Expertise on War Weariness

[Catt]

I haven’t yet seen a thread on the intricacies of war weariness (“WW”). WW just seems to get mentioned in passing in posts under other topics. Has anyone developed any exceptional knowledge regarding WW, its causes, effects, counter-tactics etc.? (by exceptional, I mean beyond the basics ) Has anyone undertaken any studies to try and “break the code” of how war weariness works (as etj4Eagle did with his wonderful "only one great leader per elite" research posted on CivFanatics?) I for one would very much like to have a better understanding of the intricacies of WW. Any help appreciated.

To start it off, I’ll list some of the basics, as well as some of the questions I’ve got. My quick and dirty list of the basics:

* WW is caused by being at war!
* WW affects only representative governments (democracy & republic)
* WW accumlates over time, causing incremental unhappiness and, if unchecked, a revolution by your people
* WW accumulates more quickly if:
- You have troops within enemy territory
- Your enemy has troops in your territory
- You declared war
- You are engaging in lots of combat
* WW does not go away upon peace; it decreases over time following peace – so a new war shortly after a brief interlude of peace does not give you the benefit of starting with your WW ‘bank’ at 0
* WW bank can “go negative” (war thirstiness? ) when war is declared by AI, creating a short-term happiness boost
* WW manifests itself as unhappiness, so all the general tactics to combat unhappiness are applicable to combatting WW (luxury acquisition, marketplaces, happiness producing improvements wonders, luxury spending on the tax slider, creating entertainers, etc.)
* The Universal Suffrage wonder slows the accumulation of WW

Some of the questions I have, but to which I haven’t seen answers:

* Does the destruction of your units / cities / improvements increase the accumulation of WW, or is the anecdotal evidence of greater WW upon these events a result of the “engaging in combat” and “troops in territory” factors?

* Does military success on your part slow the accumulation of WW, or is the anecdotal evidence of lesser WW in such situations a result of the “troops in territory” factor (i.e., you’re in enemy territory for short periods – it soon becomes yours! )?

* Does the number of civs with whom you are at war affect the amount of WW accumulating?

* Is the "declare war" factor clean and simple, or more nuanced, affected by the following factors:
- Whether or not you are forced to declare war through the operation of an MPP after an ally is attacked
- Whether or not you are "forced" to declare war by an AI repeatedly breaking treaties (i.e., crossing your territory, which the manual indicates can be viewed as a treaty breach)
- Whether or not you "force" a declaration of war by repeatedly engaging in espionage / territory breaches / tribute demands in an effort to goad the AI into war.

* Does WW accumulate more quickly if you sneak attack, abuse a RoP, attack an ally or generally do any number of other things deemed harmful to your reputation with other AI?

Catt

[Fitz]

Catt, great idea, analysis of the effects of war weariness.

First things first, let's establish how we can baseline the issues to experiment. Since the game lacks a scenario editor, this will be difficult. I suggest that experiments be conducted on a game that has been progressed to republic, and then saved at that point with no wars since the switch to republic. Pangea with 8 civs will probably work, although pangea with only one other civ might work best, since then you will never have a more than one civ war effect. Then you can take 5-10 turns doing things differently, and measure effects.

In addition to the number of civs question, and important question to ask is: Does switching governments empty the war weariness "bank", or does it stay at the same value but have no effect? Is this result different when switching between Repub & Demo from any other govt switch?

Another question: Can war-weariness actually increase happiness (ie the bank go negative) as the manual implies, or does it mearly mitigate the effect of prior war-weariness being reapplied?
In other words, if you have 0 WW, do your citizens get happier? And if you have WW in the bank and war is redeclared by the AI, is it less than you would expect due to mere passage of time? If you have WW from a current war with one civ and another declares war on you, does the current WW from the first war get decreased?

Now, on to the WAGs (Wild Ass Guesses):

If there is a engaging in combat factor (I can't recall if there is supposed to be one), I can bet that it is based on the # of units lost and # of improvements/building lost, and where they are lost (ie whose territory it occured in).

I think it likely that military success doesn't affect it in a manner other than the Territory effect and the engaging in comabt affects.

WW due to more civs is probably somewhat cumalative (ie not twice as bad, but more than one time as bad), but not going to bet on that one.

