How morale and troop routing works in A Total War Saga: Troy

Your base units in A Total War Saga: Troy have hit points indicating the number of forces remaining in their regiment. When these health points decrease, they die. But during a battle, their morale can break down and they could rout before victory or defeat occurs. How do you keep their spirits up, why is it going down and how do you prevent them from following the roads?

What is morale? Why are the troops routed?

You can see a troop's morale level below its green health bar during a battle. Troops have no morale number outside of the battlefield. While soldiers can have a good majority of health, their morale can deteriorate much faster. When it gets low enough, they can confuse. You will not be able to control routed troops, and they will flee a fight attempting to flee the battlefield. Sometimes soldiers can stop the rout if your hero does something extraordinary or if your troops take out an enemy unit. You can control the troops when they stop routing, but since they've run away, it takes time for them to return to combat.

How to improve morale and prevent routing

The best way to maintain morale and prevent troops from routing during combat is to choose battles with larger numbers. The more troops you have around them, the less likely they are to take some casualties and try to withdraw. However, this is usually not the case, especially when you have to fight armies with 18-20 unit slots occupied.

Other choices include strategically keeping your units together, taking out the enemy one by one, keeping your hero alive, and trying to surprise your enemy. The more enemy casualties you can do, the higher the morale of your troops. Surprising tactics and causing heavy casualties in a single attack are also a great way to keep morale high while damaging enemy troops. For example, you can use a tank unit to strike the flank of swordsmen, causing them to break. The sudden attack and surge of horses drop the morale of your enemies dramatically, giving your troops the edge they might need to overcome any obstacles in their way.

Walk through your troops during a battle to see how they handle the situation. When you notice their morale dropping, try using a hero's ability to give them an advantage the enemy doesn't anticipate.