Dear Shaka, +15 War Weariness will kill your civ.

[hoopsnerd]

In my current game, Shaka just decided to declare war on me with a HUGE stack of Curaissers, Musketmen, Xbowmen, Macemen, and Trebs. He moved them the 2 neccessary spaces to be right next to my city which is defended by ~15 CG 1,2, and 3 Riflemen (i saw him coming). He decides his force isn't big enough (75 troops) and waits for about 25 more unitsto show up. When they arrive, he trebs my city defenses down to 0, suicides the trebs, and begins the attack. Since I forgot to turn QuickCombat off for the late stages of the game, I had to wait about 15 minutes for Shaka to finish attacking my city with his mega-SOD.

His stack was so huge that I got 2 great generals in 2 turns (no great wall or imperalistic), one on the turn he attacked and one when i cleaned up with Curaissers that withdrew.. About 7 of my Rifleman units survived the attack and then started killing off retreaters. I looked north of my borders, and noticed that every single one of Shaka's cities was starving madly. He had attacked me with so many units that he basicly did a Foment Unhappiness in every one of his own cities due to the massive war wariness they suffered (I also have SoZ). About 10 turns later, Shaka's population had starved so much that he was able to capitulate to Hammurabi even though Shaka had about the same land-area as Hammurabi did - and that was the only way for him to stop the war too.

Check out this screeny of his War Weariness, I have the required espionage to see within his cities... +15 Unhappy is not good. Maybe the AI needs to factor this in before he suicides over 100 units into your city?

Edit: I forgot to describe the game settings:

Huge/Immortal/10AI/Hemispheres/RandomMapSettings/SolversPatch

Edit:

Normal AI (not Aggressive)

 

[MrPopov]

cool looking world map btw. Looks like a fun game

 

[azzaman333]

Ah, silly old Shaka...

 

[Arlborn]

How many units of your died?

Sorry for the curiosity!

 

[hoopsnerd]

How many units of your died?

Sorry for the curiosity!

Quite a few... I'd say about 2/3 of them (10?), and all of my CG 3 Riflemen died along with my lvl 3 SuperMedic.

Edit: He didn't kill my first unit until he'd already suicided/retreated like 45 of his units.

 

[Olleus]

Reminds me of a multiplayer game I had a while ago. I got 2 GG and my opponent got 1 in the same turn.

In your case that just shows the power of SoZ and the terrible effect of unhappiness. Also, it shows the AIs inability to turn off the science metre and turn on the culture metre to try and survive the unhappiness.

 

[hoopsnerd]

Reminds me of a multiplayer game I had a while ago. I got 2 GG and my opponent got 1 in the same turn.

In your case that just shows the power of SoZ and the terrible effect of unhappiness. Also, it shows the AIs inability to turn off the science metre and turn on the culture metre to try and survive the unhappiness.

Shouldn't he just be proactive and wait until he stands a chance at taking my city? He's basicly destroying his entire empire to kill 10 of my riflemen with the outside chance of capturing a fringe city... It did found Islam, but no shrine or anything special about it...

 

[Arlborn]

Shouldn't he just be proactive and wait until he stands a chance at taking my city? He's basicly destroying his entire empire to kill 10 of my riflemen with the outside chance of capturing a fringe city... It did found Islam, but no shrine or anything special about it...

Bad RNG? You never know..I mean, 45 units, like trebs and musketman, to kill 1 rifleman, hum...

 

[Bhruic]

I don't know with some slightly more favourable rolls, he might well have taken the city. Frankly, I'd expect to win in his place. Of course, I'd probably attack a little more intelligently.

Bh

 

[hoopsnerd]

I don't know with some slightly more favourable rolls, he might well have taken the city. Frankly, I'd expect to win in his place. Of course, I'd probably attack a little more intelligently.

Bh

Yeah, i moved a bunch of CG 3 Rifleman into the city before the attack, he could have just redirected his attack someplace else. I'm not disputing that he could have taken the city with a few more favorable rolls, but whats the use of having another city if all your other cities are basicly ruined from the War Weariness involved?

^^ its not bad RNG, CG III Rifleman against attacking units of no more than 12 str is pretty ridiculous.

