War weariness decay?

[Moseleycat]

I've never seen anything discussing basic war weariness decay. After a hard decade or so of beating down a new candidate vassal state, how long should I rebuild in peace to have a fresh state of war weariness? Is there somewhere I can check my current level? I've seen I mouse over something (not sure what) and I briefly see an AI's level of war-weariness, what is it?

I know switching to Police state and building jails help but for a warmonger, this would be a great mechanic to figure out, to better manage those pesky peacenik unhappy faces and lost productivity.

[snoopy369]

War Weariness decays slowly, I believe 1 point + 2% per turn not at war (and it's specific to each civ). I don't know how to check it per se.

I think you typically accrue something between 30 and 50 points of war weariness in a normal (25 turn) war, so it takes like 25-40 turns to decay.

[DaveV]

On BTS, you can mouse-over the AI scores in the lower right corner. Along with lots of other info, it shows your current war weariness score with that AI. I think you'd need a mod to see that info in vanilla or Warlords.

[clarkcd]

I thought that was the war weariness of the civ in question. Otherwise I'm not sure why my war weariness would go up in a huge jump each time I capture an enemy city. Maybe I just don't understand how war weariness is generated.

[binTravkin]

Each time you capture an enemy city it should actually take a huge plunge.

Basically, every 'positive' event in war will make your people happy and vice versa.

Major defeat, long war without conclusion, razing cities, pillaging would likely result into more weariness, though the latter two depend a lot on the causes of war and mentality of your people.
Major defeats can also have an opposite result if you're defending the last cities, a'la SU and WW2.

[joncnunn]

Based on mouse-over not actually fighting that turn even if technically at war seems to cause a small drop.

[DaveV]

This is another case where gameplay trumps realism. War weariness is a brake on expansion through warfare. Otherwise, you build units to take cities, use those cities to build more units and take more cities, etc.

From a war weariness thread on CivFanatics:

Your unit attacks their unit=+3 if you lose, +1 if you win
Their unit attacks your unit =+2 (win or lose)
You capture a unit=+1
Your unit is captured=+2
You capture a city=+6
You launch a nuke=+12 (WW regardless of culture)
You are hit with a Nuke=+3 (WW regardless of culture... this is for All players hit by the nuke)

[jkp1187]

Ahh, for the days when people at CivFanatics actually made posts concerning strategy and game mechanics....

That's a very useful thread. Just to clarify for people who don't click on the link and read the whole article, the excerpt that DaveV posted only relates to WW earned while in a territory in which the player is not culturally dominant.... and (AFAIK) the article itself only relates to Vanilla 1.61 -- though I haven't heard anything about the mechanics changing for either Warlords or BtS.

[joncnunn]

I'm pretty sure that the formula still applies. The (regardless of culture) for the nukes implies fighting for territory that's always been yours is immune.

However as I recall there was also a note about the territory owned by your newly captured city still counting as your opponents for WW purposes to eliminate the Civ 3 exploit.

[realpolitic]

So in taking a city

So if you destroy 3 units 3 WW for you 9 for them
Lose 1 unit 3 WW for you 1 for them
Take a city 6 WW for you

---- ----
Total 12 10

So even with an effective offense, your war weariness is likely to be about as high as theirs. Sacrificing siege weapons later will make this worse. Without Statue of Zeus, you can't use WW as an advantage for the offense, unless you use spies to create more and poison the water.

[joncnunn]

That's true if you actually engage the main body of his army in his territory.

But, if you instead destroy his army in your long standing territory first, then he will being suffering from all kinds of WW when you begin your offensive while your suffering very little.

Also, even without posoning waters there are ways without spies or the Statue of Zeus to arrange for your opponent to suffer from it more than you.

This includes having a secure source of extra happiness; read extra Temples, Col., etc. The more your pre war extra happiness was, the longer you have until that WW really matters.

And Police Stations & Mt Rushmore reduce WW as well.

Originally posted by realpolitic
So in taking a city

So if you destroy 3 units 3 WW for you 9 for them
Lose 1 unit 3 WW for you 1 for them
Take a city 6 WW for you

---- ----
Total 12 10

So even with an effective offense, your war weariness is likely to be about as high as theirs. Sacrificing siege weapons later will make this worse. Without Statue of Zeus, you can't use WW as an advantage for the offense, unless you use spies to create more and poison the water.

[Hercules]

Even though I didn't ask the question, useful information. Thx guys.

[TriMiro]

How does -x% war WW work? Does it mean that if you have Mt Rushmore + Jail + Police State, there would be no WW generated or WW would be generated just it would have no effect in your cities.

[DaveV]

Originally posted by realpolitic
So in taking a city (snip)
So even with an effective offense, your war weariness is likely to be about as high as theirs.

No, it's much worse than that. If you're fighting inside an enemy's cultural borders, they get absolutely no war weariness, no matter how many units you kill or cities you take. Meanwhile, your war weariness mounts. Best answer is to kill off the target, then your war weariness magically drops to zero (and you don't have to deal with population yearning for its homeland, or leftover culture).

[rah]

That's my cure for the problem, but it's always frustrating when you take their last city on the mainland and their civ isn't destroyed as you expected and you have to find the tiny island they probably settled.
I'll usually force them to give me their map for a 10 turn treaty just so I don't have to scour the world to find that last puppy. 10 turns later, elimination.