When I invade I puppet the loser. I latter annex and switch to courthouses.
OK, we all know that is the general idea (not discussing mass puppet or all unhappy strategy) for controlled conquest. I'm just here to show what I do.
1. Workers First, I use all them captured workers to make trade post spam in any farm heavy city. If your exploiting maritime food, trade post all the farms. I build mines on hills and lumber mills in forests because I want these cites to be useful at some point, heck, I normally end up with a once puppet city that outproduces my capital!
2. Resistance Now second thing, the city starts in resistance and isn't going to help your empire until it comes out. I station a unit till the angry red fist goes away.
3. Roads OK the bad guys probably have a road network setup that you have to pay for anyways, so you may as well build another to connect this network to your capital. This will have a nice economic benefit and possibly a happiness one as well if you got the right social policy. I try to get a worker or 2 making that road asap. Trade income increases with city size, so if you have to repair the network, connect larger cities first.
4. The Homeland I often have to switch a few key cities to "gold focus" in the city screen. The new cities will start paying for themselves when they stop resisting.
5. Golden Age This bad boy can spruce up the economy and production while you digest your winnings. Wait till the cities are out of resistance.
6. Construction Now the cities are out of resistance and building things on their own. Heres the thing...most people hate this part but it isn't that bad. The first buildings they build are actually useful. Monument? sure. Temple? go for it. The next phase of buildings are even better as they start to build happiness buildings like coliseums and circuses. Let this happen, it is key. Most of the cities should be bringing in a bit of gold at this point to help with costs. You will likely come out ahead. If not, fire of a golden age or do some more gold focus. We need these happy buildings.
7. A Guiding Hand OK now some of the high production cities have built happy buildings and are starting to do ******ed stuff like building an armory. We need to annex these now. A low maintenance military building like the barracks isn't going to hurt, but the others will. Thanks to the happy buildings they just built you can likely afford to annex them now anyways. Start building them courthouses and fire off a golden age again if you get the chance, to greatly speed up courthouse cost.
8. Fin Finish up the other puppets and/or start your next big war. Start building markets, banks, libraries, etc as needed in your shiny new cities. Sure, the courthouse cost 5 a turn, and the handful of other buildings a little more, but the city should be making far more then that by now.
The moral of the story is puppets aren't all bad. If you focus your economy and let them build monuments, theaters, and finely, happy buildings, they become useful to your empire. Let them pay for their own happiness.
Of course, the forbidden palace doesn't hurt. Resource trades can help out short term, but I don't like relying on these.
Criticism welcome, I'm always looking to refine my strategy.
OK, we all know that is the general idea (not discussing mass puppet or all unhappy strategy) for controlled conquest. I'm just here to show what I do.
1. Workers First, I use all them captured workers to make trade post spam in any farm heavy city. If your exploiting maritime food, trade post all the farms. I build mines on hills and lumber mills in forests because I want these cites to be useful at some point, heck, I normally end up with a once puppet city that outproduces my capital!
2. Resistance Now second thing, the city starts in resistance and isn't going to help your empire until it comes out. I station a unit till the angry red fist goes away.
3. Roads OK the bad guys probably have a road network setup that you have to pay for anyways, so you may as well build another to connect this network to your capital. This will have a nice economic benefit and possibly a happiness one as well if you got the right social policy. I try to get a worker or 2 making that road asap. Trade income increases with city size, so if you have to repair the network, connect larger cities first.
4. The Homeland I often have to switch a few key cities to "gold focus" in the city screen. The new cities will start paying for themselves when they stop resisting.
5. Golden Age This bad boy can spruce up the economy and production while you digest your winnings. Wait till the cities are out of resistance.
6. Construction Now the cities are out of resistance and building things on their own. Heres the thing...most people hate this part but it isn't that bad. The first buildings they build are actually useful. Monument? sure. Temple? go for it. The next phase of buildings are even better as they start to build happiness buildings like coliseums and circuses. Let this happen, it is key. Most of the cities should be bringing in a bit of gold at this point to help with costs. You will likely come out ahead. If not, fire of a golden age or do some more gold focus. We need these happy buildings.
7. A Guiding Hand OK now some of the high production cities have built happy buildings and are starting to do ******ed stuff like building an armory. We need to annex these now. A low maintenance military building like the barracks isn't going to hurt, but the others will. Thanks to the happy buildings they just built you can likely afford to annex them now anyways. Start building them courthouses and fire off a golden age again if you get the chance, to greatly speed up courthouse cost.
8. Fin Finish up the other puppets and/or start your next big war. Start building markets, banks, libraries, etc as needed in your shiny new cities. Sure, the courthouse cost 5 a turn, and the handful of other buildings a little more, but the city should be making far more then that by now.
The moral of the story is puppets aren't all bad. If you focus your economy and let them build monuments, theaters, and finely, happy buildings, they become useful to your empire. Let them pay for their own happiness.
Of course, the forbidden palace doesn't hurt. Resource trades can help out short term, but I don't like relying on these.
Criticism welcome, I'm always looking to refine my strategy.
