[C3C] How to handle WW in Republic with the entire world at war against you.

[MrRandomGuy]

It all started when the Dutch demanded something of me. I laughed them off and told them where to stick it. They declared war. Then a few turns later they got the Romans to sign up against me. I thought "ok I'll play that game too" and got Babylon on my side against the two. Then they decided to enlist Egypt against me. I got Portugal to go after the Dutch and Egyptians. The Dutch didn't like that and enlisted Byzantine and Carthage against me. Eventually Babylon and Portugal signed on against me while making peace with the Dutch.

Now the AI is sending wave after wave of troops against me from all nations, but I'm winning. My position in the world makes it way easy where I only have to deal with attacks on one side. Also might have to deal with sea attacks but the AI is terrible about attacking by sea.

I originally wanted this to be a 20k culture game, but now I'm thinking about just grabbing territory one by one and staying at war with everyone for a conquest victory. The only problem with that is WW. Right now I'm in pretty good shape. I've only taken one city from Babylon and can successfully attack waves of units before the AI has a chance to attack a city. But it's only a matter of time before WW kicks in and starts killing me.

I've played games like this before where it was winnable because of the position I was in and was able to conquer the world, but in Monarchy not Republic (also lower difficulty level.) Is there a way to approach this without having to up the lux slider to something absurd like 90%?

 

[justanick]

First off: I have not opened the savegame, so at this point i can only give general hints, not ones specific to your game.

But it's only a matter of time before WW kicks in and starts killing me.

I've played games like this before where it was winnable because of the position I was in and was able to conquer the world, but in Monarchy not Republic (also lower difficulty level.) Is there a way to approach this without having to up the lux slider to something absurd like 90%?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-does-war-weariness-work.61628/

90% is unlikely. Even with multible wars war weariness is capped at 100%. So for needing more than say 40% to 60% lux rate you need to have more adversity than just 100% war weariness.

A republic is able to maintain war for quite some time, many players seem to underestimate that. So if incurring 15 more turns at 100% war waeriness gives you a sound strategic advantage in the long run, then go for it.

But of course it is not a good idea to stay at war without a good idea how to end it reasonably soon, at least when war weariness matters and losses are expected to climb.

In a large scale war chances are that unit support will be about as crippling as war weariness or even more. War weariness alone will not kill you, but both together might.

Staying at war with multible nations is generally quite a bad idea. Finishing off one nation after another is usually the way better strategy. Forging alliances against the Dutch at the very beginning would have been the smart move. Most likely forging alliances so that you have many allies but few enemies is still in your best interest.

But for every forged alliance make sure that you donnot break it by signing a peace threaty that breaks the alliance. If peace should be necessary you might want to wait till all your alliances against the target are cancelled first. You might have to wait till the 20 turns duration are over for that, but with some luck your allies will break the alliance first, which is also a cheap escape for you.

 

[vorlon_mi]

It all started when the Dutch demanded something of me. I laughed them off and told them where to stick it. They declared war. Then a few turns later they got the Romans to sign up against me. I thought "ok I'll play that game too" and got Babylon on my side against the two. Then they decided to enlist Egypt against me. I got Portugal to go after the Dutch and Egyptians. The Dutch didn't like that and enlisted Byzantine and Carthage against me. Eventually Babylon and Portugal signed on against me while making peace with the Dutch.

Building on what @justanick wrote --
1. Look closely at your current alliances, specifically how many turns are remaining in each. Since Babylon and Portugal made peace with the Dutch, they have broken their alliance with you. Figure out who (if anyone) you could offer peace to, that would not be a breach of your current agreements. Consider whether that would help your long-term goal of a conquest victory.
2. War weariness gets worse if you have losses of units in enemy territory. Lots of victories in your own territory means that WW builds up much more slowly.
3. WW is calculated individually for each enemy. Once you make peace with an opponent, the WW against that opponent begins to decay.
4. Consider which of the combatants share a land border with you. If your analysis in 1) above says that you can make peace with your closest neighbor, that would force the remaining AI fighting you to march through "neutral" territory to get to you. They may want to offer peace themselves, once their alliances expire. Making peace with the closest neighbor would buy you 20 turns to rebuild and repair any damage.

