My war support is slipping but I am not sure why (in a long war)

[Vigor]

It is 1948 I've been at war against the axis as Japan for close to 4 years.
War support is still at 83% but I am concerned because it has dropped by 10% in the last two weeks.
***Casualties:***
total casualties me 838k them 15.58 million
-so if it is casualties, how are they maintaining their war support?
-I do have a -20% war support malus for casualties despite running the "Exhort Heroism" decision almost constantly.
-About 100k of my casualties came from getting nuked. I'm wondering if the nuke caused the drop. It didn't cause any drop initially. I actually wondered if a nuke would increase or decrease my war support or do nothing to it.
***Enemy Bombing:***
i have a -2.5 malus for bombing but i run the "Bolster Spirits" decision almost nonstop
I'm killing a lot of bombers
-the zone getting bombed shows for the tally
--our fighters lost 151
--enemy fighters lost 57
--enemy bombers lost 149
My fighters aren't doing much of anything the bombers are mostly dying to AA
Part of that problem is due to them having almost 2x the number of factories so they have more planes.
Part of the problem is Japan gets behind in research tech by about 1943 so they have better fighters (i'm researching jet fighter2 now)
Part of the problem is also that the area getting bombed hasn't been a priority to me. I keep air superiority over where my troops are fighting. They can't reach what they are bombing with troops so I haven't been concerned.
Part of the problem is despite denying them any natural rubber, I think that only causes them to build planes 15% slower. (i expected them to only be able to build them using synthetic rubber but looking at production it looks like maybe they just build them 15% slower)
***Sunk Convoys***
I never lose any convoys. I have no malus. I don't really kill any convoys any more because they don't have any.
***Aces***
I have a lot of aces but I'm not really getting new ones any more. I suspect this might be the problem. Now that the enemies have no ships that are willing to fight, I'm not making aces with my carriers. I think I have lost at least 4 aces during the last 2 weeks. On the other hand, i'm not sure gaining aces, killing enemy aces or losing aces has any effect on war support. My first 100 jet fighters haven't finished training yet. At the rate they are training I might reach moscow(Axis held) before they are ready to fight. Even when they are ready it doesn't look like thay are an improvement on tier 3 fighters so i'm managing expectations.

So my theories...
1. the nuke did it
2. losing aces because my aircraft are inferior is doing it

If the nuke did it, how often can i expect to get nuked? Do they eventually just force end the war by spamming nukes?
If aces are the problem, what can I do? Make 100 1 plane aircraft wings and move all of my aces to empty wings on standby until I can equip them with decent aircraft? I don't see a way to remove them from the plane without moving them to another plane.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

I did some runs against full allies(after germany defeat) post 1948 (so they have +insane air power, +latest stuff +nuke spam), just some advices:

- Nukes have restrictions on AI code to use it, normally they don't nuke air guarded area, leave 400 fighters in your cores states/high vp areas on air superiority mission.
- AI don't nuke occupied zones, its prioritize cores/annexed.
- Air bombing is nerfed since BBA release, state AA level are powerful and eat chunks of bombers, at some point they don't have enough bombers to get air superiority to nuke.

War support:

- the 3 decisions keep war support in check/positive, if is decaying "misteriously", just check if u don't switched to a minister with war support malus or focus tree giving malus.

 

[Secret Master]

It is 1948 I've been at war against the axis as Japan for close to 4 years.
War support is still at 83% but I am concerned because it has dropped by 10% in the last two weeks.
***Casualties:***
total casualties me 838k them 15.58 million
-so if it is casualties, how are they maintaining their war support?
-I do have a -20% war support malus for casualties despite running the "Exhort Heroism" decision almost constantly.
-About 100k of my casualties came from getting nuked. I'm wondering if the nuke caused the drop. It didn't cause any drop initially. I actually wondered if a nuke would increase or decrease my war support or do nothing to it.
***Enemy Bombing:***
i have a -2.5 malus for bombing but i run the "Bolster Spirits" decision almost nonstop
I'm killing a lot of bombers
-the zone getting bombed shows for the tally
--our fighters lost 151
--enemy fighters lost 57
--enemy bombers lost 149
My fighters aren't doing much of anything the bombers are mostly dying to AA
Part of that problem is due to them having almost 2x the number of factories so they have more planes.
Part of the problem is Japan gets behind in research tech by about 1943 so they have better fighters (i'm researching jet fighter2 now)
Part of the problem is also that the area getting bombed hasn't been a priority to me. I keep air superiority over where my troops are fighting. They can't reach what they are bombing with troops so I haven't been concerned.
Part of the problem is despite denying them any natural rubber, I think that only causes them to build planes 15% slower. (i expected them to only be able to build them using synthetic rubber but looking at production it looks like maybe they just build them 15% slower)
***Sunk Convoys***
I never lose any convoys. I have no malus. I don't really kill any convoys any more because they don't have any.
***Aces***
I have a lot of aces but I'm not really getting new ones any more. I suspect this might be the problem. Now that the enemies have no ships that are willing to fight, I'm not making aces with my carriers. I think I have lost at least 4 aces during the last 2 weeks. On the other hand, i'm not sure gaining aces, killing enemy aces or losing aces has any effect on war support. My first 100 jet fighters haven't finished training yet. At the rate they are training I might reach moscow(Axis held) before they are ready to fight. Even when they are ready it doesn't look like thay are an improvement on tier 3 fighters so i'm managing expectations.

