Order: Iron Curtain doesn't work

As the title says. I don't get a courthouse when I conquer and puppet a city.

Courthouses are for occupied cites, so are Iron Curtain.

Yes, need to annex the city.

Just like Police State pre-BNW, the benefits of this tenet/social policy require that you increase the cost of future social policies (by annexing), which is pretty unattractive.

The tennet says "Upon city capture" So I should get the courthouse regardless of what I do with the city. If it was intended to only function if you immediately annex the city, then the tenet should just say so.

OK, but courthouse only "Eliminates extra unhappiness from an occupied city," so it would have no effect on a puppet.

Since the tenet does say "upon capture," do you still get your free courthouse if you puppet and later annex, or must you annex from the get-go? So the real test of whether Iron Curtain is working is to do two tests: (1) annex immediately on capture and (2) reload and puppet on capture and later annex. When does the free courthouse appear in both tests?

Browd said:

OK, but courthouse only "Eliminates extra unhappiness from an occupied city," so it would have no effect on a puppet.

Since the tenet does say "upon capture," do you still get your free courthouse if you puppet and later annex, or must you annex from the get-go? So the real test of whether Iron Curtain is working is to do two tests: (1) annex immediately on capture and (2) reload and puppet on capture and later annex. When does the free courthouse appear in both tests?

Click to expand...

In the SfA scenario there is a policy you can take and if it works in the same way (I think it do) the answer is no, you need to annex directly.

Interesting.

That is the reason why I made this post:

I capture cities, puppet them and don't get my courthouse. The way I imagined the tennet to work, based on the wording was that every captured city gets a courthouse. Of course, If I leave it as a puppet, it would not have a direct effect. But the courthouse would have the indirect effect of allowing me to annex cities at any point I like, without having to worry about the massive spike in unhappiness.

So either the wording of the tennet needs to change, or it is indeed bugged.

Just tested it. You do get a free courthouse when you first conquer the city. When you get the initial Annex/Puppet/Raze/View City screen, and select View City, you will see your free courthouse -- plain as day. If you select Annex (or Raze), your free courthouse remains. But if you select puppet, your free courthouse goes "poof" and disappears.

May or may not be a bug, but it seems a logical consequence of how courthouses ordinarily work. Pre-existing courthouses are destroyed when a city is conquered and you can't puppet a city once you've annexed the city, so the code for courthouses may expressly confine courthouses to annexed cities, with the result that any courthouse in a city that is being puppeted must be destroyed.

Browd said:

Just tested it. You do get a free courthouse when you first conquer the city. When you get the initial Annex/Puppet/Raze/View City screen, and select View City, you will see your free courthouse -- plain as day. If you select Annex (or Raze), your free courthouse remains. But if you select puppet, your free courthouse goes "poof" and disappears.

May or may not be a bug, but it seems a logical consequence of how courthouses ordinarily work. Pre-existing courthouses are destroyed when a city is conquered and you can't puppet a city once you've annexed the city, so the code for courthouses may expressly confine courthouses to annexed cities, with the result that any courthouse in a city that is being puppeted must be destroyed.

Click to expand...

That may very well be the case, but the phrasing of the tennet doesn't say "upon annexing a city after conquest" it says "upon conquest".

It does not always work. I also tend to puppet and then Annex. I sometimes have the courthouse, sometimes I don't.

I tested this on a bunch of cities when I first tried it.

Capture and immediately puppet - no courthouse. BUG
Annex a puppet whether captured before or after taking the policy - no courthouse. BUG
Capture and immediately annex - free courthouse.
Capture and immediately raze - free courthouse.

Since it says "upon capture" the free courthouse should be added to the city before you select puppet, annex, raze or liberate. Then if the liberate option is picked the free courthouse should be removed.

I can sort of understand not getting the free courthouse in cities you captured before taking the policy. However, since every other free building in x cities or all cities gives the free building regardless if you founded or captured the city before or after the free buildings are granted, then we should get the free courthouses in all we control that we dd not found, whether those cities were captured or acquired in a peace deal and whether they were puppeted first or not. After all, there is absolutely no reason to ever annex a city immediately upon capture since you can't build/buy anything in that city anyway.

In my testing the courthouse does appear in each case immediately after capture (you can see it in the View City screen). But, if you select puppet, the courthouse is destroyed and you don't get it back when you later annex. Call that one bugged (or perhaps working as intended, but really bad communication about how the tenet is supposed to work).

And I would argue that no city that you conquered and puppeted before getting the policy should get a free courthouse, whether or not you annex after taking the policy. I don't see anything that implies the policy was intended to have retroactive effect, to cover cities you conquered before taking the policy. So I would not class that as a bug.

A courthouse in a puppet city would be a liability, because it costs maintenance and does nothing to help you.

Iron Curtain gives you free courthouses, so that isn't a consideration.

Brenador said:

A courthouse in a puppet city would be a liability, because it costs maintenance and does nothing to help you.

Click to expand...

All free buildings aren't just given to you without having to build/buy them, they also have no maintenance cost.