Could someone please explain, as best they can, what exactly is war weariness and how is it calculated? Is it just the unhappiness in the cities? I also seem to get varying degrees of unhappiness depending on who I attack. Also, does warring with someone multiple times produce the same effect as attacking different civs one after the other? I think sometimes when I start war, some of the population immediately become unhappy.

I don't know the nuts and bolts of the calculations, but I can answer the last question: there is a hidden statistic that the game keeps track of that defines war weariness 'left over' from your last war. Even when you end aggressions and your citizens stop being outwardly unhappy, your citizens still 'remember' their war weariness; it is not completely reset. Over time, this hidden war weariness fades away, but if you go back to war again (even with a different opponent) in the near future, your citizens will revert right back into their full anger again.

This has really screwed me in a couple of games, where I ceased aggressions against a neighbor to appease my people, but was immediately attacked by another Civ, who I couldn't sue for peace, causing my people to stay in revolt.

I'd like to know more about Civ IV war weariness myself, but have yet to find any concrete data. In case it'd help, here (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/war_weariness.php) is a link to a great article on war weariness for Civ 3 - I would assume some of the principles there may remain relevant (abandon all hope for the delicious 'war happiness' of the past though). Here are point values from Civ 3, which may or may not still be relevant:

Add 1 wwp for each
- lost unit without defence value
- improvement pillage/bombed
- unit that are bombard down to 1 hp
Add 2 wwp when a human attacker is defeated
Add 2 wwp when a unit with defence value is attacked. (Even if you win)
Add 16 wwp when a size 1 city is captured 17 wwp for bigger cities.

[Note that the points here /= unhappy faces, but rather are a graduated scale of overall war weariness.]

In Civ3, turns with no troops in enemy territory and no enemies in your territory would slowly alleviate weariness, even if still at war (quicker reduction if at peace). No idea if that is still the case.

Otherwise, I'm pretty much in the dark on this mechanic as well thus far, and could really use some info too (if only game designers would release easily digestable game mechanic stats). I wouldn't be surprised to see some form of (gradually decaying) residual war weariness implemented again in this one, a la Civ 3, so your observation about instantaneous weariness from reinstated wars is probably correct I would guess. If that were the case (or even if not), oscillating wars are often a good idea to avoid any catastrophic weariness levels, especially if you can easily shift your primary attack forces from one front to the other. Other than that, until I am able to learn a better way, I'm just cramming culture down the citizens' throats to shut them up, same as everyone else I suppose. Stupid ingrate citizens. ;)

Edit: I guess the residual war weariness thing must be the case then, given Yzen Danek's witnessing it as well. Man are my citizens going to be griping a lot for the rest of my current game ...

I thought police state + mount rushmore + jails would eliminate my war weariness (I was battling 2 civs who had signed a DP together) but I still had a war weariness of +7 !

I thought it would also have that effect, Tan. I'll have to try this out myself...

Regardless of the calculations, there are merely 3 solutions to war weariness:
1. Win the war quickly.
2. Build Colliseums and use the culture slider.
3. Prepare for war beforehand by adjusting your civics and securing sources of luxury goods and building theatres, temples, etc.

Originally posted by Benjai:
I also seem to get varying degrees of unhappiness depending on who I attack.

I thought I remembered reading somewhere that if you attack a civ who is the same religion as yours, your people will be more upset than they would be if you attacked a different religion. Can't remember what thread I read that on though. I think my job is killing my brain cells!! :confused: :confused:

1) it's been proven that work kills brain cells (as well as the spirit)
2) yes attacking a civ of the same state religion does have a negative impact greater than what war with a "heathen" civ would be
3) I don't know the math of it though, sorry

2. Build Colliseums and use the culture slider.



Increasing your :culture: using the culture slider requires a significant financial investment when you have created a vast civilization. :viking:
Normally, when you are at war, the science rate needs to be brought down in order to fund your military.

