War Weariness

[maltz]

I don't know too much about Vietnam War, but I suppose the case is not similar to the common ones we see in Civ4. We don't usually send a lot of armies to fight a distant war. Some players may do this out of a role-playing kind heart, but I prefer to kill my neighbors with that power.

Even if the US win the Vietnam War, the territory would be returned to the Southern Vietnam, so no territory gain here! Also, the geographical distance, according to Civ4 standard, would prevent the US culture from spreading there anyways. So there is also no culture spreading. Therefore, the Vietnam War is a NET loss of power. No wonder we get those in US.

As for WW2 (pearl harbor effect) I agree that suddenly being attacked by an aggressive Civ would not lower the morale of the defenders significantly. Perhaps the war weariness of the defender can be lowered further. I would try to mod it... thanks.

 

[GIO888]

I've only ever noticed war-weariness when I didn't build Mount Rushmore or Jails - or when I've attacked AI with the same religion as me.

Obviously attacking late game with more complex society is going to give you more - if you warmonger late, Police State!

 

[Bezhukov]

Also WW is civ specific, which implies the best way to eliminate it is to eliminate the source civ. There are actually analogous situations to Vietnam in CivIV. If you've got a runaway Mao on the other side of the world, one might do well to conquer some of his cities and gift them to an ally to avoid the crippling maintenance and prevent Mao from easily resettling.

 

[Beamup]

Interesting. Then I think that the modifier WW_CAPTURED_CITY works both for cities that you lose and cities that you capture (it could also only work for cities that you capture, but that would be illogical).

OK, I found it. It was in Sullla's Adventure Four report, specifically on page four. He states that

Militarily, my units are rolling; I lost a total of 1 unit to this point in time and captured two cities, easily slaying all the Chinese units I came across. And yet - War Weariness quickly spiraled off the charts. With no luxury slider to deal with unrest, this immediately posed a serious problem for my civ. As far as Civ4 goes, every time you capture a city, war weariness spikes up by a significant amount. Now I like the fact that you can fight within your own borders without suffering from war weariness, that's a big plus (and logical) over Civ3, but the whole unhappiness from capturing foreign cities makes no sense. Why are your people angry that you're winning the war? War weariness from units dying in foreign lands? Check, good. War weariness from capturing cities with no losses? Umm... that doesn't seem right. At least everyone will be in the same boat for this game, but I think our war weariness model doesn't make much sense in that regard.

From this I take away two facts.

- You can fight within your own borders without WW. The exact extent of this I don't know, but taking it 100% at face value, it would imply that WW does not come from losing cities, losing units inside your territory, or killing units invading your territory.

- Capturing foreign cities does indeed have a major impact on WW.

 

[Roland Johansen]

OK, I found it. It was in Sullla's Adventure Four report, specifically on page four. He states that


From this I take away two facts.

- You can fight within your own borders without WW. The exact extent of this I don't know, but taking it 100% at face value, it would imply that WW does not come from losing cities, losing units inside your territory, or killing units invading your territory.

- Capturing foreign cities does indeed have a major impact on WW.

While I have Sulla in high regard, I cannot agree with concluding all of these effects from this one game. Maybe he has more reasons to think war weariness works this way, but some ingame experience is not a good argument for me.

For instance, the war weariness caused by capturing enemy cities could equally well be caused by killing lots of enemy units that were defending these cities. There is a modifier in the xml-files which suggests that killing enemy units gives you war weariness. If you remain inside your own territory, then you typically will not face the defenders of cities that you try to capture. So you will kill less units and not get as much war weariness.

I'm not claiming all-knowing wisdom here, I just think that ingame experiences can often be explained in more than one way and should not be used as a basis of a model for war weariness or any other game mechanic.
I also don't claim that the formula that I posted on the previous page is correct. It is not tested at all and could very well be largely wrong.
Any testing should be done in a totally controlled environment where only one effect is tested at a time. I'm at present not willing to do the amount of testing needed to find a 100% correct formula for war weariness.

 

[Beamup]

While I have Sulla in high regard, I cannot agree with concluding all of these effects from this one game. Maybe he has more reasons to think war weariness works this way, but some ingame experience is not a good argument for me.

I got the impression that he actually knows the formula (or at least its general shape) from working on the development, and was noting its effects in this game, rather than drawing conclusions from this game.

 

[emills]

With the unit killed attacking set at 3, think of all those suicide catapult/cannon/artillery.

I have had war weariness so bad that I have had to push the culture slider up to 60% to prevent angry citizens. This is with jails, rushmore, theatres, colliseums, broadcast towers (from eiffel tower) and every type of happiness resource in the game. I guess I should have used police state!

 

[Roland Johansen]

I got the impression that he actually knows the formula (or at least its general shape) from working on the development, and was noting its effects in this game, rather than drawing conclusions from this game.

That could be. In that case, he could really help to get a correct formula. But I guess, he may not tell anything about the betatester period.