War Weariness Mechanics

What is the deal with War weariness (WW)? It seems to get progressively worse the longer you're at war.

It also seems to go up in steps (say every 10 turns or so). I've noticed that I can go from having all cities OK to having half of them in Civil Disorder in one turn.

Also is it affected by the number of civs at war with you? If you make peace with one of them does WW go down?

I apologize if this has been discussed already

Peruse through this tread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53114

Good eye for catching the "steps" in the progression.

Definitely read that thread, but a couple quick things:

Yes, WW is tracked separately. Making peace with one civ while remaining at war with others does often help a fair amount.

A general tip on cities going into disorder:

The condition for disorder occurs at the start of turn X - something changed (city grew, WW made a "step" change, you lost a luxory trade, etc...). For turn X your city is fine. It is the next turn - turn X + 1 - when the city will go into civil disorder. So the trick is to identify a couple of your "trouble maker" cities - usually the largest ones, or the largest ones without a full set of civic improvements built - and keep an eye on them. As long as they're happy (happy people > or = unhappy people), then the rest of your cities should be OK. It's important to try and catch these cities the turn when things get out of wack, and before they actually go into disorder, so that you can save a turn's production.