Interesting toppic. First I will explain the way I figure how morale works. The morale factors also influence each other in some cases and that makes you go from having a lot of morale penalties to an insane amount of morale penalties.

Although every enemy you have gives you -5 morale up to a ma of -25 according to the game info, I found out it is bugged. Atleast, I don't know if they have fixed it yet. I had 8-10 enemies in both worldmaps at a certain point and all my core province dropped to like 75-85 depending on amount of enemies, despite +25 morale from fortifications and the positive influene my provinces gave each other wenn they still were at 100. There were no other morale influnces like stocks deficits and spies. I found out that all my provinces morale was correct in case the morale penalties didn't max out at 25, but just continued to add up to -40 or -45 or -50.

That being said, there is in reality often a bigger morale loss than 5 points for every war for every province that has a certain distance to the capital and thus a lower morale already. As your morale drops below 70, your province will give 1 negative morale point to every neighbouring province.

Morale influences of provinces to their neighbours, depending on their own morale.
100 morale --> +2
90-99 morale --> +1
70-89 morale --> 0
60-69 morale --> -1
50-59 morale --> -2
40-49 morale --> -3
30-39 morale --> -4
20-29 morale --> -5
10-19 morale --> -6
0-9 morale --> -7

As you can see above, every 10 morale points a province loses, mean they give 1 more morale penalty to every neighbouring province and thus lowering their morale even more.

How many neighbouring provinces a province has seems to differ between 2-8 for almost every province in this game. This is like 5 neighbouring provinces on average. Lets assume for the rest of this post that all provinces have 5 neighbours and are identical unless stated otherwise.

The moment you have 0 wars going on and a lot of provinces are far way from your capital with -39 morale, they will not stabilise at 61 morale, but drop lower. If we asume all provinces in this game have 5 neighbours and this province will have too and they all are 39 days from the capital, they will all receive -39 from distance to the capital and - 5 from their neighbours, because their morale is 61 (in between 60-69 and thus receive -1 morale from every neighbour). Their morale would be 56 after recalculating. But this means their morale is now inbetween 50-59 and they all influence their neighbours with -2 instead of -1. 5 x -2 = -10 morale from neighbouring provinces. The province morlae = 100-39-10 = 51. I hope everyone can follow.

Now, image you have 1 war, which drops their morale with another -5. Province morale = 100 -39 (distance) -5 (wars) -10 (neighbours) = to 46. 46 morale is inbetween 40 and 49 and thus every province gives all the neighbours -3 morale. These provinces will now stabilise at 41 morale (-39 morale because of distance to the capital. -5 morale because of 1 war. -15 morale because of neighbours). If we have 2 wars, it will drop another 10 points to 31 morale. 3 wars and it drops to 21 morale. I'll stop here with the calculations before someone gets a hartattack. But is seems like every war that is started drops morale in these provinces with -10.

But maybe, we can build level 5 fortifictions in all our neighbouring provinces? Lets imagine we do so.

Examples.
Morale influences:
-39 distance to capital
- 10 wars
+25 fortifications
? neighbours morale (we have 5 identical neighbouring provinces just like above).

Province morale = 100 -39 -10 + 25 = 76 province morale. a morale of 76 has no influences on neighbouring provinces. So we did great by stabilsing at a reasonable morale.

With 4 enemies, morale penalty because of wars would be -20 and we would receive a 66 province morale (100-39-20+25). This does mean all provinces will give each other -1 morale, since they all neighbour to 5 others, all of them receive a -5.

Morale:
-39 distance to the capital
-20 wars
+25 fortifications
-5 neighbouring provinces.
Province morale = 100 -39 -20 +25 -5 = 61 morale.

1 More. Morale:
-39 distance to the capital
-25 wars
+25 fortifications
? neighbours influence
Morale = 100-39-25+25 + unknow neighbour influence. = 61 + unknown neighbour influence.
With 61 morale, we know the neighbours will influence each other iwth -1. % neighbours = 5 x -1 =-5.
Morale = 61 -5 = 56.
But 56 is inbetween 50 and 59, thus the neighbours influence each other with -2 instead of -1. 5 x -2 = 10.
Morale = 61-10 = 51.
Since the max morale penalty for active wars is bugged and not maxed at 25, I had some morale issues even in these provinces because of 9 active wars. I had level 5 fortification provinces with morale next to 0.

So we can build fortifications and the pain will be a lot less. Believe me, I've build a lot after I figured this out, I had build over 30 a day for weeks with up to 9 players waging war on me at the same time maximum. Buying every piece of metal I could and buying goods if I had too as well. However the production in this game is to low to fortify everything, so I usually went for the most valuable resource provinces. I calculated how long I would need to play to fortify everything. It was about half a year with good morale (= good eco). The time also depends on country size, mine was like 2k somthing. Off course you don't need so long if you only have your 20 starting provinces. I hope everyone understands that we can't wait so long to fortify everything that is far from our capital (what is far? -39, or -29 too? or -20?).

Level 5 fortifications are excellent for provinces with no neighbours (Islands) and in provinces near the capital, atleast if all of them will be 100% morale thanks to the capital, so they give their neighbours a big morale boost that allows you to neutralise the morale penalties of 7 enemies (remember, it's not 25 morale penalty you receive. As I stated above it is bugged and just adds up to -35 in thsi case). The farther away from the capital and the more neighbouring provinces the lower the effect of fortifications, because the negative influnces (distance to capital, active wars) can drop province morale below 70 and then they will drag each other down even more and fast. It will at a certain moment go just as fast as in my examples without fortifications.

One of my countries dropped to a morale of below 25 average. I tried to figure out what the *** was going on that my morale stabilised at 0 for half of my country (and that was without -39 morale in my provinces, but more like -20 penalty for distance to the capital). I lost loads of morale because of the bugged described higher and because the double penalty you receive the moment your province drops below 70 morale as they will start to drag each other down. The pain is in the last element.


So far the morale explanation.

To respond to the points of Beerbelly:

1) Totally agreed, people abuse it.

2) Grab yourself together and win that map. Build some fortifications and go for that capital. I know it is hard. Agreed on the -39 morale sitance capital. It is reached to fast. In the south, in the east, in the west. Where do I put my capital to make every region happier? I already once suggested to add a new building, damn expansive and raise morale like +5 in all provinces in a certain region of the world. This building can be built only once in every part of the world and be damn expansive as it is competing with fortifications for morale increase.

3) Neutral neighbours? You mean your own provinces neighbouring more of your provinces?

4) Disagreed. If something is running low in stocks people will line up at the salepoints to buy the last to add to their own stock, even if they still have some left.

IMO the biggest problem with morale beside the bug I mentioned is that as soon as it drops below 70, it will drop twice as hard with every penalty added. See the big text and calculations above. There are several ways to reduce this.

The breakdown on morale logic is very much appreciated, thanks!!

I looked it up, but I won't change anything. You can't put everything down in 10 lines. It will take you only 3 mins to read it if you would like to do so. That's up to everybody for himself.

Thx for the neutral nighbours confirmation. I was unfamiliar with this aspect so I asked to be sure. I can understand your view about it.

We discussed this before, on a thread I can't remember the name of.

I thought it was a good idea, like in real life, state or provincial capital cities? A local capital?

I for one really appreciate the detailed explanation. Thanks Azkazan!!