Morale is probably the single most important factor behind winning or losing battles.
Morale levels
There are four levels of morale that a unit may have:
Each unit that is involved in a battle will have a starting morale level, determined largely by the situation leading up to the battle (e.g. an army that is treated well by its commander and thinks it will win is likely to have good morale, whereas an army that has been living under poor conditions with little confidence in its commander may start a battle with poor morale).
Impact of morale levels
A unit's current morale level affects the number of casualties it will inflict both by missile fire and in melee combat.
More significantly, if a unit's morale level falls to Routing, it is effectively eliminated from the battle, since its troops will be unable to inflict any further casualties on the enemy. Units whose morale has fallen to rout levels will automatically seek to disengage from any melee combat and will then attempt to flee the battlefield (rout orders).
How morale fluctuates during a battle
At the end of each battle turn, each unit is checked to see whether its morale rises or falls. A unit's morale cannot increase above Good or fall below Routing.
There are a number of causes for the morale of a unit to rise or fall during a battle, as follows:
| Factor impacting a unit's morale | Impact on unit's morale | |
| The number of casualties inflicted on the unit in the current battle turn (from all causes, i.e. missile fire and melee combat combined) | Less than 10% of unit strength at the start of the battle turn | No change in morale |
| More than 10% but less than 25% of unit strength at the start of the battle turn | Morale drops by one level (i.e. good to normal, normal to poor, poor will rout) | |
| More than 25% but less than 50% of unit strength at the start of the battle turn | Morale drops by two levels (i.e. good to poor, normal or poor will rout) | |
| More than 50% of unit strength at the start of the battle turn | Morale drops by three levels (i.e. good, normal or poor will rout) | |
| Successful melee combat against an opposing unit | If the unit charges an enemy unit and delivers more damage to that enemy unit than it receives | Morale increases by one level (i.e. poor to normal, normal to good) |
| If the unit is engaged in melee combat with an enemy unit that breaks and routs | Morale increases by one level (i.e. poor to normal, normal to good) | |
| Friendly units collapsing | If the unit is in the same battle area as a friendly unit that breaks and routs | Morale drops by one level (i.e. good to normal, normal to poor, poor will rout) |
| Rallying (out of combat) | If a unit carries out a retreat and attempt to rally order, the unit commander may attempt to increase the unit's morale | Morale increases by one level if the commander makes a dice roll using his/her Influence (including battlefield command specialism) + WP at a difficulty of 8; if he/she fails by more than 5 points (i.e. gets a dice roll result of 3 or lower), the morale of the unit will instead fall by one level. |
If a unit is affected by more than one of the above factors in the same battle turn, the change in its morale level is the total (net) of all the relevant changes.
For example, a unit that charges successfully an enemy unit and routs it would normally gain two levels of morale, but if in doing so it suffers 25% casualties, it would also normally lose two levels of morale; the net effect is no change to its morale level.