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Morale and Support

Your realm has two moods, each a number from 0 to 100. Popular Support is what your people think of you. Military Morale is what your army thinks of you.

Both start at 100 when you found your realm. Nothing ever raises them for free. They fall when you go short, and the only way back up is to pay for it at the maintenance stage each turn.

What they do

Popular Support:

  • sets your Coastal (tourism) income, which collapses when Support is low
  • sets how many people your land can hold
  • when it drops under 10, it starts pulling Morale down with it

Military Morale scales how hard your army fights, both attacking and defending. A full-morale army fights above its paper strength. A broken one fights at about half. When Morale falls under 40, troopers, jets and tanks begin to desert each turn, and the lower it goes the more of them leave. Turrets, bombers and carriers never desert.

There is one more effect that is easy to miss. Auto-Pay Maintenance only pays your bills silently while both numbers read exactly 100. Let either slip and you are back to answering the maintenance prompts by hand every turn.

What lowers them

  • Underpaying your armed forces costs Morale. Underpaying your land upkeep, the Queen's tax, or your people's food costs Support. Underfeeding the army costs Morale.
  • A riot from high taxes costs Support.
  • Declaring war on a ruler you hold an agreement with costs you a quarter of each. Attacking that ruler without declaring war first ends the agreement too, but costs you nothing.
  • A chemical or biological strike on your realm hurts both. The plague is far worse for your army than the gas is.
  • Enemy agents can lower either one directly. See Stir Revolts and Demoralize Forces.

Paying them back

At the maintenance stage the crown asks for gold to buy back up to fifteen points of each. Support is priced by the size of your population, Morale by the size of your army — troopers, turrets and tanks cost most, jets least, bombers and carriers nothing. Units you have listed on the Trading Market still count.

What you pay buys points in proportion, so paying half the request buys about half the points. You may pay up to half again as much as is asked, and that really does buy more than fifteen points. Neither number can pass 100, so overpaying a nearly-content realm wastes the difference.