first time, I am playing on the 30-player map, and to my astonishment, on the new day all the morale in my newly conquered provinces has plummeted - to between 8% and 11% - so that instead of being able to reduce the size of my garrisons, I can't do so, in fact I am now having to increase some of them because their garrisons are no longer strong enough to prevent uprisings. Also, even in the provinces where I have made improvements, morale has either barely budged - from 50% to only 51%, for example, in a province where I built a vehicle factory - or has also decreased, from 50% to 49% in a province where I built a barracks.


    Now if I had some clue as to why morale has plummeted across the board, I might be able to do something about it, but since there's no hint in the province morale tooltip, I have no idea what is causing it.


    It might also be easier to stomach a harsh morale regime like this if you actually got a boost of morale the way you used to for conquering capitals - but this appears to no longer be a game feature, at least not in any of the games I have played, and not in this one either as I already conquered one capital and got no morale boost. But regardless, it's ruined my strategy, and I am now thinking of quitting the game because if your morale is just going to plummet turn after turn for no apparent reason, there is no hope of getting anywhere.

    I would really like an explanation for this, as there is no point in playing if your province morale is just going to plummet for no apparent reason.


    I thought maybe it was spies (still haven't figured out what use these units are) but it's only day 2 and you can't build spies until day 4.

    Morale and Popularity have always been a major factor in Sone. The larger the map, the greater the problem.

    On the 19 player map, morale is almost manageable, but even there, some home provinces will drop from 50 to 49 morale on the very FIRST day change.

    Popularity is so poorly implemented that an NPC with ONE province and ONE Conscript will declare war against the

    strongest remaining live player. As players tire of dealing with morale and popularity, and quit the game, the issues become greater , since the IA countries all concentrate their malus on the few remaining players.

    Well heck, that's a huge disincentive to keep playing - especially when you no longer get a morale boost from taking capitals (it says you do in the in-game manual, but you don't).


    They really need to do a major rethink of the way war affects morale, because it's never made much sense, even in S1914, and now you are telling me it's even worse in S1.

    Good grief I don't believe this - morale has dropped again -for the second day in a row .The provinces I conquered two days ago, that I have dutifully kept fully garrisoned, have now dropped to a mere 5% morale! And now I am going to have to increase the garrisons just to stop them rebelling! On top of that, the province morale arrows are still red, meaning that morale is set to get worse yet again tomorrow.


    How does anybody even manage to play the game or conduct any conquest at all with such draconian morale conditions? This is probably the last game of S1 on a large map I will bother with.

    Try this trick, I call it Catch and Release:


    Once all the enemy provinces have been taken, remove your troops, and

    Allow those provinces to rebel. They will go to a 3d country, and

    immediately improve morale to about 50. Thus, there is no 'neighbors'

    penalty. This exploit also helps with the expansion penalty, and saves

    the resources consumed by those provinces. Keep the higher VP cities,

    since you need those for score.