So my theories...
1. the nuke did it
2. losing aces because my aircraft are inferior is doing it

If the nuke did it, how often can i expect to get nuked? Do they eventually just force end the war by spamming nukes?
If aces are the problem, what can I do? Make 100 1 plane aircraft wings and move all of my aces to empty wings on standby until I can equip them with decent aircraft? I don't see a way to remove them from the plane without moving them to another plane.

Post a save for a more detailed analysis.

But I can draw some conclusions based on the data provided.


1) war support loss from casualties is capped. This leads to the situation you see where someone with 169 million losses is tied for war support loss with 500k.

2) War bonds drops war support when used.

3) 80% + war support is just fine. You only get negative events from low was support or low stability when lower than 50%. Note that negative events from bad support can be mitigated with PP, so countries like Germany with a bonus to PP are harder to hurt in this way.

 

[Vigor]

Post a save for a more detailed analysis.

But I can draw some conclusions based on the data provided.


1) war support loss from casualties is capped. This leads to the situation you see where someone with 169 million losses is tied for war support loss with 500k.

2) War bonds drops war support when used.

3) 80% + war support is just fine. You only get negative events from low was support or low stability when lower than 50%. Note that negative events from bad support can be mitigated with PP, so countries like Germany with a bonus to PP are harder to hurt in this way.

1. what is the cap? once you hit the cap is all combat casualty decision bonus positive? (i never get the listed bonus always something less which indicates to me that current casualties are mitigating it)
2. I initially dropped to 93% by doing war bonds, then got back up to 95 before dropping back down to 83 fairly suddenly. From my calculations it shouldn't have dropped me below 100% but it did or i wouldn't have done it.
3. I was thinking I needed the full 100% considering I am already sacrificing a lot in IC/divisions/manpower/aircraft to the enemy. I figured i needed the mobilization speed buff. That being said I'm not actually sure what the mobilization speed buff does. I was thinking it sounded like it effects production, maybe training speed but googling it appears it doesn't do anything unless you change laws then only effects manpower.

I won't fight on core territory unless something big changes. I don't need command power.

 

[Vigor]

A day or 2 after this save my war support dropped to 75 from 83. Nothing really happened besides Exhort Heroism expired. Is exhort heroism a temporary buff?

The only other thing I can think of that I have been doing which could conceivably effect warscore would be fighting bloody naval invasions (fighting 2 RN, 1 involving 8 attacking divisions with another 8 soon to join the battle, the other with 4 divisions and it looks like i might lose both) and also attacking encircled enemies which have last stand enabled (another bloody battle) But my combat casualties malus hasn't grown though it does have a weekly malus of -0.5% now that Exhort Heroism has expired. my malus is -20%. with weekly -0.50

One other thing is abnormal. I have 3 divisions upgrading in the field to a beefy division. They are upgrading from 9 width to 58 width. If those reinforcements are being treated as casualties that could explain a lot. That amounts to almost 60,000 manpower right there.

Whatever is happening it is haippening to my base war support. I am pretty sure my base war support was 87.5% before clicking on war bonds. Now it is 57.5 so my base war support has dropped by 30%!

 

[pheonicia]

Pretty sure the cap for bombing, casualties, and convoys is -30%. Each.

 

[Vigor]

well, I have room for more combat casualties damage then but I should only be going down .03 per week RN. I just dropped to 71% now only 2 days later. My base war support has now dropped to 53.5%. So I have lost 4% base war support in the last 2 days... Something seems very broken. I'm gonna try to save and reload and hope that fixes it. If not, i really think this post should be moved to bug reports.

