Anex vs Puppet balance?

[manu-fan]

Hi,

Do you think they've got the balance wrong?

Anex:

Major unhappiness that requires a Courthouse. This takes the city out of the picture for many turns and drains economy.

Puppet:

No unhappiness penalty and can be productive (even though not under your control) immediately).

Don't you think that Puppeting is too strong? This is what makes ICS so easy.

So, how about reducing the penalty for Annex, or increasing the penalty for a Puppet?

I think Puppet could be changed to add 2g upkeep required.

Maybe Annex could have it's unhappiness decay over time if you don't build a Courthouse, although I'm not sure that would really help either. Or make Courthouses quicker to build, and not require as much upkeep.

What are your thoughts?

Cheers.

 

[vranasm]

well reducing courthouse upkeep (or get rid of it) and lowering hammer cost to something more reasonable could balance the thing a bit.
Don't forget that before the last patch that changed puppets behavior the most followed strategy was raze enemy cities and settle yours instead... i don't think that it's good to promote such genocide in civ world.

 

[Pouakai]

Problem with puppet is, late game, it starts draining your strategic resources by building Hydro Plants etc.

 

[DaveMcW]

Don't you think that Puppeting is too strong? This is what makes ICS so easy.

Puppets are not ICS.

AI settlement patterns don't follow an ICS grid, and you can't tell puppets to avoid growth.

 

[manu-fan]

Ah my bad. I guess then I should say 'too strong for a general expansion strategy'.

Cheers.

 

[Helmling]

Hi,

Do you think they've got the balance wrong?

Anex:

Major unhappiness that requires a Courthouse. This takes the city out of the picture for many turns and drains economy.

Puppet:

No unhappiness penalty and can be productive (even though not under your control) immediately).

Don't you think that Puppeting is too strong? This is what makes ICS so easy.

So, how about reducing the penalty for Annex, or increasing the penalty for a Puppet?

I think Puppet could be changed to add 2g upkeep required.

Maybe Annex could have it's unhappiness decay over time if you don't build a Courthouse, although I'm not sure that would really help either. Or make Courthouses quicker to build, and not require as much upkeep.

What are your thoughts?

Cheers.

I said elsewhere recently (and have thought for many years) that the problem of conquering should not only be in the conquest, but in holding on to conquered territories. They should balance it by introducing the possibility of puppets trying to break away and assert their independence and/or loyalty to their parent Civ.

It would add new dimensions to the game if implemented well...but that's a big if, especially after seeing the slip-shod implementation of city-state diplomacy.

 

[basta]

As it stands now, I doubt anyone immediately annexes any conquered city, ever. Why on earth would you do it? Annexing is too costly for all but the largest puppeted cities, and even then you want to wait until it's auto-built a monument, colisseum, temple and market before you take the hit on annexing.

I annex to gain more production cities late-game, when unit build times become ridiculous, and ex-capitals conquered early are perfect for this. Setting the city management to production focus and no growth will usually get your courthouse built in 11-15 turns, which is reasonable. For smaller cities there really is no point until they start to build too many stables, watermills and all that.

I think the best solution is that the happiness hit to annex drops one red-face every ten turns, until eventually the city simply gets folded into the empire naturally. If you want it faster, you build a courthouse that should cost about 20% hammers/maintenance less, but you can only do so during the first third of the puppet period--otherwise, you have to wait it out.

 

[elthrasher]

Problem with puppet is, late game, it starts draining your strategic resources by building Hydro Plants etc.

This isn't true since the last patch. Puppets no longer build anything that requires a strategic resource. I've generally been very happy with their builds, though they don't always run as many specialists as I'd like. I'm starting to think this is because I actually build too many trading posts. Bad tiles = more specialists. Got to strike a balance.

 

[diz2]

As it stands now, I doubt anyone immediately annexes any conquered city, ever. Why on earth would you do it? Annexing is too costly for all but the largest puppeted cities, and even then you want to wait until it's auto-built a monument, colisseum, temple and market before you take the hit on annexing.

I annex to gain more production cities late-game, when unit build times become ridiculous, and ex-capitals conquered early are perfect for this. Setting the city management to production focus and no growth will usually get your courthouse built in 11-15 turns, which is reasonable. For smaller cities there really is no point until they start to build too many stables, watermills and all that.

I think the best solution is that the happiness hit to annex drops one red-face every ten turns, until eventually the city simply gets folded into the empire naturally. If you want it faster, you build a courthouse that should cost about 20% hammers/maintenance less, but you can only do so during the first third of the puppet period--otherwise, you have to wait it out.

I guess I might annex a city on a new continent to make workers/make work boats/buy units/base aircraft.

But even then I would at least wait to annex until after the unrest died out.

In general during the early game I raze and replace cities, except for capitals which I annex and courthouse because they are usually pretty good cities. I would puppet first and wait for the happiness budget to be safe, and preferably for there to be enough population and production improvements to get a pretty quick courthouse before I annexed.

Late game it doesn't seem to matter much what you do. You aren't going to get much out of the city anyway.

 

[diz2]

This isn't true since the last patch. Puppets no longer build anything that requires a strategic resource. I've generally been very happy with their builds, though they don't always run as many specialists as I'd like. I'm starting to think this is because I actually build too many trading posts. Bad tiles = more specialists. Got to strike a balance.

Well, if they built something requiring a strategic resource before you took the city it can still be there. I remember going negative on aluminum once from taking a city that had a hydo plant. I think in that case I had enough happiness that it made sense to annex the city and destoy the plant.

 

[juckie]

I always puppet, with the only exception for annexing being to get another military unit city.