1) it's been proven that work kills brain cells (as well as the spirit)
2) yes attacking a civ of the same state religion does have a negative impact greater than what war with a "heathen" civ would be
3) I don't know the math of it though, sorry

The religion based war weariness is shown seperately in the unhappiness breakdown as "We refuse to fight our brothers and sisters of the faith"
also cities with some % or nationality in common with who you are at war with will also have a break out of aditional war weariness

Probably war weariness is completely defined by the following modifiers:
BASE_WAR_WEARINESS_MULTIPLIER (value 5, can be found in GlobalDefines.xml)
FORCED_WAR_WAR_WEARINESS_MODIFIER (value -50, can be found in GlobalDefines.xml)
MULTIPLAYER_WAR_WEARINESS_MODIFIER (value -50, can be found in GlobalDefines.xml)
WW_UNIT_KILLED_ATTACKING (value 3), WW_KILLED_UNIT_DEFENDING (value 1), WW_UNIT_KILLED_DEFENDING (value 2), WW_KILLED_UNIT_ATTACKING (value 2), WW_UNIT_CAPTURED (value 2), WW_CAPTURED_UNIT (value 1), WW_CAPTURED_CITY (value 6), WW_HIT_BY_NUKE (value 3), WW_ATTACKED_WITH_NUKE (value 12), WW_DECAY_RATE (value -1), WW_DECAY_PEACE_PERCENT (value 99), all found in GlobalDefines.xml
iAIWarWearinessPercent (value differs with difficulty level from 100 to 20 when difficulty level increases from settler to deity, can be found in CIV4HandicapIndo.xml)
iWarWearinessModifier (value differs with planet size from 50 to -50 when planet size increases)

I'll make a guess at what the formula for war weariness will look like. Note that this is a guess and not based on any research.

First calculate the sum of all causes for war weariness and call this variable WWpoints
Add 1 for each unit that you kill while attacking, add 2 for each unit that you kill while defending, add 3 for each unit that you lose while attacking, add 2 for each unit that you lose while defending, add 1 for each unit that you capture, add 2 for each unit that is captured from you, add 6 for each city from you that is captured (it could be that you also add 6 for every city that you capture, but I don't think so), add 3 for each nuke that hits you, add 12 for each nuke is used against you (whether it hits or not), subtract 1.

The basic idea for a formula: 100 points of war weariness causes 5 % of the population of a city to become unhappy. This is modified for the map size, the AI modifier, the fact if you declared war or got declared war on and if it is a multiplayer game or a single player game.

The variable AIWW is defined as (iAIWarWearinessPercent/100) if you're calculating the war weariness for the AI (a number between 0.2 and 1) and is defined as 1 if you're calculating the war weariness for a human player.
The variable WWsize is defined as (100+iWarWearinessModifier)/100. It is a number between 0.5 and 1.5.
The variable Multi is defined as 0.5 if you're playing a multiplayer game and 1 if you're playing a single player game.
The variable Forced is 0.5 if you were declared war on and 1 if you declared war yourself.

My guess for the formula (where a part of the formula between [ ] means rounding down):
New turns WW points = [ (Old turns WW points + [ [ [ [WWpoints * Forced] * WWsize] * Multi] * AIWW]) * 99/100]

War weariness in any city = [(WW Points /100) * 5/100 * City Size]

Note that there are some buildings and civics which decrease war weariness in a city by a certain percentage. But I guess that those effects are rather well known and don't require any further research.

Ok, this is my rather detailed guess.:)
And I really wouldn't be surprised if it was wrong. ;)
I think that the part about war weariness points and the part that war weariness in a city is linked to the size of the city is correct.

Is someone willing to do some tests to find the real formula (instead of my wild guess)? A good test would be: how many AI units do you need to kill while attacking to get 1 unhappy citizen in a city of size 20. This would be done on a huge size world because I expect a nice world size modifier there.

That all looks way too complicated...so I guess the bottom line is, before you start the war, its difficult to predict how many people will become unhappy after x turns. Bugger

That all looks way too complicated...so I guess the bottom line is, before you start the war, its difficult to predict how many people will become unhappy after x turns. Bugger

Now, there are some easier things to learn from these modifiers.

If you lose a lot of units, then you'll get war weariness. If you kill a lot of units, then you'll also get war weariness, but slower then when you lose units. If you lose a number of cities, then you'll also get war weariness. Attacking gives more war weariness then defending. Getting nuked gives you war weariness. Combined this means that an active war gives much more war weariness then an inactive one.

War weariness decreases slowly with 1% per turn. So after not warring for a number of turns, you'll see a lower war weariness with that enemy if you redeclare war. But that's pretty slow.

The AI gets less war weariness than the human player, especially at the high difficulty levels. Allthough the human player typically loses far less units then the AI and can compensate that way.

If someone declares war on you, then you'll get less war weariness then if you declare war.

I hope these general statements help a little.