 

[Arlborn]

CG III Rifleman against attacking units of no more than 12 str is pretty ridiculous.

I agree on that...
Ah the redcoats...

 

[Bhruic]

Yeah, i moved a bunch of CG 3 Rifleman into the city before the attack, he could have just redirected his attack someplace else. I'm not disputing that he could have taken the city with a few more favorable rolls, but whats the use of having another city if all your other cities are basicly ruined from the War Weariness involved?

Well, he wouldn't have had such a bad WW if he hadn't lost all his units. But yeah, it would be nice if they could properly change targets if their current target is too tough, but then you could "gimmick" them by moving defenders back and forth, effectively trapping them.

^^ its not bad RNG, CG III Rifleman against attacking units of no more than 12 str is pretty ridiculous.

Not really, not if he had plenty of cats/trebs. The collateral damage should bring even CG III Riflemen down to the point of being vulnerable. I mean, yes, you'd still need to suicide a lot of units against them, but with some decent luck, you'd be able to beat them.

Bh

 

[hoopsnerd]

Not really, not if he had plenty of cats/trebs. The collateral damage should bring even CG III Riflemen down to the point of being vulnerable. I mean, yes, you'd still need to suicide a lot of units against them, but with some decent luck, you'd be able to beat them.

Bh

You're totally right about that (and the trapping the AI by moving troops thing), he would have easily taken the city if he had brought more cats and trebs - he only brought trebs to take down my defenses and then suicided them, but it was only 4 or 5 trebs. I actually kept attacking him with a Cossack sitting in that city each turn, but couldn't hit his trebs or cats with a flank because they were from the era earlier. Looks like Shaka was trying to use an exploit on me . I didn't see if they changed that in the 3.13 list -- they should.

 

[tucnymaster]

False, Mount Rushmore, police state and jail reduces the unhappiness by 100%, that means he doenst care.

 

[tucnymaster]

False, Mount Rushmore, police state and jail reduces the unhappiness by 100%, that means he doenst care.

If you destroyed jail, you don't have Mount Rushmore and you dont run police state, you might have the real war wearyness.

 

[Naismith]

I've only played a couple of BTS games so far, none on marathon or Agg AI, and I haven't seen any large stacks wandering around so far. But from what I've read in the forum, especially with Agg AI, the AI's can spam a lot of units. It makes me wonder whether war weariness needs to be adjusted so it doesn't build up so fast.

I know that war weariness was probably created mostly to be a limiting factor for human war mongers, but I've always suspected that the poor old AI can't deal with it nearly as effectively as a human - which really makes it just one more way for the AI to destroy itself economically.

 

[Plato90s]

I've only played a couple of BTS games so far, none on marathon or Agg AI, and I haven't seen any large stacks wandering around so far. But from what I've read in the forum, especially with Agg AI, the AI's can spam a lot of units. It makes me wonder whether war weariness needs to be adjusted so it doesn't build up so fast.

I know that war weariness was probably created mostly to be a limiting factor for human war mongers, but I've always suspected that the poor old AI can't deal with it nearly as effectively as a human - which really makes it just one more way for the AI to destroy itself economically.

It does. I had a game where there was an AGGRESSIVE naval war going on across 2 oceans using the most modern units, including a couple of tactical nukes which got past the SDI and the screening subs. Combined losses on both sides exceed 180+ naval units, but neither side were able to land a significant land army.

By the end of the 2nd go-around, Augustus actually offered me one of his more recently conquered cities for peace. I got real curious, and it turns out that since he's the aggressor and was losing lots of units - war weariness was killing his empire.

This is despite the fact that he's bigger and more powerful

 

[Handel]

It seesm to me like anothe bad game balance (due to the wonder). This is thre reason I will wait for at least 2 more patches to appear before getting BTS.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah, perhaps SoZ should expire with Fascism [or Assembly Line if you want to be unable to aviod it] by that point units can really be pumped out.

 

[hoopsnerd]

Yeah, perhaps SoZ should expire with Fascism [or Assembly Line if you want to be unable to aviod it] by that point units can really be pumped out.

We didnt have those techs yet... He also doesn't have the techs to run Police State (Shaka's favorite - so auto switch) or to build a Jail or to build Mt. Rushmore.