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Originally posted by Filou
One thing that would work well (I think) is that you get 1WE point each time you raise war taxes, and you don't lose it untill peace is done instead of the +1RR for the duration of the tax effect. But then WE due to lenghts of wars should be reduced.
Originally posted by Thanak
That, I like very much
i second that.
 

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WE might not be an historic phenomana, but it does achieve one historic result; to get out of war as quickly as possible. Until the current changes, and the lingering post-war WE, single-religion, single culture nations could stay at war with few side affects for very long periods of time. There was simply no reason to ever make peace, and thus the human could enter war with extremely long term goals, guaranteeing victory against a reactive, and short-term AI.

The model might need a little tweaking for non-participating wars, or "wars" against non-Europeans, but if WE is made more historic on a grand level, there will be no sense of urgency to ever get out of a war.

I would like to see the "campaigning season" model of war implemented in the game, but until it is, a 24 month EU war more closely simulates what could be achieved over double, or triple that time. It's quite possible to manage a 10 year war with some minor inconvenience, thus simulating 20-40 years of historic campaigning.

Another problem is the game length; the political and military simulation of 400 years is stretching the engine to it's limit. When historic evidence is used, not just for WE, but for culture/economics/politics etc then perhaps we should confine it to the middle portion of the game. Currently, history can poke large holes in game mechanics when examples from Napoleon's era, or the medieval era are used. It's simply not possible to take all the ingredients of 400 years and cram them into 1 engine without a healthy bunch of exceptions, and abstractions.

While I think the original poster is quite correct with both his arguement and evidence , I think the same arguements can be made against just about every game mechanism.

When you think of WE as a means to an end though, the current model, outside a few exceptions, makes the decisions a ruler must make more historically accurate, despite an a-historic method of doing so.
 

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Originally posted by Dinsdale
WE might not be an historic phenomana, but it does achieve one historic result; to get out of war as quickly as possible.

although i understand why the game should have abstractions in order to more accurately represent choices of leaders, i disagree that leaders would choose to get out of wars as quickly as possible. indeed, i believe that they often would not long after there was any realistic reason to believe that they would have an advantage.

100 years war (so named for good reasons)
30 years war
7 years war
wwi

i believe that the historical evidence demonstrates that leaders would often stay in wars even though no advantage could accrue. i also believe that wars were a fundmental part of imperial models, that is, w/o it, the state collapses on itself.

are just a few good examples, imo.
 

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100 years war actually consisted of 20 years or so of actual combat over the period separated by periods of raiding or actaul peace.

30 years war destroyed the central german states for decades after the war and was instrumental in collapsing the Spanish European empire with revolts in Portugal, Catalonia, Sicily

7 years war virtually gutted Prussia even though she won most battles

WW1 ended with the collapse of Russia, Austria, Ottoman Empire and virtually Germany

I think your examples are flawed;)
 

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that was exactly my point -- leaders often stayed in wars long after any possible advantage could accrue.

but moreover:

w.e. was not the reason prussia was gutted after the 7 years war.

w.e. was not the reason russia, austria, the ottoman empire collapsed in wwi. (you cld argue russia, i'll admit, but austria & the ottoman empire?)

w.e. was not the reason that the german states were destroyed in the 30 years war -- 30% of their people died cause everyone fought where they lived.
 

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tpc, while there are plenty of examples to demonstrate your point, I'm not sure the ones you picked are particularly illustrative. As I stated before the beginning and end of the game stretch the engine, so the 100 years war is coming to the end when the game begins, and WW1 is outside the scope. It is quite manageable to fight 7 years of war with manageable war exhaustion, and the 30 years war was not a continual war.

Once again, due to the 12 month campaining season in EU and the 6- month season in reality, wars you compare EU to should be divided at least by two.

Further, I believe you are missing the issue that the willingness to wage war is dependent on a number of issues. Relevant to this discussion are the posible benefits of continuing the war v the tangible detriment to the economy.

Without WE, there is no reason whatsoever to end a war. The crippling finances, population loss and trade disruption are not modelled strongly enough. I'd like some kind of incentive other than anti-rebellion micromanagement, but at the moment that's the only reason to ever stop fighting.