Some buildings and civics cumulatively decrease war weariness, but I guess you know about them (jail, Mount Rushmore, Police State). With all three of them, you'll have no war weariness.

I remember reading recently that you actually do get major WW from capturing enemy cities, so that a war you're winning becomes harder to prosecute than one you're losing. IIRC it was a recent RBCiv report by Sirian or Sullla.

I'll see if I can find it again...

I hope these general statements help a little.


Indeed that was much more useful. In essence, try to win when you're at war to keep everyone happy!

I remember reading recently that you actually do get major WW from capturing enemy cities, so that a war you're winning becomes harder to prosecute than one you're losing. IIRC it was a recent RBCiv report by Sirian or Sullla.

I'll see if I can find it again...

Interesting. Then I think that the modifier WW_CAPTURED_CITY works both for cities that you lose and cities that you capture (it could also only work for cities that you capture, but that would be illogical).


Indeed that was much more useful. In essence, try to win when you're at war to keep everyone happy!

Hmm, you also get war weariness when you're winning, only a bit slower then when you're losing. Generally war weariness is linked to the amount of units that are involved. The more units that are lost, the more war weariness. You get more war weariness for units that you lose than for units that you kill, but both give war weariness.

Very helpful info - thanks, Roland Johansen!

:goodjob: Thanks a lot for the info.

For me, it doesn't make sense to have :mad: when you are actually winning a one-sided war. You kill a lot of enemies, take cities one after one, and very few of your soldiers fallen. You gain more lands, your culture spreads far away. What is war good for? Absolutely everything! Why would you complain? :D

If I know how to mod, I would completely eliminate the war wariness for the winning part. No WW for killing enemy units and taking enemy cities.

:goodjob: Thanks a lot for the info.

For me, it doesn't make sense to have :mad: when you are actually winning a one-sided war. You kill a lot of enemies, take cities one after one, and very few of your soldiers fallen. You gain more lands, your culture spreads far away. What is war good for? Absolutely everything! Why would you complain? :D

If I know how to mod, I would completely eliminate the war wariness for the winning part. No WW for killing enemy units and taking enemy cities.

In the Vietnam war, the number of US casualties was very small compared to the number of Vietnamese casualties. (Something like 1 in 20 casualties was American. Figures vary depending on the inclusion of civilian casualties or not.) Still war weariness was very high towards the end of the war. And I think that part of the war weariness in the US was caused by their own casualties and part was caused by the media coverage of some of the less noble parts of the war (agent orange effects, civilian casualties, etc.)

Of course the civ4 model of war weariness if fairly simple. The number of US casualties in WWII was far higher and still there was no real sign of any war weariness (as far as I know). In real life things like 'a feeling of just cause' and 'we were attacked' are very important for the people who live in a democratic country. Propaganda is also far more important then what is modeled in most games.

If my understanding of the modifiers given in my post (no 11) are correct, then it is fairly easy to mod the war weariness effects of killing enemy soldiers. You just have to set those modifiers to 0.

One note, the Loss of war weariness Probably only occurs during peace, so if you have an 'inactive' war (war is declared but no combat occurs) then WW will stay constant.

Also, WW is probably stored per enemy... so if i have high WW with the Russians, and then declare peace, while staying at war with the Japanese halfway around the world, my WW will drop and stay down until/unless I declare war on the Russians again, reactivating the remaining Russian-ME WW.

Also the 'just cause' may be modeled in the 'declared on' modifier

As for WW for killing enemy soldiers, think of that as every COMBAT getting you 2 WW, if you Lose the Combat it gives you an additional 1 WW. (after all there are personal casualties even in a unit winning combat)
Conquering an enemy city, means there are resisters that your soldiers are fighting with... casualties even if the city doesn't flip... etc. and so forth.

This could also be modded for interesting mods. Like a War Happiness mod...where your people like killing others (or even like getting killed)

I don't know too much about Vietnam War, but I suppose the case is not similar to the common ones we see in Civ4. We don't usually send a lot of armies to fight a distant war. Some players may do this out of a role-playing kind heart, but I prefer to kill my neighbors with that power. :p

Even if the US win the Vietnam War, the territory would be returned to the Southern Vietnam, so no territory gain here! Also, the geographical distance, according to Civ4 standard, would prevent the US culture from spreading there anyways. So there is also no culture spreading. Therefore, the Vietnam War is a NET loss of power. No wonder we get those :mad: in US.

