Expertise on War Weariness

[Catt]

Test File

Okay, I've created a scenario that anyone can use to experiment with war weariness. Just download the attached into your scenario folder AND CHANGE THE FILE EXTENSION FROM .SAV to .BIC (cannot upload .bic files). Start Civ III and click "Load Scenario" from the game menu. The scenario makes the following changes to standard game:

Difficulty is regent.

Human player and up to 2 AI players start with : 6 settlers, 12 workers, 3 warriors, 8 spearman, 6 horsemen, 6 swordsmen, 3 catapults; 2000 gold.

Human player and up to 2 AI players start with all ancient age techs, and start in the Republic form of government.

All ancient age wonders now require "Integrated Defense" as a pre-requisite (to avoid having the AI simply waste production by trying to build all wonders simultaneously). I thought about (but ultimately did not) making all happiness producing wonders also require "Integrated Defense" just to prevent them from polluting the "happiness" quotient, but figured the human tested could simply not build the wonders.

By selecting a tiny pangea map with only 1 or 2 AI players, I believe a "realistic" game scenario can be created fairly quickly without risking the "traditional enemy" problem Fitz encountered (best way I can think of without true scenario creation possible).


Catt

[Catt]

Testing Variables Will Be Very, Very Difficult

I needed to finish a game before I completed the scenario file I uploaded in the above post, and the events of that game indicate to me the challenge of deciphering the WW formulae through empirical evidence / experimentation.

Background: v1.21f, Monarch, Tiny, Continents, 3 AI (India, China, Persia, all randomly selected), playing as Japan, all victory conditions enabled. Got cut off from the land grab phase by an unfortunate start position, and never could produce enough units to war with the offending landgrabber (China). India declared war early (in the ancient era), and I more or less wiped them out and took their land (but was still the smallest civ in the game by land area). Played peaceful builder / catch-up for virtually the entire remaining game, shooting for a diplomatic or spaceship victory. Lots of trading with the AI, they were almost always "Polite" or "Gracious." Went without any war until 1600's A.D., when Mao, the most powerful of the remaining civs, just a few turns after initiating an MPP with me, used his RoP to sneak attack me (bahstad!). I did get multiple WLTKDs upon Mao's sneak attack!

I was in Democracy, and unwilling to change governments unless forced to do so. War went on for quite some time, Mao invading primarily with infantry and some rifleman. Lots of artillery barrages from me on the invasion force, with limited attacks on the wounded with my few tanks, some infantry and the occassional samurai. I was playing almost an entirely defensive war, with virtually all the action taking place in my territory.

SO, the WW factors present: at war for some time (20+ turns), lots of AI troops in my territory, a few token troops of mine in AI's territory, lots of combat, very few lost units and no lost cities, some pillaged improvements.

My city governors were set to manage moods, and I never had a single city go into disorder, never saw more than a few entertainers in any city, and never noticed a happy citizen-to-unhappy citizen ratio worse then 8 - 5 or so, so I'm thinking at the time that my governors have quite a handle on WW. Without any warning I discerned, without rampant unhappiness, and without any instance of civil disorder, my democracy was suddenly overthrown! This had only happened to me once before, and in entirely different circumstances (which at that time I considered the cause of the seeming aberration). My fear is that WW can grow to the point of overthrow, without actually causing rampant unhappiness and disorder as the hallmarks of increasing WW. How are we to decipher the formulae for WW in such an envirnoment?

BTW -- all of this is from memory late last night as I was trying to finish the game and create the scenario posted above -- when I get the time in the next few days, I will go back and take a very close look at my situation just before the overthrow (I have the saved game of the turn before the Chinese sneak attack, and thereafter had been saving the game about every 3rd turn, and so must have a save reasonably close to the time of the overthrow -- just need to find it -- and will be able to specifically list all variables).

Firaxis, please help with some concrete guidance on the intricacies of war weariness!

Catt

[watorrey]

Originally posted by Lucilla


I could imagine, that militaristic civs are more forgiving. Maybe it's also important, with whom you had your fight and how your previous relation has been?
Did you change government in between?

In my example... WW from the egyptian war was expected since it was a long, hard fought war. I don't remember changing gov'ts before declaring war on the indians. It wasn't very many turns after the egyptian war and i knew i was going to do it. I had excellent relations with the indians, so there was no traditional enemy factor (which we may be misinterpreting).

The fact is, that as a militaristic civ, the WW got reset to zero between wars as a republic.