Monarchies, and later nation states simply could not sustain long periods of war without dramatic consequences. I believe Derek Pullem has provided a number of examples.

The whole rebellion issue is exagerrated in EU. However, under the current engine, rebellions are the only goad to curb potential actions which might have resulted in financial, or social disaster.
 

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I'm still struggling with TPC's argument here. Is it that imperial powers needed to make war to be imperialists therefore war is good for the nation and WE should not break the nation up?

Many wars "petered out" in this time frame because the nations lacked the will or resources to prosecute the war to an end. The crude WE model in EU2 does place a time limit on how long you should fight a war before you risk damaging your country's long term health and stability. So I'd say WE gets the feel right if not the precise details.

You cannot diferentiate between trade wars, religous wars, national revolts or wars of aquisition with the current model. We all agree that 500 men under Cortez shouldn't cause the same war exhaustion as 50,000 under El Capitane but it does right now. However, short of introducing a very complex mesh of "different" wars - which won't happen - I think WE is good right now to give a feel for the dynamics of the wars of the time.
 

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Originally posted by Derek Pullem
I'm still struggling with TPC's argument here. Is it that imperial powers needed to make war to be imperialists therefore war is good for the nation and WE should not break the nation up?

i think the reason you're having trouble w/ my argument is b/c there are actually a number of them being made in this thread. the first argument is as follows:

w.e. is based on a misapprehension of how states acted in the time period covered. i'm arguing that states were for the most part extortion machines. states that didn't base their revenues on enhancing trade based their revenues for the most part by prosecuting successful wars. in many cases, winning a war was akin to "making a killing" on the stock market.

for example, the ottoman empire actually didn't tax their provinces very much in the first half of the 16th century. the oman dynasty financed their empire by conquest. w/ every successful war, tons of loot was transferred back to the capital & also to the provinces in terms of the share different lords took back w/ them. then the omans would divy out parcels of the land conquered to deserving subjects w/ the proviso that they got their share of revenues. thus their total capital grew. wars could go on indefinitely w/o causing unrest as long as they were successful.

the problem was that if you were unsuccessful in a war -- didn't plunder any provinces or had no success -- you would have to raise taxes even if you went to peace b/c you would not have recouped the initial investment in the war. you would need the difference b/c you would need to raise additional troops, build fortifications, pay any standing army, dole out benefices, etc. additional taxes would cause unrest b/c the way they were extracted was fundamentally coercive. this wld cause an "extraction-coercion" cycle b/c unrest would mean you'd have to raise more troops for the policing actions which means you wld have to tax even more which wld cause even more unrest. the fact is that one of the few ways to escape this cycle was to go to war so that you cld bring back a killing.

this was also the financial reason that failed wars wld cause revolts. thus, you are right, petered out wars wld cause unrest, but that is b/c the financial return never accrued & thus taxes had to be raised, not b/c of w.e.:

Originally posted by Derek Pullem
Many wars "petered out" in this time frame because the nations lacked the will or resources to prosecute the war to an end. The crude WE model in EU2 does place a time limit on how long you should fight a war before you risk damaging your country's long term health and stability. So I'd say WE gets the feel right if not the precise details.

indeed, as i stated before, one of the major causes of revolts in the ottoman empire was the refusal of the sultan to go to war. war was the entrepreneurial opportunity that guaranteed the janissaries their upward mobility. w/o it, they wld simply languish. there are many examples of revolts b/c of no war.

the reason that dinsdale thinks i've used bad examples is b/c i was pointing out to you that historically leaders did not get out of wars quickly. the examples i used there were not to show that not only did leaders stay in wars as long as they thought that they cld profitably do so, but that they wld often stay in wars long after any advantage cld accrue. one reason they did was b/c w/ a win they cld at least recoup some of the costs, if they stopped, they were just left w/ a huge hole in their finances. by wwi, of course, war was no longer financially renumerative & public opinion had become a very potent force, but old habits of thought die hard. the fact of the matter by wwi was that war had become so capital intensive & so destructive that looting was no longer a way to recoup costs & added to that problem was that w/ conscription you don't just have taxes upsetting the general populace but the fact that their relatives are dying on the front in large numbers. moreover, one of the historical methods of recouping costs -- enslaving conquered populations -- was no longer available by then.