As for WW2 (pearl harbor effect) I agree that suddenly being attacked by an aggressive Civ would not lower the morale of the defenders significantly. Perhaps the war weariness of the defender can be lowered further. :) I would try to mod it... thanks.

I've only ever noticed war-weariness when I didn't build Mount Rushmore or Jails - or when I've attacked AI with the same religion as me.

Obviously attacking late game with more complex society is going to give you more - if you warmonger late, Police State!

Also WW is civ specific, which implies the best way to eliminate it is to eliminate the source civ. There are actually analogous situations to Vietnam in CivIV. If you've got a runaway Mao on the other side of the world, one might do well to conquer some of his cities and gift them to an ally to avoid the crippling maintenance and prevent Mao from easily resettling.

Interesting. Then I think that the modifier WW_CAPTURED_CITY works both for cities that you lose and cities that you capture (it could also only work for cities that you capture, but that would be illogical).
OK, I found it. It was in Sullla's Adventure Four report (http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_adventure4_1.html), specifically on page four. (http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_adventure4_3.html) He states that

Militarily, my units are rolling; I lost a total of 1 unit to this point in time and captured two cities, easily slaying all the Chinese units I came across. And yet - War Weariness quickly spiraled off the charts. With no luxury slider to deal with unrest, this immediately posed a serious problem for my civ. As far as Civ4 goes, every time you capture a city, war weariness spikes up by a significant amount. Now I like the fact that you can fight within your own borders without suffering from war weariness, that's a big plus (and logical) over Civ3, but the whole unhappiness from capturing foreign cities makes no sense. Why are your people angry that you're winning the war? War weariness from units dying in foreign lands? Check, good. War weariness from capturing cities with no losses? Umm... that doesn't seem right. At least everyone will be in the same boat for this game, but I think our war weariness model doesn't make much sense in that regard.
From this I take away two facts.

- You can fight within your own borders without WW. The exact extent of this I don't know, but taking it 100% at face value, it would imply that WW does not come from losing cities, losing units inside your territory, or killing units invading your territory.

- Capturing foreign cities does indeed have a major impact on WW.

OK, I found it. It was in Sullla's Adventure Four report (http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_adventure4_1.html), specifically on page four. (http://civ4info.com/Sullla/civ4_adventure4_3.html) He states that


From this I take away two facts.

- You can fight within your own borders without WW. The exact extent of this I don't know, but taking it 100% at face value, it would imply that WW does not come from losing cities, losing units inside your territory, or killing units invading your territory.

- Capturing foreign cities does indeed have a major impact on WW.

While I have Sulla in high regard, I cannot agree with concluding all of these effects from this one game. Maybe he has more reasons to think war weariness works this way, but some ingame experience is not a good argument for me.

For instance, the war weariness caused by capturing enemy cities could equally well be caused by killing lots of enemy units that were defending these cities. There is a modifier in the xml-files which suggests that killing enemy units gives you war weariness. If you remain inside your own territory, then you typically will not face the defenders of cities that you try to capture. So you will kill less units and not get as much war weariness.

I'm not claiming all-knowing wisdom here, I just think that ingame experiences can often be explained in more than one way and should not be used as a basis of a model for war weariness or any other game mechanic.
I also don't claim that the formula that I posted on the previous page is correct. It is not tested at all and could very well be largely wrong.
Any testing should be done in a totally controlled environment where only one effect is tested at a time. I'm at present not willing to do the amount of testing needed to find a 100% correct formula for war weariness.

While I have Sulla in high regard, I cannot agree with concluding all of these effects from this one game. Maybe he has more reasons to think war weariness works this way, but some ingame experience is not a good argument for me.
I got the impression that he actually knows the formula (or at least its general shape) from working on the development, and was noting its effects in this game, rather than drawing conclusions from this game.

With the unit killed attacking set at 3, think of all those suicide catapult/cannon/artillery.

I have had war weariness so bad that I have had to push the culture slider up to 60% to prevent angry citizens. This is with jails, rushmore, theatres, colliseums, broadcast towers (from eiffel tower) and every type of happiness resource in the game. I guess I should have used police state!

I got the impression that he actually knows the formula (or at least its general shape) from working on the development, and was noting its effects in this game, rather than drawing conclusions from this game.

That could be. In that case, he could really help to get a correct formula. But I guess, he may not tell anything about the betatester period.