Morale is a crucial game mechanic, as this game revolves around it. Similar to health, HP or Life in other games, if your morale reaches 0, you lose the game. The starting amount of morale is equal to the total value of your army, determined by your rating earned from Ranked combat. In most cases, when a unit is captured, or removed from the board, an amount of morale equal to the value of the piece is lost. In the case where a piece is converted into an ally piece, the previous owner loses morale equal to the piece's original value, and the new owner gains morale equal to the appropriate value. If no other penalties or bonuses are applied, one loses when all of their non-zero-value pieces are captured.
Abilities[]
[Pay X][]
In most cases, abilities that cost morale are simply denoted as [Pay X], X being the amount of morale lost by from using this ability.
| Ability | Example | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summon Sapling | Dryad | 1 | [Pay 2]: (Magic) Summon Sapling or transform enemy into ally Sapling. |
| Destroy | Ranger, Salamander | 1 | All magic and ranged destroys have [Pay 1]
this will be reverted in v0.45 placeholder since i'm lazy |
| Summon Ghost | SoulKeeper | 1 | [Pay 1]: (Magic) Transform enemy into ally Ghost. |
| Wind | WindMage | 1 | [Pay 1]: (Ranged) Push unit up to 3 spaces away from caster. |
| Cure | Alchemist | 1 | [Pay 1]: (Trigger) Ally Status Effect: Instantly cure this target at the start of your turn, removing all negative status effects. |
| Gravity | GravityMage | 2 | [Pay 1]: (Magic) Move target unit toward Ability Target. |
| Skeleton | Lich | 4 | [Pay 4]: (Magic) Summon Value 0 Skeleton. |
| Gemini Split | Gemini | 4 | [Pay 6]: (Ranged) Summon GeminiTwin and transform into GeminiTwin, each having value equal to Gemini. |
| Revive (LifeStone) | LifeStone | 4 | (Magic) Revive most recently fallen ally champion of 2x LifeStone's value or less, and destroy LifeStone. |
Value and Summons[]
However, some abilities change morale in a different way, usually involving Value.
| Ability | Example | Description | Additional comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revive | MoonFox | (Trigger) On Melee Death: Revive MoonFox into this empty location with value decreased by 9. If MoonFox's value is less than 9 this ability cannot activate. | This is a Value-manipulating ability, affecting morale. |
| Split | Gemini | [Pay 6]: (Ranged) Summon GeminiTwin and transform into GeminiTwin, each having value equal to Gemini. | While the [Pay 4] is on the other list, the Gemini summoning ability also adds 12/13/14/15 morale through additional Value, though reduced from the [Pay 4]. |
| Revive | LifeStone | (Magic) Revive most recently fallen ally champion of 2x LifeStone's value or less, and destroy LifeStone. | The fallen champion revived for higher upgraded LifeStones can increase morale, but note that reviving an undervalued piece will reduce your total morale. |
| Spawn Slimes | GiantSlime | (Trigger) On Melee Death: Summon ally Slime into this empty location. If GiantSlime is Frozen or Petrified this ability cannot activate. | When a GiantSlime dies, it spawns two 2-value Slime units, adding 4 additional morale to the GiantSlime user. |
Passives[]
Some units have passive abilities that affect morale. These tend to be very specific, but can be as simple as extra morale loss on death. Losing units with morale loss on death creates a morale deficit, which means you lost more morale than the unit's value. Since you lost more than it added to your army, you now have less morale than the total value of all your units on the board and may lose without losing all of your non-zero-valued pieces. The most notorious example of this is losing your King.
King[]
- Lose 25 morale on death.
- You lose 3 morale per turn without a King.
Note: The loss of 3 per turn starts after your king has been lost a full turn, not the turn immediately following your King being captured.
Militia[]
- Lose 2 morale on death and 1 additional morale per upgrade.
PhoenixEgg[]
- Loses 11/9/7/4 morale on death.
Prince[]
- While without a King, capturing a unit with Prince will transform him into King and you gain 20 morale. This also stops the morale loss per turn from being king-less.
Princess[]
- Lose 5 morale on death and 5 additional morale per upgrade. Losing a Princess++ costs you 15 morale for example.
Vampire[]
- Vampire causes your opponent to lose morale when it kills a piece. Additionally, your King's value is increased. This gives you additional morale, but makes losing your King take more morale. The morale drain starts at 2 morale drain per kill for Vampire and goes up by 1 morale drain per upgrade. Vampire+++ drains 5 morale per kill, for example.
Note: If you have no King, then the drained morale is added to the Vampire.
FireElemental[]
- This piece, instead of losing morale, loses value over time. After 40/30/20/10 turns it will start losing 1 value per turn until it reaches 0 and dies. This decay can be offset with kills, which cause the FireElemental to gain Value.
AirElemental[]
- This piece, instead of losing morale, loses value on attack. It loses 5/6/7/4 value if it directly kills a piece, until it reaches 0 value and dies.
- However, this piece can gain value by using Wind magic. On all tiers except AirElemental+++, it will promote one tier higher, and for AirElemental+++, it gains 8 value per magic usage, allowing it to attack 2 more times before dying.
Promotion[]
You gain morale when a unit promotes, equal to the gain in value of the unit. An Axeman promoting to Berserker will net you a gain of 6 morale.
This is true for special promotions too (transformation), such as Slime transform to GiantSlime on kill.
The only exception to this is Necromancer, which in all tiers, promotes to Lich, which has 2 less value than the Necromancer. This is the only case where promotion will result in a net morale loss.
Move Decay[]
Starting from turn 50, both players lose 1 morale at the start of their turns. White, having gone first, is the first to lose morale from move decay. Watch your morale during move decay, as even though you might be defending all of your units well, you morale could fall low enough that losing any unit will end up as a loss.
Trivia[]
- Morale is not called "Moral".