Originally posted by Derek Pullem
You cannot diferentiate between trade wars, religous wars, national revolts or wars of aquisition with the current model. We all agree that 500 men under Cortez shouldn't cause the same war exhaustion as 50,000 under El Capitane but it does right now. However, short of introducing a very complex mesh of "different" wars - which won't happen - I think WE is good right now to give a feel for the dynamics of the wars of the time.

i respectfully disagree. i believe a few rather small tweaks wld greatly enhance the historicity & challenge the game presents.

1) make looting pay. when your army enters a province you have a choice of regular looting and let's call it a "plunder & pillage" button. if you press the plunder & pillage button you get 1 full year's income from that province in one fell swoop. if you have actually taken the town, you can press "plunder & pillage" & get a projected full five years of income from that province. this wld increase revolt risk in the province. if the province belongs to a foreign religious category, like a muslim country plundering a christian or hindu one, you also have a large drop in population to represent the carrying away of slaves. this simple device wld easily differentiate b/tw wars of liberation & wars of conquest. it wld also encourage players to confront enemy armies right as they entered your territory b/c it wld be too painful & expensive to let them peter out through attrition until you can take them.

2) as filou suggested, raising war taxes wld give you one point of w.e. revolt risk for the entire duration of the war. i'd add that war taxes were especially resented in colonies that were far away from the actual focus & that for colonial territories raising war taxes shld raise w.e. revolt risk by three points for the entire duration of the war.

3) losing a war wld cause unrest. it wld mean that the divine sanction that the monarch has is in doubt & since you wld probably have to raise taxes. this often was the source of problems as the loss wld represent an opportunity for factions to claim the throne. i wld say that losing a war should at least raise revolt risk by two. a long war that was actually fought but ends at status quo shld also raise revolt risk. i'd argue for at least a raise of one in rr.

4) adoption of a new inflation/treasury model like the one proposed by onslaught here. inflation shld model an increase in the money supply & you should be able to simply accrue money from tax receipts w/o raising inflation b/c, after all, that money was not being spent. it is the spending of money that raises inflation.

5) a differentiation b/tw standing army troops & troops raised by feudal lords. standing armies shld be much more expensive & have better morale. armies raised by feudal lords shld cost next to nothing although some of the provisioning was paid for by the monarch & thus their maintenance costs shld be included. armies raised by lords shld only be available for building in mar. & automatically return home in sep. armies raised in conscription centers shld always be considered "standing armies". once you have conscription centers, a loss of a war shld cause great unrest like +6 rr.

i certainly don't know, but i don't think these should be so hard to implement & i think they wld greatly enhance game play. as others have pointed out, very little of the time spent "at war" was actually spent fighting in this time period, people went home inb/tw summers to harvest their crops. phony wars shldn't cause any problems w/ revolt risk. revolts were usually rare in this time period, but if you don't have large standing armies then the historical result plays out -- there is a rebellion, you raise an army to put it down.

anyways, i'm just throwing these ideas out. they obviously will need some tweaking, but i really do think they wld add to the game play.
 

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Originally posted by tpc
w.e. is based on a misapprehension of how states acted in the time period covered. i'm arguing that states were for the most part extortion machines. states that didn't base their revenues on enhancing trade based their revenues for the most part by prosecuting successful wars. in many cases, winning a war was akin to "making a killing" on the stock market.