The declare war factor is probably a straight foward on/off flag applied to all the different way war can be declared. In the examples you give, I would say the following AI war declarations probably get you no benefit: Espionage failed. You probably do ge the benefit with AI refuse to withdraw and AI MPP triggered, and refuse to give in to demands. You probably get no benefit in which you declare war, including a triggered MPP, refusal to withdraw from AI territory, demand concessions from opponent.

I guess that reputation hits probably have little affect on WW rate, but I think there may be one exception, which is razing cities.

Anyhow, thats enough WAGs for now. If I manage to get anything over the weekend, I'll let you know.

[Catt]

Fitz - thanks for the reponse and great post. I agree on the likely methods of testing, but it will be difficult (can't control number of AI units in territory, etc.). I'm hoping someone smarter and more patient than me can share some of his/her knowledge

I do have "gameplay experience" answers to a couple of your points, but it is of course purely anecdotal as opposed to a real code break exercise I proposed.

Originally posted by Fitz
Does switching governments empty the war weariness "bank", or does it stay at the same value but have no effect? Is this result different when switching between Repub & Demo from any other govt switch?

Definitely doesn't empty the bank, because I've tried going from Democracy to Monarchy and back again a turn or two later only to find myself in immediate anarchy. Don't know if the bank will gradually decrease while in Monarchy but while still at war, or whether the bank is "frozen" until end of hostitlities / government change.

Another question: Can war-weariness actually increase happiness (ie the bank go negative) as the manual implies, or does it mearly mitigate the effect of prior war-weariness being reapplied?
In other words, if you have 0 WW, do your citizens get happier? And if you have WW in the bank and war is redeclared by the AI, is it less than you would expect due to mere passage of time? If you have WW from a current war with one civ and another declares war on you, does the current WW from the first war get decreased?

Seemingly conflicting experience here. On numerous occassions in my games, upon a declaration of war by the AI, I start getting WLTKD's in a bunch of cities -- this from a peacetime situation without war for many, many turns -- so I concluded (again on anecdotal evidence) that the WW bank can indeed "go negative" and produce short-lived happiness. Now, the manual speaks to a reduction of war weariness because of the release of tensions caused by a war footing, which would imply an accumulation of some WW even without war!, but frankly I haven't the foggiest of notions of what could really be considered to cause the "tensions of a war footing" in the game (lots of military units, angry neighbors? sounds a little far-fetched and overly complex given the simpler approaches taken to game concepts of greater importance than WW)

OTOH, and mixing apples and oranges a bit here, on numerous occassions, after having been at war with one civ for some time, when 2 or 3 other civs declare war on me (through simple greed or pursuant to recently struck alliances) I experience a significant jump in WW-caused unhappiness; i.e., even though the declaration against me should help my WW bank, overall effect seems to hurt (and have checked to see if I had units in new enemy territory etc., so I know I'm not blowing through other triggers / flags).

I think I agree with most of your WAGs, but I suspect that the "declare war" factor is just on an on/off flag so that ANY reason for declaring (MPP, civ breaking treaty with you, etc.) is ignored.

If I manage to get anything over the weekend, I'll let you know.

Does this mean you'll run the tests you described? Would love to see the results. (Between work, wife, three kids, I will never get to run tests like this -- unless I want to give up playing the game entirely ).

Catt

[Willem]

Re: Expertise on War Weariness

Originally posted by Catt

* Does the destruction of your units / cities / improvements increase the accumulation of WW, or is the anecdotal evidence of greater WW upon these events a result of the “engaging in combat” and “troops in territory” factors?

Well naturally, if the citizens revolting destroy a Temple etc., then your unhappiness problems will get worse.

* Is the "declare war" factor clean and simple, or more nuanced, affected by the following factors:
- Whether or not you are forced to declare war through the operation of an MPP after an ally is attacked
- Whether or not you are "forced" to declare war by an AI repeatedly breaking treaties (i.e., crossing your territory, which the manual indicates can be viewed as a treaty breach)
- Whether or not you "force" a declaration of war by repeatedly engaging in espionage / territory breaches / tribute demands in an effort to goad the AI into war.