Conclusion: After a big-time battle royale like this, lots of the AI will be furious with each other. They may stay fighting each other for many turns even after the alliances expire. This plays into your desire to eventually invade and subdue all of them, since they won't trade techs or luxuries with civ's that they are at war with.

 

[tjs282]

I originally wanted this to be a 20k culture game, but now I'm thinking about just grabbing territory one by one and staying at war with everyone for a conquest victory.

Looks like a Pangaea(?), and you seem to have both Horses (Knights) and Saltpeter (Muskets) — which means you should be able to take everyone with massed Cavs, shouldn't even need to go (very far) into the Industrial, maybe just Steam (Rails) and RepParts (Infs + Arty) for the last mop-ups.

The only problem with that is WW. Right now I'm in pretty good shape. I've only taken one city from Babylon and can successfully attack waves of units before the AI has a chance to attack a city. But it's only a matter of time before WW kicks in and starts killing me.

Yes, but there's no need to 'panic' before that happens!

The definitive article about WW is here:

https://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/game-mechanics/how-does-war-weariness-work/

You get War Happiness (that is, –30 WW-points) from every Civ which declared on you unilaterally (so... definitely from the Dutch in this case — anyone else?). You do not get WH from any Civ brought into a war against you, e.g. as a Military Ally or Mutual Protector of your enemy.

But actual "War Weariness" does not start building up, until you pass the "0 WW point" mark, i.e. if you started with WH, until you have dissipated all those "negative" WW-points by taking damage (see @Oystein's article for the definitive list of WW-point additions/subtractions).

And even then, "Level 1" WW is usually virtually unnoticeable with a bit of LUX%-spending and/or Lux-availability.

2. War weariness gets worse if you have losses of units in enemy territory. Lots of victories in your own territory means that WW builds up much more slowly.

Where your units get attacked is immaterial, but it is true that having your units on enemy territory (or enemy units on your territory) also increases WW. However, those WW-points are 'temporary', i.e. they are immediately subtracted when their territory becomes your territory (through capturing their towns, and/or some judicious combat-Settlement), and/or when all their units are expunged from your territory.

That's why fast-moving units (and later Bombers) are so valuable, because with some good planning (and/or combat-Settlement), you can ensure that you are always attacking their towns from your side of the border.

3. WW is calculated individually for each enemy. Once you make peace with an opponent, the WW against that opponent begins to decay.

That is, the accumulated 'permanent' WW-points begin to decay, but the effects of WW go away immediately, allowing a reduction of the LUX%-slider.

@MrRandomGuy I have had a look at your savegame in CAII, and I agree with you that things look pretty good. You seem to have a tech-advantage (Muskets) over at least the Romans and Babs, and you have a whole stack of fast-units (Knights and ACavs and at least one Army) already piled up in your (newly acquired?) border-towns.

If you don't want to be at war with so many people, I would suggest taking as many more towns as you can from both Julie and Hammy, then sue for peace, and try to include MAs with those PTs against both the Dutch and the Byzzies. That way, you tie up four of your enemies at once, giving you some breathing-space while you continue to get yourself tooled up for the next(/final) push. And the best part of signing a MA/PT-deal is, that when the Romans and/or Babs sign PTs with your mutual enemies, they automatically declare on you unilaterally, which means that you will get WH from them.

Also, since all their attack-units will be at the other end of their territory by that point, you almost certainly won't be attacked on that interturn. So when you have control of the game back, you can sign similar 'backstabbing' MA/PT-deals with Willy and/or Dora, vs. Julie and Hammi, and immediately go on the offensive into Roman/Babylonian territory, with all the (fast) units that you (should!) have been stockpiling on their borders in the meantime.