Most nasty thing I did once, was scouting halfway the other end of a pangae continent, with 2 warriors, and a brute (germans).
I then found another civ, without much defense. Allied with a neighbour CS of his, who had iron connected. Upgraded my 3 units into swordsmen, and took the capitol.
Annexed it for the sake of settling that side and close in on 2 fronts

But true enough, the Courthouse requires way to much at the moment.
I do like the "settling unrest" way, each x turns decrease 1 pop of the original city to rest. The requirement being 1 happiness building, instead of a courthouse.

Courthouse should be made into a building to decrease something which is made to counter ICS. Like city maintenance or something similar.

 

[Pouakai]

This isn't true since the last patch. Puppets no longer build anything that requires a strategic resource. I've generally been very happy with their builds, though they don't always run as many specialists as I'd like. I'm starting to think this is because I actually build too many trading posts. Bad tiles = more specialists. Got to strike a balance.

Oh awesome. Anyway, I usually annex the cities a bit after the revolting has stopped.

 

[neilkaz]

I'd like to see the courthouse cost half as many hammers and maintanance be 2gpt rather than 5gpt since judges don't need that much bribery.

As it is now, I almost never annex quickly and if I do it is only bcuz I need to buy units there immediately and have no place else nearby to buy units.

You can let puppets go quite a long time before they start producing buildings that you REALLY don't want.

Let the puppet build up some pop and hammers and then annex during a GA and switch to production focus and that courthouse is usually built quickly.

However, I leave the large majority of what I conquer as puppets.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[bobshiznit]

The only time I annex is if I have a city that is best suited to production-like an enemy capital. If the city can't build a courthouse I leave it as a puppet and build trade-posts around it. The production capital can be used to win the game in a number of ways.

The maintenance on the courthouse is very minimal if you only annex a couple cities. If you annexed every city it would be a pain.

In my opinion the balance is not bad. The game would get very one sided if you could control every city without constraint and have them all build units.

 

[Roghar]

I tend to annex the better cities over time, keep the others puppeted. It seems to be a reasonable balance

Certainly one of the key reasons not to annex is the impact on culture requirements. I'm not sure if I like that loophole allowing the empire to grow without impacting culture targets, nor am I comfortable with how impossible it would make expansion and acquisition of a reasonable number of SPs through the course of a game

 

[wurstburst]

I never annex, unless I need a production city on a different continent (and I've been playing pangea lately, so I never annex!).

Puppets are awesomely better than annexed cities. They only produce good stuff and have less unhappiness. Sure, I can't produce military units, but a core of as little as 2 built cities is usually enough to get you through a whole game if you manage your military to keep losses to a minimum. Add in the SP cost benefit and there's no good reason to annex.

The solution is that an annexed city should be flat out better than a puppeted city for some purposes.

I'd cut the cost of a courthouse in half and reduce the building maintenance to 1 gpt. Then I'd add a 1 unhappy and 2 gpt maintenance cost per puppeted city and make them unable to build courthouses.

This might be close to a reasonable choice. Keep a city as a puppet, but deal with some extra unhappiness, extra gpt maintenance and the inability to build military units, with the benefit of reduced SP cost. Or annex, which causes a bit more unhappiness and increased SP, but has the benefit of better economics and the ability to build what you want.

 

[swordspider]

Far as I have ever seen (especially in Multi) the only benefit of Annexing is to be able to purchase units in that town or use as a front-line unit producing city. Otherwise, puppet all the way.

 

[diz2]

Puppets are awesomely better than annexed cities. They only produce good stuff and have less unhappiness.

I'm not completely sold on the "they only produce good stuff" argument.

They build some buildings that I would probably not build in a non-production city I control. Plus, they might have some buildings I wouldn't want when I took them over.

It doesn't take too much in unwanted or unnecessary buildings built or already in place to offset that 5 gpt for a courthouse.

For example, Temple + Granary + Watermill + Stable = 6gpt

If the city has more advanced buidlings like a hydro plant, you can get 3gpt of the 5gpt cost of a courthouse (+ 1 aluminum and a little gold) back just by annexing and selling that one building.

A lot of times these late game conquests have excess happiness buildings so the happiness budget can withstand a little more annexing too.

 

[LordTC]

As it stands now, I doubt anyone immediately annexes any conquered city, ever. Why on earth would you do it? Annexing is too costly for all but the largest puppeted cities, and even then you want to wait until it's auto-built a monument, colisseum, temple and market before you take the hit on annexing.

I annex to gain more production cities late-game, when unit build times become ridiculous, and ex-capitals conquered early are perfect for this. Setting the city management to production focus and no growth will usually get your courthouse built in 11-15 turns, which is reasonable. For smaller cities there really is no point until they start to build too many stables, watermills and all that.

I think the best solution is that the happiness hit to annex drops one red-face every ten turns, until eventually the city simply gets folded into the empire naturally. If you want it faster, you build a courthouse that should cost about 20% hammers/maintenance less, but you can only do so during the first third of the puppet period--otherwise, you have to wait it out.

This isn't true, a lot of people do annex, build settlers, raze and replace once you are threatening to be -ve happy.

 

[basta]

^LordTC

Annexing to raze a city is not really annexing--it's just a step on the way to razing. I'm talking about annexing to keep the city.

As it is now, even though there's this clearly defined puppet=>heal=> annex=>build courthouse mechanic put in place, people rarely use it because it's too slow and costly. Instead, they--like you have just assumed--simply annex to raze the city and build your own, without having to pay the happiness hit.

Obviously the mechanic is broken; in fact, your post shows you don't even recognize it as a strategy, and I'm sure you're not alone.

(edit to add: sorry I don't know why that red-face smiley is heading this post--not intended)