Happy war????

[MarshalN]

This is really weird, and I think it's a bug. In my current game (regent, English) I just switched to democracy. I forgot that I have an ongoing war with other civs.... both of whom declared on me because they were asking for something I wasn't going to give up (some important tech, forgot what). I even forgot there was a war because they're half a world away and so there's nothing really going on between us even though we're at war.

Surprisingly, people aren't unhappy in my civ. I am in democracy, and I don't even remember how long I've been at war with these folks. In fact, most of my cities have at least half of the citizens as happy, and the others are mostly content. I don't have any luxuries from taxes -- just the ones on the map (9 of them) and no entertainers anywhere.

Here's what's REALLY weird.... I remembered all of a sudden one turn that I was actually warring these guys, so I thought I should declare peace with them and maybe trade something. Since I was making tonnes of money, I just offered them some cash and they took it and we made peace. Now get ready : people in my cities got mad! Most of my cities that had those happy people were now in riots! People were unhappy like they're supposed to in a civ that size with democracy. I was wondering why I didn't need entertainers, and it seemed as though the war kept them happy.

So I reloaded and didn't undeclare and see what happens.... nothing, they're still their happy self. A few turns later, the Russians declared war on me for no reason. Some of those cities that were happy just got happier after the declaration..... they went into WLTQD!! Population in those cities didn't grow, and I didn't do anything. Can ANYONE explain this? It's baffling me. Mind you, I'm not complaining, but I don't think war weariness is supposed to make people happier hehehehehe

[star mouse]

I'm curious as to what happens if you make peace with everyone in the same turn, do you still get riots?

[Sevorak]

Actually, it is intended that if war is declared on you and you are in democracy or republic, you get "reverse war weariness" and your citizens get happier - the idea of "defending freedom, justice, and the (American, Babylonian, Zulu) way".

-Sev

[MarshalN]

But you'd think as the war drags on, the war weariness will set in and people will get less happy, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all. They've been happy for quite a while now for as long as I can remember.... at least 20 or 30 turns. I can just see someone exploiting this and getting ai civs that are two continents away to declare on you to keep his people happy!?? This is wrong.

[Kc7mxo]

This happened to me yesterday. I pissed the chinese off on purpose and then they declared war on me, and people were dancing in the streets. I guess they felt the war was justified.

[Xin Yu]

Same here, under Despotism as well.

[andkal]

I think that a important part in the war weariness factor, is if a lot of your soldiers are outside of your territory, inside enemy territory. In your example you have all your troops in your territory(if I have understood you right), and the enemy is not destroying any of your units or cities, so why should they be unhappy. To the population it seems as though as although another civ has chosen to attack you, they have not done any damage to your civ, and this makes the population happy, yeah even happier, cause they feel they live in a safe and strong civ.

At least that's my theory. Could be awfully wrong though..

It would be interesting to see what would happen if you started moving troops out of your territory, towards the other civ's.

[Grim Legacy]

War weariness isn't a factor under Despotism/Monarchy is it?

Yet, in my Monarchic Empire I got the same result. Happiness from war... even the loss of luxuries through losing trading partners was compensated. It even seemed to increase as war dragged on.

I am almost certain that it can't be due to my wars being of a 'defending' kind. In fact, *I* attacked my opponents ruthlessly, and with a vile stab in the back too...

Pretty nice bonus to being in war... WLTKD is very sweet for production, which means more units -longer war, more happiness.

[MarshalN]

I did actually, hit the Russians a few times, never dragged on though since that game was getting boring. But I kept the saved game for experimentation, if I ever feel like it.

The mere fact that a war increases happiness by so much makes me wonder if they did something wrong. Afterall, things have gone from cities that need entertainers (or they riot) to becoming WLTKD.... that's a big jump. In size 12 cities, we're talking about at least 3 or 4 citizens that got moved from unhappy to happy, which is huge.

[Travathian]

Has anyone gone thru a prolonged war during Democracy?

I don't mean switching to Dem, a long time while under Dem.

I was at war for numerous turns, my people loved me (access to all 8 lux and 20% happy ratio), and then suddenly my empire is thrown into Anarchy?!?

After the 4 or 5 turns of Anarchy, I went right back to Dem.

I couldn't find anything in the manual about this, anyone else had this happen?

Once again, let me stress that I had maybe a handful of unhappy people in my whole empire. My core cities of 25+ had 20+ happy citizens each and no cities had riots or resistors.

[MarshalN]

I'll try that tonight when I get home. The Russians declared on me after I switched, so maybe I'll keep playing and see how the war goes. I'll let you know. But my people love me too....

[ICMB]

Originally posted by Travathian
Has anyone gone thru a prolonged war during Democracy?

I don't mean switching to Dem, a long time while under Dem.

It depends on what you consider a long-term war.

In one of my early games, in Chieftain (which may have been a big part of it), I waged war on the Russians for about 50 turns to wipe out their massive empire with my stockpile of troops.

I did have Police Stations and Universal Suffrage, and I kept my luxury rates very high.

There were no attacks on my homeland during the time, and my troops were winning handily by sheer force of numbers.

Perhaps war-weariness is also affected by your success/failures in the campaign...it certainly would make sense that the people would be happier if you are taking enemy cities and suffering few losses.

- ICMB