One thing that was mentioned, I believe by Soren, is that if the civ you are at war with is a "traditional" enemy, meaning that you've had a number of run ins with it already, then war weariness is somewhat lessened in your population. Mind you I read that a couple of patches ago.

[Panag]

Re: Re: Expertise on War Weariness

Originally posted by Willem


Well naturally, if the citizens revolting destroy a Temple etc., then your unhappiness problems will get worse.



One thing that was mentioned, I believe by Soren, is that if the civ you are at war with is a "traditional" enemy, meaning that you've had a number of run ins with it already, then war weariness is somewhat lessened in your population. Mind you I read that a couple of patches ago.

hi ,

hmmm , a traditional enemy , hmmm , and how would one become a traditional enemy , .....
maybe the people should "remember" a war for 20 turns , .....
it does not seem to help to click in the editor with the buildings , "reduces WW" on several buildings , it stay's the same , could this be because firaxis has programed certain "fixed" numbers , .....

have a nice day / night

[Fitz]

It means that if my usually busy schedule allows, I may take a few hours getting to the save game point in a 2 civ game. I'm less than 10 turns away from finishing my current game via spaceship victory, so we'll see. Incidentally, I'll try to set as many baseline factor as possible for the first attempt (regent, standard map, but only 2 civs, etc). I'll probably also start with by declaring war myself, so as to avoid the questions related to having war declared upon you.

As to the government switch, I'm imagining that he WW factor is seperately saved regardless of government choice, but has zero effect and cannot be added to unless in the appropriate gov't. Thus, it would remain at the same level until the war ends, then start decreasing over time.

I too have the feeling that a brand new declaration of war has caused WLTK days to start in my civ, implying a negative "bank" is possible. No proof though. At the same time, when I first read the WW description in the manual I intepreted it to mean "war-footing" as an ephermal thing that you could not actually measure, but could be assumed to have occured prior to any declaration of war. Besides, I thought the manual said "war-tension" not war-footing (at work right now so can't check). In that case, you can easily imagine that your citizens were feeling tense about a possible break out of war, regardless of actual military units on the map, their positions, or the opposing civs "mood" towards you.

Also, if you experience a major increase in WW with new civs joining in, that implies two things. 1) WW is addative in some manner with multiple civs and 2) the WW decreases with declaration of war effect only occurs if there was no wars to begin with.

As to the declare war "flag" on that effect, what I was realy trying to say was that I imagine there is only two states that make the determination as to whether you get a small decrease (or "negative" effect from) WW. Did you declare war, or did they? I think the factor that caused the declaration of war is irrelevant other than determining who actually makes the declaration of war. For example, if you attack and thereby trigger an MPP, the AI is still actually making the declaration of war, if you intrude and refuse to leave, you are actually making the declaration of war, etc.

Edit:
Cross posted, but if the "traditional" enemy factor is true, that will have a rather huge effect in trying to get a baseline from a 1 vs 1 test. FOr example, when trying to measure the decrease in WW over time between declared wars, you may have to also take into account that this is the same time you've fought this enemy.

On the other hand, if the "traditional enemy" effect only applies to the accumilation of new WW, not the actual starting point of reduced WW, then maybe it won't be such a problem. Definately something to test, both the new rate and at what point the new rate starts (ie when is the civ considered a "traditional enemy").

[Willem]

My, you sure do enjoy complicating things don't you?

[Fitz]

Yep. That's one of my main complaints about Civ3. I wanted it to come with the formulas for all this stuff in the manual, or at least some basic formula, even if it doesn't explain what the factor involved are.

Something like:

WW unhapiness = WWprevious + (WWrate)*(aggressionlevel) - (wardeclaredfactor)
Where WWrate is positive in war and negative when not.

Although we CAN guess at that from the wording of the desriptions.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Fitz
Yep. That's one of my main complaints about Civ3. I wanted it to come with the formulas for all this stuff in the manual, or at least some basic formula, even if it doesn't explain what the factor involved are.

Something like:

WW unhapiness = WWprevious + (WWrate)*(aggressionlevel) - (wardeclaredfactor)
Where WWrate is positive in war and negative when not.

Although we CAN guess at that from the wording of the desriptions.

Before you devote hours trying to work it out, why don't you ask one of the Firaxis people how it works? They gave us the formula for culture flipping, so who knows, they just might respond. Sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go through, but hey, if you enjoy doing that sort of thing, by all means.

