do puppeting and razing cause policy costs to increase?

[swimslave]

When you found a new city, or capture a city and annex it, your costs for the next policy increase (I think by 10%).

What about puppeting or razing a city?

I ask about razing a city because technically you own the city for a few turns before it burns to the ground. And I do not think that the cost to the next policy ever decreases after losing a city.

 

[Walter R]

This topic has been covered quite a bit on other threads, well worth you taking a look through back topics. The short anwser is that annexing and razing do count towards your number of cities for policy purposes, puppeting does not.

 

[Browd]

Not precisely correct (in current G&K). If you select "raze" at your first opportunity (when you first conquer the city), technically the city is annexed for the razing period (can't build National Wonders, for example, until the razing is done), but it does not increase your social policy cost. However, if you interrupt that razing process, or if you initially puppet and later decide to raze, your policy costs will rise.

Note that the policy cost increase is a "high water mark" ratchet -- after the razing is completed your policy costs do not decline, but the next city you found or annex will not result in further increaseed policy costs.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

This is something BNW should fix, if you raze it should not count towards anything, especially if you immediately raze the city.

 

[Justice1337]

Any way they tried to change it would not really help anyone except people trying to abuse something, and it would take away options from people who weren't. The way it works now, your policy costs increase by 1 city as you're razing a city. When it's gone, your social policy costs don't go back down, but they don't go up either when you take your next city. So you're basically paying an overhead of one city to raze the entire world one city at a time.

It's something to keep an eye on if you ever get the point where you're razing 3 or 4 cities at a time, and in that case, just think about founding a couple natural cities since they'll not raise costs. But in most games, razing won't increase costs beyond one city's worth. That impact is really only measurable for culture players who warmonger on the side, but they can always either found a new city of their own or keep that space open to keep razing other enemy cities.

 

[Plumfairy]

This is something BNW should fix, if you raze it should not count towards anything, especially if you immediately raze the city.

If you immediately raze the city & don't interrupt the razing process (i.e. let it burn all the way to the ground) the social policy cost increase for that city goes away when the city disappears.

 

[JFM2796]

If you immediately raze the city & don't interrupt the razing process (i.e. let it burn all the way to the ground) the social policy cost increase for that city goes away when the city disappears.

It does, however, end the construction of any national wonders being worked on, which is extremely annoying.

 

[swimslave]

Thanks everyone.

 

[joncnunn]

If you immediately raze the city & don't interrupt the razing process (i.e. let it burn all the way to the ground) the social policy cost increase for that city goes away when the city disappears.

It doesn't go up in the first place if you immediately raze & don't interrupt.

 

[Walter R]

Not precisely correct (in current G&K). If you select "raze" at your first opportunity (when you first conquer the city), technically the city is annexed for the razing period (can't build National Wonders, for example, until the razing is done), but it does not increase your social policy cost. However, if you interrupt that razing process, or if you initially puppet and later decide to raze, your policy costs will rise.

Note that the policy cost increase is a "high water mark" ratchet -- after the razing is completed your policy costs do not decline, but the next city you found or annex will not result in further increaseed policy costs.

Oops, thanks for correcting me Browd; there are few things more useless than bad advice!

Perhaps you can help me understand a related issue: if I get into a tug-of-war with a city (i.e. I have to capture it more than once to hold it), will this impact social policy cost at all?

 

[Browd]

As long as you are consistently puppeting when you do the conquering, there's no policy cost impact (and even if you eventually want to annex, you shouldn't be annexing anyway until after the city is out of revolt and reasonably safe from recapture).

 

[Walter R]

As long as you are consistently puppeting when you do the conquering, there's no policy cost impact (and even if you eventually want to annex, you shouldn't be annexing anyway until after the city is out of revolt and reasonably safe from recapture).

Thanks. It isn't something that commonly happens, but I have had a tussle before when trying to be opportunistic.

 

[Browd]

Not often, but it can be a good technique to deal with happiness hit. If you conquer a 20-pop AI capital, having to deal with 14 unhappy (10 surviving pop + 4 for the city itself) can be hard. Let the AI retake the city, knocking pop down to 5, and then you retake it with 3-pop left. Rinse and repeat as needed.

 

[WarIsPeace]

Not often, but it can be a good technique to deal with happiness hit. If you conquer a 20-pop AI capital, having to deal with 14 unhappy (10 surviving pop + 4 for the city itself) can be hard. Let the AI retake the city, knocking pop down to 5, and then you retake it with 3-pop left. Rinse and repeat as needed.

It's an interesting technique, but it strikes me as very situational. I guess that's what you meant by "not often". After getting conquered 3 times, that city isn't likely to have many buildings remaining. One loses not only direct happiness helpers (e.g. coliseum) but also buildings that help due to SPs and religion.

 

[Browd]

Yep. Situational and not without downsides.

 

[tomtom5858]

Oops, thanks for correcting me Browd; there are few things more useless than bad advice!

Perhaps you can help me understand a related issue: if I get into a tug-of-war with a city (i.e. I have to capture it more than once to hold it), will this impact social policy cost at all?

Let me go a bit more in-depth than Browd did (though his explanation was correct): Your social policy costs are based on the maximum number of founded/annexed/courthoused cities that you have controlled in the current game. For example, if you at one point controlled 30 non-puppet cities, but then for whatever reason went down to a single city (through the Trade window or through them being conquered, it doesn't matter), your social policy costs would be that of a 30 non-puppet city empire. If you acquire more cities that you annex or found, your social policy costs do not increase until you reach 31 non-puppet cities, at which point it will go up by the normal map-size increase.

If that was too long-winded for you, here's your answer: if you have 10 cities, and you capture a city and immediately annex it, your costs go up to that of an 11 city empire. If the city is then re-captured, your SPs will be the cost of an 11 city-empire. If you capture it again, and immediately annex it, your social policies will be the cost of an 11 city empire, the same as what you had after annexing for the first time.

In short: no.