 

[Vigor]

reloading didn't fix anything so I loaded up a game from before I started war bonds. War bonds says it costs 7.5% but my base war support at that time was 87.5. Clicking war bonds instantly lowered my base war support by 10, to 77.5.

That being said, the war bonds taking 2.5 base war support than it says it does is just a minor bug and not the real problem.

I think the nuke is the real problem wiping out my war support. The nuke happened in northern ireland zzz, my puppet while i was liberating it. I loaded to my closest save game before the nuke and my base war support was still holding steady at 77.5.

The irony here is I am absolutely kicking the crap out of the axis. I have killed millions of troops in the last few weeks by encirclement. They kill 100k with a nuke and it is my people who lose support for the war?

 

[Secret Master]

They kill 100k with a nuke and it is my people who lose support for the war?

War support is not a zero sum game. Your war support does not impact enemy war support and vice versa.

I tried looking at your save, but I couldn't open it. Are you using mods? Or what version of the game are you running?

 

[Kanitatlan]

I'm experiencing a very similar effect. My base war support which was never that great has collapsed down to 2.1% from over 50% without there being any indication of why. That's base support before modifiers, Tagged around a bit and there are no spying effects. Can't be silent nukes as there isn't that sort of damage being repaired.

I'm puzzled too.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

well, I have room for more combat casualties damage then but I should only be going down .03 per week RN. I just dropped to 71% now only 2 days later. My base war support has now dropped to 53.5%. So I have lost 4% base war support in the last 2 days... Something seems very broken. I'm gonna try to save and reload and hope that fixes it. If not, i really think this post should be moved to bug reports.

71% war suppor with -20% for casualties seems fine.

use Pride of the fleet(50PP) + Attaché(100 PP) u will get 15% extra getting into 86.

If u use the decision to rebuff casualties lost WC then 86 + 20 = 106

 

[Vigor]

War support is not a zero sum game. Your war support does not impact enemy war support and vice versa.

I tried looking at your save, but I couldn't open it. Are you using mods? Or what version of the game are you running?

it is version 1.12.14(5555) sorry (so I have to load using the steam->properties->betas->beta participation->1.12.14Avalanche(Old) sorry

 

[Vigor]

71% war suppor with -20% for casualties seems fine.

use Pride of the fleet(50PP) + Attaché(100 PP) u will get 15% extra getting into 86.

If u use the decision to rebuff casualties lost WC then 86 + 20 = 106

I don't know how to use pride of the fleet does it require some DLC? I only have Together for Victory, Death or Dishonor and Waking the Tiger.

The decision to gain war support from casualties adjusts weekly war support by +0.6 per week but is adjusted by current casualties taken so I am only getting +0.1 war support per week from it (and right now i can't afford it). I am taking a lot of losses because i have turned up the heat on the axis to try to prevent the next nuke. I'm also gaining ground really fast by turning up the heat.

So that leaves Atache. So, I send an atache to Manchuria? That will give me 7.5? The problem is, I'm losing 1.5% base war support per day I think. I went from 87.5 war support to 53.5 (so 24 base war support lost) in about 14 days. So the atache would buy me about 5 days. In that time I would recoup 6.25% the cost of making the atache. I'm not sure that will help.

YIKES-CORRECTION (Edit) 87.5-53.5 = 34.0. So I'm losing over 2% war support per day. The war will be over in less than 1 month. (i assume 0% war score will effectively end my war, somehow) This sounds more like hacking than a bug but this is a single player game.

I'm experiencing a very similar effect. My base war support which was never that great has collapsed down to 2.1% from over 50% without there being any indication of why. That's base support before modifiers, Tagged around a bit and there are no spying effects. Can't be silent nukes as there isn't that sort of damage being repaired.

I'm puzzled too.

Have you been nuked at all? There would be no damage to repair if they nuked your puppet as they did mine. (unless they hit troops too but troop damage would repair itself over time)

At least I'm not the only person experiencing this.

 

[ohms_law]

I think reviewing this would be helpful: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Government#War_support

Mouse over your war support icon and grab a screenshot of the tooltip.

It's not going to fall to 0. It'll fall to the base, though (which I'm guessing is probably 40).
0 war support doesn't end anything, it just maximizes the penalties from being below 50.

 

[Vigor]

I think reviewing this would be helpful: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Government#War_support

Mouse over your war support icon and grab a screenshot of the tooltip.

It's not going to fall to 0. It'll fall to the base, though (which I'm guessing is probably 40).
0 war support doesn't end anything, it just maximizes the penalties from being below 50.

DId you read 1 word of this thread?

I already posted the tooltip 8 posts above this one. We are far far beyond the wiki.