[Fitz]

Test file #1

Beacuase they didn't give the full culture flip formula, ala SMAC at least. I would still plan to test that too, except that it's not posible as far as I can see. Anyhow, I'll shoot off an email to them this weekend.

Attached file is the setup as best as I could do first time. Standard map, Pangea, avg everything, Chinese (player) & Americans. Unfotunately the Americans declared war once already, so if there is a traditional enemy effect, it's in this one. Just changed to Republic then saved, beeined for Republic.

I'll start some variations to see what happens later. BTW, you may want to check the citizens in the cities first, as they may have been left to counter anarchy unhappiness.

[watorrey]

In a recent game as a religious civ, i was at war as a democracy. I changed to republic once WW got bad and it made zero difference. So i switched to monarchy. Many, many turns later (it was a looong war, i'm guessing 30 - 40 turns) i switched back to republic only to find that WW was still at the same level it had been.

It also appears to be dynamic getting better and worse as conditions dictate. This could be explained away however. As the cities grow, there will be a different ratio between 'too crowded' and peaceniks.

[DrSpike]

Hehe rather you than me.......but a useful exercise if you can pull it off. Some more anecdotal evidence:

You can fight a defensive war in democracy indefinitely without war weariness so long as you don't lose lots of troops, or get land pillaged. I routinely wait for the AI to attack whilst in democracy and defend with stacks of artillery so I don't lose units. Additionally you can maintain the war thirstiness indefinitely.

In my experience as soon as you attack on their territory war weariness sets in in democracy. However republic works differently. I have seen people remark on fighting wars in the enemy territory whilst in republic with no WW. I have done this, but not enough to make any detailed comments. It does seem far more favourable than fighting in enemy territory in democracy, and probably depends on how many units you lose and who declared war.

[Catt]

Re: Test file #1

Originally posted by Fitz
Attached file is the setup as best as I could do first time. Standard map, Pangea, avg everything, Chinese (player) & Americans. Unfotunately the Americans declared war once already, so if there is a traditional enemy effect, it's in this one. Just changed to Republic then saved, beeined for Republic.

Fitz - fantastic. Thanks for taking the first step. My current game should conclude before too long, and then I'll start playing with your test game. What difficulty level is this on?

It also occurred to me that it may be possible to set up a clearer test game to avoid the traditional enemy possibility (which hadn't occured to me) -- along the lines of what you did, but with continents instead of pangea. That way, one of the two civs should have to discover navagation (or magnatesim?) in order to make contact (assuming on different continents). Could also more easily keep track of how many units in terrotory, etc. I may try to do exactly what you did but on continents.

I must admit, thinking about testing this is depressing -- there just seem to be so many variables that could influence the WW calcs, and I can't think of a away to isolate / identify them (total population, overcrowding effects, pop growth, etc., etc., etc.)

On another note. Don't know what I was thinking:

Originally posted by Catt
Now, the manual speaks to a reduction of war weariness because of the release of tensions caused by a war footing, which would imply an accumulation of some WW even without war!, but frankly I haven't the foggiest of notions of what could really be considered to cause the "tensions of a war footing" in the game (lots of military units, angry neighbors? sounds a little far-fetched and overly complex given the simpler approaches taken to game concepts of greater importance than WW)

Went back to the manual when I got home last night -- it makes no mention of "war footing" -- just says that a declaration of war against you actually decreases war weariness "perhaps because it relieves the prewar uncertainty and tension." Must have created the whole notion of "war footing" in my own mind.

[HazieDaVampire]

Nukes should effect WW, and it should work both ways.
If your a small civ being beaten, a nuke should increase WW
If your a large civ, and you get nuked, WW will be revesed. Your civilians are going to want blood for the attack!

[Panag]

Originally posted by HazieDaVampire
Nukes should effect WW, and it should work both ways.
If your a small civ being beaten, a nuke should increase WW
If your a large civ, and you get nuked, WW will be revesed. Your civilians are going to want blood for the attack!

hi ,

the use of nuke's as a result on selfdefense or a preemtive strike should be low , when used to attack , it should cause for 20 turns some WW , ...

have a nice day