You probably don't need to worry about the Portuguese, Egyptians and Carthaginians (yet), because the AI always 'prefers' to invade overland if it can see a clear land-route, i.e. Henry, Hanni and Cleo will have to send their units through at least 2 other nations to get to you: by the time they arrive anywhere near your borders (if they arrive without getting booted/killed!), they will probably already be willing to sign peace (and maybe also an MA or two... ).

I might try playing this one out myself, once I'm finished (one way or another!) with the Almost-All-Random Mayan-DG game I'm playing at present.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Yeah once I noticed that I could kill all the AI stacks I realized this game was too good to not share.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

This was certainly a fun one. Coal and iron were in the capitol city radius, so it allowed me to build Iron Works there. That allowed me to churn out 4 turn armies. At that point I quit caring about WW and just let loose. Went so fast at one point that barbarians started showing up in old Egyptian territory. Not sure why the Egyptians spaced out their cities so much.

I got a few people to attack Portugal and Carthage. Portugal was reduced to one city on a one tile island and remained that way for the rest of the game. Carthage was destroyed. I also had a few civs go after Byzantine because they were researching very quickly. They lost some territory and it slowed them down enough that I didn't push for them to be destroyed when they made peace with their neighbors. I eventually made peace with everyone aside from Portugal and Carthage. Babylon and Rome decided to break that peace while they were also at war with each other. That didn't quite make much sense to me, but the AI isn't very smart at times. Got the Dutch and Egypt to help me as I mopped up the remnants of Rome and Babylon.

At that point I had enough armies to fortify each city with one across the border with the Dutch. I waited for someone to declare war on me. Portugal decided to send in a few troops to land near my capitol for some reason. Easy war happiness for me!

A little while later the Dutch decided to send in 15 cavalry into my territory and ignore the cities with the armies in them. They could have grabbed a few workers, but I guess they didn't want to declare war until they were in a position to take a city? I had actually planned on waiting till Flight to attack them since bombers make it way easier to capture cities. Oh well.

Oddly enough when I destroyed the Dutch the Egyptians declared war on me in the IBT. But I didn't see them attack anything. It was weird. By that point I had flight and made quick work of them. After Egypt was destroyed I was going to wait a few turns to build a few more units, but Byzantine didn't want to wait. They sent units into my territory ignoring a heavily fortified city and a whole bunch of conscript infantry guarding the border. Guess they wanted to wait to declare like the Dutch did.

And last but not least I had to research amphibious war to destroy Portugal. But that didn't take too long. And I kept the city population low and clear of troops with constant bombing runs so only needed one marine.

 

[C0rTeZ48]

As I've demonstrated in this post, war govs like Monarchy/Fascism/Communism are definitely a better choice in most cases compared to Republics: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ike-monarchy-are-better-than-republic.683358/. Just want to help

 

[vorlon_mi]

As I've demonstrated in this post, war govs like Monarchy/Fascism/Communism are definitely a better choice in most cases compared to Republics: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ike-monarchy-are-better-than-republic.683358/. Just want to help

I read your other post and I'm still considering my thoughts and reactions.

But I would draw a distinction between Republic/Monarchy and the later governments such as Fascism and Communism.
Every game, one must undergo a revolution to get out of Despotism. This usually happens in the Ancient Age, when the player has 6, 8, or maybe 10 cities/towns. The period of anarchy lasts a few turns for non-Religious civs.

To change governments again, in the Industrial Age, can be very costly. The anarchy will be longer, during which your empire is not producing any new units or buildings. As I understand it, the anarchy period scales up with the number of cities; empires in the Industrial Age may well have 40 or 50 cities. Will the game last long enough, will enough turns elapse using the new government, so that you can earn back the lost production and commerce? Did you include the costs or losses associated with a second government switch in your analysis?

From what I've read here, experienced warmongers often end the game with a massive cavalry rush in the late Middle Ages / early Industrial. I know that I don't play at a higher difficulty level and that I prefer Space victories over Domination victories. So yes, my games often last into Modern Times but I have finished most of my war fighting and achieved a leadership position well before I research Fission.