Ever since Beyond The Sword came out and I think more specifically the first patch, I’ve been noticing some really weird things happening - I think war weariness and the apostolic palace need to be adjusted a bit.
Layout
In this previous game I’ve been playing on the big and small map type (medium size, 7 civs, whatever the “normal” difficulty setting is - noble I think), the world was basically one big continent with everyone on it and a few little islands around it.
The main continent was basically in two hemispheres with a short, but narrow bit of land joining them. I was on the eastern hemisphere, roughly in the middle, playing as the Dutch. To my west were the French (Louis 14th) and Russians (Peter), to my east was Zara Jacob. We all formed the Hindu religious block. (I usually play without a state religion, but this game was so polarised that I decided to join in) Then to the west of Peter and Louis was Joao (the Portuguese). His capital blocked the passage further west to Shaka and Charlemagne. They were all Buddhist.
Early game
Early in the game I was far ahead of everyone else, so for some reason Joao declared war on me (even though no-one in the eastern hemisphere liked him and Peter and Louis were in the way). I was already considering having an early war, so had a large army ready, so I made Louis and Peter declare war on him which meant he couldn’t reach me. Then I took a bunch of his cities and either destroyed them or handed them to Peter or Louis.
In the meantime Shaka declared war on almost everyone and he started to take some of Charlamagne’s cities. I made sure that Peter, Louis and Zara all loved me to bits, thinking that I can’t exactly conquer the world being surrounded by my allies, so I’ll go for a diplomatic victory (wipe out all the people that don’t like me while making sure that everyone else loves me and they like each other a little bit less)
Mid game
Suddenly Shaka became Charlemagne and Joao’s master almost simultaneously and shot to the top of the score list. No idea how he managed this with almost no tech, but OK.. This meant that the west basically declared war on the entire east. It was easy to keep Peter and Louis at war with him and to periodically even get Zara involved.
During the early mid game Zara had the tech lead, but then during the late mid game I passed everyone. Suddenly during the late-mid game war weariness became an issue, so all my cities had jails, I built that national wonder that reduces war weariness. Even with this each city had about 11 or 12 unhappiness just from war weariness, so I had to convert to police state and it was suddenly all gone. (the math didn’t make much sense, but I’m no expert there) Obviously my tech rate took a massive hit.
At this stage I had no way out of war (no-one wanted to talk) and I didn’t actually declare war myself.. so.. I kept everyone at war and built massive amounts of tanks, artillery and infantry, then took all the worthwhile Portuguese cities and wiped him off the list.
My plan was to rush through Shaka’s territory, take Charlemagne’s old cities and give it back to him in an effort to get Charlemagne to like me more while dropping Shaka’s score and population - was thinking perhaps Charlemagne will break free from Shaka - I could always go back for him later.
Interesting enough I was only 4th on the list (after Louis, Shaka and Zara), even though I had the most tech, most wonders, by far the most advanced, large and powerful army, but ok.. must be BTS adjustments.
Late game
Suddenly the apostolic palace (in the late 20th century) vote popped up with “stop the war against Shaka”. (Shaka asked for it as far as I worked out) This was weird for a number of reasons, notably the fact that I never even declared war and Shaka was still at the top of the list. (actually - second. He was neck-and-neck with Louis) So Shaka somehow got the whole world in modern times to stop the war against the Buddhists (that they started) even though almost no-one had a state religion any more and the majority of the world was Hindu. This after Shaka killed mostly Buddhists and he was clearly keen for more war considering that he hated everyone else.
I wasn’t going to panic yet - figured I could drop police state for a few turns to tech a little bit and then get my army into position.
And it all goes to hell
Next turn (out of the blue) Zara turns his island cities into a colony, declares war on Louis and on me. (all in one turn) Same turn I pay Peter with “Flight” to declare war on Zara. I also immediately get 12 unhappiness from war weariness in every city despite the fact that I have the national wonder thing and a jail in every city and I didn’t declare war and it has only been one turn. End of that turn Peter declares peace (what happened to that 10 turn thing?) I can ofcourse not even talk to Zara and in two or three turns my cities all go from about size 20 to around size 12. At this point I quit and decided to never play Civilization 4 again.
A number of things were just plain random here:
Zara loved me and Louis for the entire game (which I made very sure of - it was basically my core strategy) and he hated Shaka and Charlemagne, yet he declared war on his friends. Shaka had nothing to offer him to declare war on us (no money, no tech) and we both had bigger armies than him and a much bigger production capacity. Shaka didn’t pose much of a threat to Zara due to Zara’s tech lead and the fact that he was on the other edge of the continent, so I doubt Shaka scared him into doing it. This is like France declaring war on Britain and America in the 21st century with no explanation.
Why declare war on us? It was the late game and he had a tech lead at that time - shouldn’t he be focusing on the space race? Especially considering his personality?
Declaring war on me would be suicide at that time. It would take a few turns to move my massive stacks of advanced, highly experienced units to his cities and a few turns later his 4 mainland cities would be wiped off the map. He turned most if not all of his island cities into a colony and none of them had any production capacity to speak of, so basically I would wipe him out without a fuss..
He made no demands
The fact that my entire population would just choose to stop eating and then all starve to death because they are unhappy with me because someone else declared war on me and didn’t even attack yet just makes no sense. Imagine the mere fact that Japan declared war on America during the second world war caused the Americans to hate their own leadership so much that by 1945 50% of all Americans somehow starved to death even though almost no-one even died in a war yet and America wasn’t even the aggressor?
Conclusion
Seriously.. if things made sense or if the effects of war weariness were a bit more realistic or if you could somehow be able to predict or at least make an educated guess as to what the other leaders would do (as in if they behaved in a rational way or at least consistent with their personality), then I wouldn’t mind, but this is a bit like playing chess, having a strategy, being close to winning and then someone walks past the board and shuffles all the pieces.
This is not an isolated case. It happened in my previous two or three games as well. I got to a point where I was doing everything right and then the new diplomacy and unhappiness changes just screwed me over completely without shots being fired. I understand that they tried to expand the non-war parts of the game, but I think they overdid it a bit somewhere.
Kry vir jou Bioshock of World in Conflict.