 

[ohms_law]

You posted that yesterday, and your WS was 71 with a base of 53. Sounds like it fell some more (the base that is).
It'll raise or fall to whatever the base value is.

What's the confusion, exactly?

 

[Vigor]

2 screenshots of tooltips, one from how it was on Oct 1 before the nuke, a 2nd from October 16th. My BASE war support has dropped 34% in 15 days. What is it you are confused about?

It seems to me that this game forum is very different from every other one I have used. In every other forum the people who post a lot tend to act like a band of ruffians who are hurrying to show off to each other by shaming every hapless, lazy, idiot newb who dares post even when the person isn't happless, lazy or new. I figure they are the reason games have as many bugs as this even 6 years after launch. They are preventing the devs from acknowledging bugs. I fear they may even be paid to pretend games have no bugs.

This is the first time I have felt very offended on this forum.

Edit: I stated one thing incorrectly. As of oct 1 the base war support was 77.5 not 87.5. The first drop in war support was due to war bonds which says it drops you 7.5% but really drops you 10%. So in the last15 days I actually lost 24% base war support since the nuke. And it is continuing to drop at a rate of about 1.5%/day.

 

[ohms_law]

Well, it's not going to fall to 0. Honestly, war support isn't really that big of a deal, and I'm not sure why you're so concerned about it. It has a very minor effect on anything that you do. My suggestion is to just ride it out, unless there's something specific that you need higher war support for (there are a couple of things). It's generally not worth thinking about this much, especially late game.

I do agree that the tooltip could be better, though. It really doesn't explain why the base war support is at the value that it's at.

But, your Oct16 WS tooltip is telling you that it's going to fall to 53.5.

 

[Vigor]

But, your Oct16 WS tooltip is telling you that it's going to fall to 53.5.

I think you're reading that wrong. 53.5 is not the value it is heading towards. It is a base/start value before all of the other modifiers. And that is the value that is mysteriously falling for no reason. Even if it were the nuke, the nuke didn't hit any of my territory. Very few of my people were even effected by it. I have worked hard to rid the world of places my enemies could attack my core territory from (though currently independent nations in threatening places have a tendency to want to join the axis - i don't think there is a lot I can do about that)

Even the wiki says that it can cause a crisis at minimum value. If I were to have a civil war or something it would probably amount to a loss. The US has been making war goals against me for years, I figure eventually they will attack too. If I see an enemy with low war support i see it as a weakness. I would think AI countries would make similar assessments. I suspect nationalist spain will also join the fight before this is over.

If it is the nuke causing this, i think the nuke mechanics could use adjustments. Germany nuking Ireland would effectively be like nuking themselves. That fallout would head to Britain/Germany/Norway/Poland. I think the only reason a nuke ended the war with Japan IRL is because Japan was already losing.

For right now I'm taking a day off. But regardless, somewhere in here is either a bug or a bad invisible game mechanic that should be fixed.

 

[Secret Master]

I'm experiencing a very similar effect. My base war support which was never that great has collapsed down to 2.1% from over 50% without there being any indication of why. That's base support before modifiers, Tagged around a bit and there are no spying effects. Can't be silent nukes as there isn't that sort of damage being repaired.

I'm puzzled too.

Are you running all DLC and no mods? And the non-beta version of the game?

If so, toss a save and let me take a look. I recently did a whole video about messing around with war support, so I'd be really interested in seeing if somehow there are new magical sources of war support reduction.

Not just to help you, but to help me overthrow Hitler more efficiently the next time I do it.

Well, it's not going to fall to 0. Honestly, war support isn't really that big of a deal, and I'm not sure why you're so concerned about it. It has a very minor effect on anything that you do.

Let's make sure everyone in the thread understands what war support does and does not do:

Mobilization speed only effects how fast new manpower is conscripted when you change laws.
Division attack/defense only applies to core territory, obviously. No big deal there.
Command power gain is somewhat important in certain builds.
Stability loss is important for obvious reasons.

But there are other effects when it gets really low:

The surrender limit penalty can be a real nuisance for certain countries.

What isn't displayed are the bad events that fire when war support drops below 50. These include desertion events and so on. Most can be mitigated via PP, but even when mitigated, they have RNG effects.

What war support doesn't do is directly nerf the economy once at war. The stability loss will hit factory efficiency and consumer goods, but if you are sitting at 0 war support and still have 80 stability, you are only economically hurt by the 80 stability.

Note that at peace, having low war support will give you nasty events/decisions if you have war economy or total mobilization in place.