Are you sure that this can be applied generally, not just through 200 years of gameplay, but throughout Europe? I'm struggling to think of any 17th century, or early 18th century war which made a penny for any of the participants. No doubt there are examples, but do you think it enough to make this a general assumption?

this was also the financial reason that failed wars wld cause revolts. thus, you are right, petered out wars wld cause unrest, but that is b/c the financial return never accrued & thus taxes had to be raised, not b/c of w.e.:
I think we all agree that WE is not representative of anything other than a mechanism to push the AI/Human out of war. As WE builds up the longer a war goes on, does it not achieve the ends you desire, albeit through different means.
the reason that dinsdale thinks i've used bad examples is b/c i was pointing out to you that historically leaders did not get out of wars quickly. the examples i used there were not to show that not only did leaders stay in wars as long as they thought that they cld profitably do so, but that they wld often stay in wars long after any advantage cld accrue.
No, I think they are bad examples for other reasons :)

I think that roughly the first and last 50-100 years stretch the engine. 400 years is just too long for one set of rules to apply. However, 100 years war is extremely misleading. Not only were campaigning seasons even shorter than later in the period, but most of the period was spent at peace, or dying from the black death. This is not an intensive war, most of it was spent raiding the countryside, at peace, or in sieges.

The 30 years war was financially crippling on all participants, and wasn't one of the key reasons why Sweden did not gain even more post-Breitenfeld because they could not afford to fight after the withdrawl of French funds?

The 7 years war involved more than just Prussia. Yes it is an example of staying in a war longer than necessary, but with 400 years to play with and all those nations, I'd be surprised if you couldn't find evidence for your pov.

WW1 is well outside the scope of the game. Though yes, it proves that sometimes nations do strange things. Again, I don't see what that has to do with your argument. Your second post did convey the meaning far more clearly with the other examples you gave.

one reason they did was b/c w/ a win they cld at least recoup some of the costs, if they stopped, they were just left w/ a huge hole in their finances.
History is littered with national bankruptcies and debts racked up through successful, as well as unsuccessful wars.

I do think you are pushing the theory of war as a large scale poker game where the participants continue to bluff, betting the next 5-10 years of their treasury on somehow gaining some loot is a little strong. Again, let me reiterate, that the scale of the game is too large for this, or any other theory to properly apply, and that's just including Europe.

i respectfully disagree. i believe a few rather small tweaks wld greatly enhance the historicity & challenge the game presents.
<SNIP>
I like your ideas, and I think that we agree that some kind of punitive system is required for long, or failed wars. As the game stands now, I'm still happy that WE is at least something in that vein.

*edit fixed text outside quotes
 
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Are you sure that this can be applied generally, not just through 200 years of gameplay, but throughout Europe? I'm struggling to think of any 17th century, or early 18th century war which made a penny for any of the participants. No doubt there are examples, but do you think it enough to make this a general assumption?

In the early part of the 30 years war, Wallenstien ( Imperial general ) made so much money from his looting that he was able to practically buy Bohemia. His financial gains in the war were so great that the emperor actually had him murdered, fearing Wallenstien would use his financial power to create an empire.

The British East India company also made ridiculously huge amounts of money from the various trade wars Britain fought in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The 30 years war was financially crippling on all participants, and wasn't one of the key reasons why Sweden did not gain even more post-Breitenfeld because they could not afford to fight after the withdrawl of French funds?

War was financially bad for most of Germany due to the massive looting that occured throughout the war. The countries that did the looting all came out financially well enough at the end of the war.

Actually, it was the death of Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen the year after Breitenfeld that devastated the Swedish cause. After Gustavus died it's army was no match for the much larger Austrian forces.

I think that WE could be simulated reduction by a reduction in income in provinces as financial resources were drained. This would more accurately reflect WE as it historically occured, and does not seem like it would be too hard to do.

Though I understand it was put in place to stop exploits, it seems kind of weird that war exhaustion would outlast the war when it is represented by revolts. Why would people revolt because of the war a year after the war had ended? If WE was shown financially, having it remain for a while after the war ended would make more sense.

Revolt risk for losing wars would make sense.
 

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i know it's counterintuitive for most folks, but i actually think that before conscription, dow's shld raise stability, not decrease it. why? cause all those men at arms mulling around your country all of a sudden have something other to do than bothering the peasants & killing each other. as i've pointed out earlier in this thread, many of the rebellions in the ottoman empire were a result of the sultan not going to war often enough. war was a good way to handle the ambitions of the petty aristocracy & remained such until the early 20th century.
 

