If the scenario is not, in and of itself, reasonable then the argument goes out the window. Attacking the scenario is one way of challenging the assertion that war-weariness would cripple the computer, even though it didn't in Civ 4. I have not described war-weariness in detail because I assumed it might work similarly to the way it did before (progressive happiness penalties). Thus, not a timer at all, but a growing incentive to find peace.
There was nothing unreasonable about the scenario, and I countered all of your objections to it in my last post. Did you read what I said about penalties not affecting the upper level AI or lower level player? I guess not as you have restated your point here without mentioning it.
Progessive happiness penalties that build over time ----> effectively time-limit a war. This straight jackets the AI, makes it predictable and opens it to exploits How do you keep missing these points? You haven't countered them as far as I can tell, you just ignore them.
I also don't see why the AI should be given more incentive to stop fighting a war that it isn't losing. If it wants to keep sending units to the slaughter, that's it's perogative. Your solution would take a random element out of the game in favor of a rigid formula. A human player can send wave after wave of soldiers to death if s/he wanted, but you would take that option away from an AI.
I have also said again that in my experience the AI is rather good at making peace overtures when appropriate. It doesn't necessarily give or offer good terms for peace, but that is a separate issue. Just because you wish it would be forced to stop fighting a long war that it isn't losing doesn't mean that would improve gameplay.
If you are going to continue advocating for it, I suggest coming up with a concrete mechanic to talk about and to also take time to counter the concerns I have raised with your vague war-weariness mechanic rather than just ignoring them.
I think you misunderstood. I meant that the US did not recognize that the opinions of the populace was the CoG. They needed to be separated (ideologically, or physically) from the VC. I suppose a fair question is, 'would the 1960s/70s media have allowed for a Malaya-style conduct of the war?' Who knows?
I did a search for CoG, couldn't find it's meaning.
'...allowed for a Malaya-style....etc.'----> Probably not. Also, irrelevant to CiV.
Again, it is not about total 'military potential' in Clausewitzian, state-on-state terms. It is about accomplishing specific objectives. Whether or not the US was 'completely exhausted' is irrelevant (they clearly were not). They had reached a point where, for various reasons, they were unwilling to continue to pursue their objectives. This was down to a lack of measurable strategic success (again, not the lack of tactical successes), the absence of a clear imperative to fight, and vocal dissatisfaction with the war at home. Many, for different reasons, ignore the first two and focus solely on the protests. I'm simply trying to remind people that it was merely 'part of the picture', not the end all and be all.
My whole point was that the US's objectives were very different in that war than they had been in the past. The goal post for victory had moved significantly from 'crush and occupy' to 'defend and hold'. Either one of those types of victory were achievable, and their were several points where the war exhausted North came close to offering a real peace. We could not, and did not sustain the war as it was politically inexpedient to do so (which is your own point in the bolded part of the above paragraph). My
whole point is that war-weariness and the protests at home had a large part to do with that.
The whole line of argument on Vietnam started with my response to this quote:
I understand that the unhappiness hit for taking cities is meant to represent the unhappily occupied citizens...but why does it 'take it out' on your home cities?
I provided an example on how war wariness 'takes out' home cities in real life. This discussion has gone way beyond a discussion of the game mechanics into an argument over history that has little bearing on the original topic.
Seven years is not a 'short' conflict. In the Seven Years' War the British captured vast tracts of land and did not suffer war-weariness (if anything, the population grew increasingly in favour of the war as it progressed). In Civ 5 the British would have suffered serious, even catastrophic war-weariness. Obviously Civ 5 cannot, and should not, try to create a perfect emulation of the world....that is not my argument. Rather, I am countering your assertion that having 'war-weariness' tied to conquest rather than duration of the war and units lost is an ideal and historically true system.
You can use historical precedents all day long and I could as well. That doesn't mean your mechanic would work as intended. Frankly, as you haven't gone into details on how it should work or made specific counteraguments to the objections I raised to it, I don't see how any of these posts help the discussion along. While I understand that you are trying to make a historical correlation with your idea, the fact that you have spent much more time on the history side than on the gameplay side underlines that this thread isn't going anywhere but off-topic.
I also only said that the system as implemented as-is works well, not that it is ideal while pointing out that the vague changes you suggest would hurt rather than help the situation. I also haven't tried to claim that it is true to all wars in history, merely that it does have precedents and that it does work in the game.
As for the French and Polish uprisings, they are completely beside the point. My point was about a successful war "over there" causing unhappiness at home, which did not happen in Nazi Germany until things started going bad for them (which is why I left that part of the war out....the point was to find conflicts in which short, sharp conquest did not lead to any war-weariness at home to contrast with Civ 5 in which a short, victorious campaign WOULD lead to war-weariness....moreso than a drawn-out stalemated war).
Lastly, I would suggest that saying "we" in referencing Vietnam does not help your argument (unless you were there, of course). Neutral language was best (i.e. "the Americans").
To the highlighted part: No I wasn't, but I tend to identify with our military and it's conflicts on a personal level as almost every male in my direct lineage till myself has served literally going back to Valley Forge. I wasn't accepted when I tried to enlist due to a golf-ball sized tumor on my thyroid. While there wasn't anything I could do about that, it's a mild point of shame in my own eyes.
Nonetheless, point well taken.
My main point was that you are taking things out of context to make a point. Your argument on WWII falls apart when looking at the totality of the war. I have already said that you looking at a snippet of the conflict has absolutely nothing to do with the problem of 'endless wars' in CiV. I'll reiterate that I haven't heard many other complaints on the subject, and I (still) haven't read you or anyone else's plan to fix this 'problem' in anything but the vaguest terms.
