Raze, Annex or Puppet?

Alexander Boney

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Messages
55
Location
Hong Kong
If I'm going for a military strategy, what would be the most beneficial when taking cities?
 
Never annex, puppet when willing to keep or sell, raze all other times. A point to note when razing: your policy count doesn't go up when you select "raze" when capturing a city but it does when you pick a new policy and you're still razing cities. Plan ahead.
 
Selling the captured city to another civ is good too. If you're playing for CV and a civ is too far for trade route, give them a captured city so you can establish a trade route for tourism modifier. Or sell it to another civ so that civ will act as a buffer for future attack attempts. Puppet then later annex if the city is good, with lots of buildings, wonders and workable tiles. Puppet but no annexing if you need the location as a launch for another wave of attack (strategic location) - for example a new continent. In general don't annex bad cities because of culture penalty, amongst others.


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Selling junk cities to a faraway, runaway civ is probably my #1 way I keep the game alive.

If I annex, usually it's so I can faith purchase. Another reason to annex I just ran into was that I needed to buy a tile. The AI's capitol was turtled (built the GW, picked Goddess of protection, all that). Buying that tile from his captured city let me plant a good citadel. That was soooo worth it.
 
The only time to ever immedately annex is if you have the Order tenet that provides a free courthouse because due to either a bug or a feature you only get the free courthouse if you immedately annex.

For all other cases, if the city is worth keeping, initially puppet and wait for it to come out of resistance before deciding weather to eventually annex or not.
 
It all depends on what you want to do, except, yeah -- never immediately annex unless you have the AUTOCRACY (not Order) tenet that gives you the free courthouse. Keeping the city in one form or another gives you that much more in research and probably will net you gold, too. On the downside, it costs unhappiness. That's between razing and puppeting. Can you stand the unhappiness? Puppet. Not? Or it's in a really suck-ass location? Raze.

Once it comes out of rebellion, there are several considerations about whether to annex it or not, too. Not a simple question even though some seem to think it is.

Puppet cities are always on gold focus, which means they don't grow very fast. Also, you can't build things by choice and they'll never build units, including really basic things like work boats.

Puppet cities don't count against your total for setting culture/policy targets, but they also don't provide you any culture. Adding the city will eventually be a net positive culture-wise, but you are likely to take an immediate hit as the required amount for the next policy goes up but there are not many (or any) culture buildings in the city yet. This is the only downside to annexing AFTER the city comes out of rebellion, and not counting the unhappiness between annexing and getting the courthouse built (which may be only one turn if you can rush buy it).

How close are you to that next policy? How badly do you want it right away? Can you rush-buy the courthouse (600 gold without any modifiers for policies or Big Ben), or stand the unhappiness until it gets built?

Answer these questions, and the answers will be different from one game to the next, and you have your answer.
 
Puppet as soon as you keep the city. Gift away puppets to other civilizations when they're no longer making your population happy. Annex later when you have enough happiness for the courthouse.
 
It all depends on what you want to do, except, yeah -- never immediately annex unless you have the AUTOCRACY (not Order) tenet that gives you the free courthouse.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Order tenet Iron Curtain gives the free courthouse:

Iron Curtain
Free Courthouse upon city capture. Internal trade routes provide 50% more food or production.

I suspect you are thinking of the Autocracy tenet Police State:

Police State
+3 Local Happiness from every Courthouse. Build Courthouses in half the usual time.
 
They have a -25% culture penalty I believe. They still produce culture. If I'm not mistaken, they also have a -25% science penalty?
 
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