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Too many people try to look at EU from a modern perspective. Most modern people view war as a terrible and unpleasant thing, but in the EU time period it was an opportunity for glory and wealth. People would not be shocked and saddened to learn of war errupting, but would instead celebrate in anticipation of the future success. The only times I could see revolts being caused by a war would be...

1. The war is not going well

Peasants do not like having their houses burned, their crops stolen, and their lives generally made more miserable.

2. Some extreme action in the course of the war incited anger

If the Holy Roman Emperor executed the Pope when he captured Rome, people would not be happy.

3. War taxes

Self-explanatory
 

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Originally posted by Chengar Qordath
Too many people try to look at EU from a modern perspective. Most modern people view war as a terrible and unpleasant thing, but in the EU time period it was an opportunity for glory and wealth.


Not if you lived on the line of march of one or more armies. I've never thought EU looting penalty was enough to simulate the destruction caused by a marching army.

Glory and wealth might have appealed to nobility, perhaps even to the mercenaries themselves, but to the peasants it was just another method of going hungry, or dying.

-----------------------------

The Wallenstein example is good, but that money does not filter back to the state, one of TPCs points was that the State benefitted enormously from war.

Same with East India Company, and once again, not in Europe, but the benefit to the British government was negliglble.
 

Nikolai II

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Originally posted by tpc
i know it's counterintuitive for most folks, but i actually think that before conscription, dow's shld raise stability, not decrease it. why? cause all those men at arms mulling around your country all of a sudden have something other to do than bothering the peasants & killing each other. as i've pointed out earlier in this thread, many of the rebellions in the ottoman empire were a result of the sultan not going to war often enough. war was a good way to handle the ambitions of the petty aristocracy & remained such until the early 20th century.

Maybe some.. but usually thoose men at arms you are speaking about were working for the peasants if there was peace, so I might clamor for a tax and production loss for being at war and loosing workforce, but I won't, since upkeep rises when at war, that'll have to cover this as well :D

Add the noblemen as random events then, 'Nobles want war' option A loose 4 stab, option B AutoDoW random nation.
 

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Just thought I would add my input to the many here.

Outside of WE, I agree that the main problem is that the game engine does not properly model the length of wars. Due to winter month's and time not fighting.

I think two options for a simple fix would be:
1) Make the length of the truce dependant on the length of the war. For example a 2 year war would have a 6 year truce. And a 10 year war, would have a 30 year truce. The penalties for breaking the truce could be extreme in the begining, and degrade with time to the end. All this does is try to reflect that a 3 year of game war may be equal to 9 years of real war.

or even simpler

2) Make the actual figting or seiges take 3 times longer. To simulate war was not constant.

BTW, 3 is only the factor I used for example. i will let those more historically knowledgeable argue the actual factor.

Once wars last longer, obviously war exhaustion would need to be addressed to balance the game. I think a combination of RR and drain on the economy would work. But it has to be a very simple model.

Someone may have mentioned it, but maybe use the BB points in a way that you gain XX number of BB points for every year at war.

Or that stability gets reduced by XX for every year at war. This has benifets because it will effect both economy and RR of individual provinces according to their existing merits. I do not know if stability is an Interger or if it is 2.3 in the background. But if it is an interger, this may be an argument to make it more dynamic.

I will end there. Not sure if I made any useful contribution.
 

unmerged(12740)

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Originally posted by Pan_Stretch
Not sure if I made any useful contribution.

not to sound like some schoolteacher or something, but every contribution is a good one in my opinion, whether or not i agree w/ it. (no offense intended for any teachers out there.) :)

Originally posted by Dinsdale
Glory and wealth might have appealed to nobility, perhaps even to the mercenaries themselves, but to the peasants it was just another method of going hungry, or dying.

this is just not so. from the mediterranean and the mediterranean world in the age of philip ii by fernand braudel, vol. i, trans. by siân reynolds, harper & rowe, ny, 2nd revised ed., 1966, orig. pub. 1949, pp. 47-8:

