Raze or Puppet
- Thread starter Kin
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If you are going to annex, do it straight out rather than puppetting first or you'll get extra turns of useless city.
Due to the changes in happiness (health) and the extra trade routes from having more cities I'd say razing is rarely a good idea. And I'd rather directly control the cities, if you're conquering a lot you're probably stuck below -20 health anyway unless its real late game. This whole paragraph though is just theorycraft, I almost never play domination.
Due to the changes in happiness (health) and the extra trade routes from having more cities I'd say razing is rarely a good idea. And I'd rather directly control the cities, if you're conquering a lot you're probably stuck below -20 health anyway unless its real late game. This whole paragraph though is just theorycraft, I almost never play domination.
Warmonger addict here. The only non-domination games I ever play are to get the achievements once. I find with the double martial law penalty and the long duration martial law lasts based on population size, good rules of thumb for annex v puppet in CBE are:
1. Early game - rarely ever worth puppet or annex, AI doesn't build enough infrastructure. Not 100% but as rule of thumb usually better to raze any early city and replant your own.
2. Early mid game - post turn 75, but before turn 150, annexing anything but crap location cities is usually best. You can build enough infrastructure to overcome any extra city virtue and science penalty, and enough turns remaining in game that the extra martial law time to annex and be a productive city is worth it.
3. Late mid game and on, only cities ever worth annexing are strategic location cities -
A) you want one city at least on each landmass or island you conquer be able to produce units. You can phase transport units as needed but having zero direct control of any city on a whole landmass is generally not good, so I ensure at least one city is annexed.
*this is far less an issue when playing small maps or lower. On standard or large/massive, annex at least one city per island/landmass
B) even in late mid game or after, I like to annex any city the AI used to create a wonder. Usually that's his capital, but sometimes good production non- capital cities.
Other than that, honestly I decide to puppet or annex based on just what seems like fun. I think too many ppl forget the game you play should be fun, not necessarily "optimal".
I get a kick out of using conquered cities to produce what I call my shock troops. In CiV I could name those units, in CBE - well, unit identification is another rant - but I basically use my core cities to make my protected affinity units who I care about, and my conquered annex cities to create my Expendables
Any new cities I conquer, I use my meat shield expendables up front. It's a weird kind of fun.
1. Early game - rarely ever worth puppet or annex, AI doesn't build enough infrastructure. Not 100% but as rule of thumb usually better to raze any early city and replant your own.
2. Early mid game - post turn 75, but before turn 150, annexing anything but crap location cities is usually best. You can build enough infrastructure to overcome any extra city virtue and science penalty, and enough turns remaining in game that the extra martial law time to annex and be a productive city is worth it.
3. Late mid game and on, only cities ever worth annexing are strategic location cities -
A) you want one city at least on each landmass or island you conquer be able to produce units. You can phase transport units as needed but having zero direct control of any city on a whole landmass is generally not good, so I ensure at least one city is annexed.
*this is far less an issue when playing small maps or lower. On standard or large/massive, annex at least one city per island/landmass
B) even in late mid game or after, I like to annex any city the AI used to create a wonder. Usually that's his capital, but sometimes good production non- capital cities.
Other than that, honestly I decide to puppet or annex based on just what seems like fun. I think too many ppl forget the game you play should be fun, not necessarily "optimal".
I get a kick out of using conquered cities to produce what I call my shock troops. In CiV I could name those units, in CBE - well, unit identification is another rant - but I basically use my core cities to make my protected affinity units who I care about, and my conquered annex cities to create my Expendables
Any new cities I conquer, I use my meat shield expendables up front. It's a weird kind of fun.
Oh, and last note - i self impose a 0 of higher health handicap on myself. Yes the game is kinda borked right now where negative health really is trivial but I play 0 or higher for the self challenge.
So that said, if you want to go lots of warmongering like I do, then picking up both eudamonia and magnasanti are musts. That way you can conquer all you want, annex and puppet, while still remaining 0 or higher with judicious use of health buildings for extra help.
So I always go prosperity (eudamonia) and industry (magnasanti) to support my ghengis khan ways.
So that said, if you want to go lots of warmongering like I do, then picking up both eudamonia and magnasanti are musts. That way you can conquer all you want, annex and puppet, while still remaining 0 or higher with judicious use of health buildings for extra help.
So I always go prosperity (eudamonia) and industry (magnasanti) to support my ghengis khan ways.
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