Those are democracies controlled by the people. They haven't been serious about peace, and the people haven't voted in politicians that are either. Therefore, from where I'm sitting, the people may be tired of war, but not enough to change governments and end it.
I also pointed out the Romans and the Persians and North and South Korea as examples why war weariness didn't always exist as we know it and even when it did, sometimes it isn't a factor. I also explained how detached soldiers used to be from civilian life, especially before mass communication. You didn't answer any of those points and that's why I said you conveniently ignored them.
I ignored them because they don't matter. As I said in my first reply, Civ is a game, not a real-life simulation. Games have mechanics that don't necessarily reflect reality but improve the playing experience. War wariness is one of those mechanics and it does have at least some basis in reality. I actually have no idea why you're arguing so strongly against the concept while simultaneously admitting that it's already in the game.
The problem is that the current implementation is essentially useless for the two reasons that I pointed out.
1. Because of the way that AI bonuses work, they never have an incentive to end a war unless you're actively conquering their cities.
2. Because players are smarter than the AI, they can abuse the war mechanics to set up XP farms.
Both of these are almost certainly not intended mechanics. War wariness could fix them.
If the AI doesn't want to end a war, why is this a problem? Because you want wars to have a shelf-life? This doesn't reflect reality and I don't see how it would add anything to the game aside from satisfying you. If you aren't winning (by winning I mean taking territory), then they aren't losing anything beside replaceable units. What is the AI's incentive to quit or offer terms that amount to anything more than a no-fault cease fire?
I'm not sure how many times I have to repeat this, but
I don't care about reality. We're talking about a
game. The vast majority of gameplay mechanics in Civ don't reflect reality and that's just fine.
There's no such thing as "replaceable units". Every turn spent building a replacement unit, or every gold coin spent buying one, is a lost opportunity to work toward victory. That's especially important to the AI since they rely very heavily on numbers advantages to achieve victory over the superior skills of most players.
Anyway, my point wasn't that the AI offers no-fault cease fire agreements and that I'm unsatisfied. My point is that that AI
doesn't offer them and instead demands all of your gold, cities, and gold per turn. That's fine when the AI is actively warring against you, killing units, taking cities, etc. But it's absolutely ridiculous when the AI is completely ignoring the war because they're off doing something else (another war, building libraries, or whatever). The problem is that the AI has no incentive to offer anything else (e.g. a no-fault peace treaty) because there's no penalty for never-ending war (which also isn't realistic if you insist on being realistic).
You mention that people exploit endless wars for XP, well the AI also gains XP. The fact that it sucks at war and loses a lot of units is more of a problem. That is what makes it potentially an exploit, IMHO, not because the war does not end. You wouldn't call it an exploit if you regularly lost to an AI that didn't want peace and used the endless war to hit you with super units.
No, the problem is that exploiting XP farms isn't an intended mechanic. Thus, the AI isn't programmed to do it. The solution is
not to program the AI to set up XP farms; it's to eliminate the exploit. There are a few ways to do this, but war wariness seems to be the best method. (And remember, war wariness doesn't have to be unhappiness. It could be anything that would discourage prolonging wars to abuse unintended mechanics.)
Or maybe you would call that AI cheating or something. Why not just up the difficulty so you can't just turtle and kill wave after wave of units?
Because you can do it on Immortal? I haven't tried Deity, yet, but I bet it's no different. The AI is so bad at war that the difficulty level really doesn't matter when it comes to killing wave after wave of units.
More importantly, though,
1. City states don't produce enough units to call them "waves". They produce few units, but enough to abuse for XP.
2. AI civs often never attack with a second wave of units. They send one wave of units, lose them all, and then forget about the war until X turns have passed and it's time to demand all of your gold and cities again.
Maybe the Deity-level AIs don't do that? They certainly do on Prince through Immortal.
It's only seen as an exploit because the AI sucks at combat, as explained above. Also, how is forcing the AI or a player to end a war fun? That takes randomness out of the game and essentially puts a timer on every war. I don't think that's fun or realistic.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. All I'm suggesting is that we add one more metric to decision making for both the player and the AI. If you evaluate your options and decide that the benefits outweigh the penalty, then by all means continue the war.
Because gaining or losing territory are the main factors in war weariness (as presented in the form of happy faces) in CiV. If you haven't taken much territory or lost any territory, then you are not going to have war weariness. I was comparing that fact with all of the different scenarios I laid out where war weariness either didn't exist or isn't a major factor.
Happiness is not war wariness. Happiness might be affected by war wariness (or perhaps not!), but they aren't equivalent. If they were, then you would have "war wariness" from settling too many cities or selling too many luxuries. Clearly, they aren't the same.
North Korea and South Korea are still at war, but at least they have a cease fire agreement in place. The fact that they're at war is more of a technicality than anything else. This really isn't a good example of anything. Civ IV had cease-fire agreements in addition to peace treaties (or maybe that was RoM?). Civ V doesn't.
This was a series of wars between numerous empires with decades-long breaks in between them. That's not the same as one war that lasts thousands of years with no breaks at all.
Again, you are confusing governments for people. You are severely underestimating the war weariness felt in this region and severely overestimating the power of the people there to overthrow their governments to end the wars. If you think that it's a simple matter of electing different leaders, then you're very ignorant of the reality in the region.
soldiers separated from civilian life
I don't see how this is even relevant. Families missing relatives at war is only one part of the equation. You also must consider the other economic, social, psychological, and physical effects that war has on populations over time.
There, I answered your other points.