"The other forms of mountain expansion are neither as large scale nor as regular [as transhumance.] All the evidence is of particular cases; we shall have to present a series of examples, except perhaps in the case of 'military' migration, for all the mountain regions, or almost all, were 'Swiss cantons'. Apart from the vagabonds who followed armies without pay, hoping only for battle and plunder, they provided regular soldiers, almost traditionally reserved for certain princes."

the mountain people were peasants. the valley peasants & proto-proletariate, were probably most happy to see all the violent men leave town & probably hoped they came back w/ lots of plunder so that they cld sell their goods to them at inflated rates & so their leige wldn't be so avaricious w/ his cut of their harvest this time around.

if, on the other hand, they were in the way of an enemy army (or sometimes a "friendly" one) -- well then that was a different story. all their crops wld be forfeit, their women and children too, if it wasn't a co-religionist army they wld probably be herded off into slavery -- which was a very profitable business -- their huts occupied or burnt down, their livestock killed, whatever specie they might have, gone.

i believe that plundering was very profitable business & it was especially profitable if your enemy wasn't a co-religionist so you cld really extract as much as you damned well liked and do pretty much as you damned well pleased.

losing a war meant a number of things:

a) the gods didn't like the head of state that much, perhaps now was a time to change him/it/her/them
b) very unhappy violent men returning home broke & angry
c) if fought on your land, devastation of the sort that takes years to undo

winning a war meant:

a) gloire
b) gold/goods
c) slaves
d) land
e) proof that you were held in high esteem by the gods
f) proof that you were capable & that one probably shldn't mess w/ you

this also meant inflation, cause all this new money/goods enters your economy & excessive inflation shld probably cause stab hits too. slaves actually mollify this a little since they represent increased labor supply at zero cost.

Originally posted by Nikolai II
Add the noblemen as random events then, 'Nobles want war' option A loose 4 stab, option B AutoDoW random nation.

definitely like this idea. i wld add, shld you have a standing army, they, too, wld probably want war occasionally so that they can make their careers/fortunes. this was the case w/ the ottoman janissaries.

i think that -- & i guess my americaness is showing here -- taxes are one of the main reasons that you wld have revolts. war taxes shld create unrest in the form of increased rr for the duration of the war. (i think this is the case in the new patch.) but i think the whole inflation/tax thing will have to wait for revision -- if paradox decides for revision -- in eu3.
 

Castellon

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Originally posted by Surt
Where do you see the WE and BB only in the savefile or?

You can see WE by looking at the city, click on the church and hover over the revolt risk number. It will give you a breakdown incuding WE.

To see BB look at the screen where you see your reputation, hover the mouse over the description, to see your BB.
 

unmerged(3420)

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War Exhaustion abstracts a very real phenomenon; warfare tore at the fabric of early society. Of course, the damage done wasn't linked to a fixed timeline; it depended on the ravages the nation experienced as a result of war.

So link WE to money spent. Every time you "spend" one year's worth of income on the military while at war, WE goes +1.

"Expenditures" include:

-Maintenance expense OVER minimum
-Land unit casualties (NOT recruitment)
-Mercenaries RAISED (this could cost you twice if they're later lost in combat)
-War taxes RAISED (not spent) (another double-dipper if used to raise troops that are later lost)
-Loans TAKEN (not spent)(ditto)
-Tax income LOST due to enemy/rebel conquest or plundering of owned provinces, or lost due to enemy blockade of your ports.
-Trade income LOST due to pirates (should be privateers, but the game doesn't make the distinction, and your citizens might not, either).
-Income gained through peace, plunder, or conquest and taxation of enemy provinces would count, but as SUBTRACTIONS, not additions, to WE.

If you want to be really evil, you could accumulate WE even while at peace with the world.

WE would go down -1 each year you are at peace, or your manpower is at 80% of maximum. If WE increases during peace, make it -1 for both. Also drop it -1 for each Unconditional Surrender made to you.

How's that?
 

Surt

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Originally posted by Castellon
You can see WE by looking at the city, click on the church and hover over the revolt risk number. It will give you a breakdown incuding WE.

To see BB look at the screen where you see your reputation, hover the mouse over the description, to see your BB.

Thanks Castellon.