Are Puppet Empires overpowered?

[historix69]

In previous games of Civ5 I usually razed conquered cities but did not annex or puppet them.

I just finished my first game where I conquered a huge puppet empire.

Continents, King, Marathon-Speed, no mods.

I only founded my capital and then played friendly OCC building wonders and national wonders and having multiple RAs parallel for about 750 turns. The map had 2 continents. With the turns the continents completely filled with AI cities. Both continents were finally dominated by 2 civilizations each, conquering all smaller civilizations. The dominant civilizations were almost all time in permanent war with each other, eventually making peace and starting RA until they declared war again.

The first neighbour (Ottomans) attacked me around the time I just had researched artillery. I used a GG to build a citadel to block the way to my capital and had no problems to defend myself while building up a small army of infantry and artillery. The Ottomans were still in a war with the other dominant civ on this continent, Siam. Finally I counterattacked and - depending on happiness - took city after city until his empire was completely conquered and puppeted by my and Siams forces. It took 100-200 turns to take over all these cities due to slowly growing happiness.

After a few turns in peace I got into trouble with Siam on my continent about a CS located between us. They declared war, I bulbed Stealth Bomber Tech, bought 8 bombers with Level 3 promotion that turn and for the next 200 turns I took over the rest of the continent. Speed of war again was only determined by happiness issues. I tried to not fall below -9 happiness to avoid the -50% combat and -50% production penalty. So often their cities were bombed down to 1 hitpoint but my units were hold back for 10-20 turns until happiness went up again and allowed more puppets. Sometimes the happiness went up when taking a city, probably caused by the fact that standard happiness buildings and buildings causing happiness due to social policies are counted seperately and can result in more happiness from a city than their population and base-city-unhappiness take away.

After puppeting my complete continent, I went over to the 2nd continent where some of the CS at the coast were allies of Siam and so were still in war with me. They gave me 2 nice beachhead cities where I based my Stealth Bombers.

Civ #3 (Persia) declared war and I took over another half of a continent. Finally I declared war on Civ #4 (Arabia).

After about 500 turns of war I had conquered and puppeted all other civilizations (with exception of isolated Japan's capital to not trigger Conquest victory). My Stealth Bombers had reached Level 10-14. I finally controlled 109 puppet cities with almost 1.000 population. My overall happiness was +14 happiness. Science income was close to 6.000 beakers per turn, Gold income (in Golden Age) was about the same almost 6.000 Gold per turn with 280.000 treasury. Culture was at +1.300 Culture per turn. Since only my capital counted for social policy costs, I got social policies around every 20 turns at that time.

While conquering the world I won the game with science victory, UN, Conquest and Culture victory. Culture victory was last due to slowly increasing culture production. The game wasn't perfect. Puppet empires profit from piety and order which I did not pick. My original plan was just to try OCC Science Victory but Science output was too low, even with early specialisation on Science (rationalism, PT, RAs).

I was surprised
- that even if the AI is ahead in science and has 40 cities and tons of Gold against one city, the AI cannot counter artillery and stealth bomber. Siam had reached Future Age and had about 250.000 - 300.000 Gold but didn't rush buy units in noteworthy number.
- that the puppet-empire with 109 puppets worked so well and accumulated such a big income of everything without causing too much chaos and unhappiness in my Empire.

Are Puppet Empires overpowered?

 

[smallfish]

The problem is with the AI, who had oodles of gold and didn't use them to rushbuy. Also, move up to Immortal.

 

[chazzycat]

yes, puppet empires are pretty good. lots of gold income without any policy cost increase. Since gold is so flexible (you can buy CS, RAs, units, buildings) I do think puppets are OP.

happiness is the main concern, and even that is manageable with the right policies.

playing on marathon speed might be making it even more noticeable as well

 

[strijder20]

Culture was at +1.300 Culture per turn. Since only my capital counted for social policy costs, I got social policies around every 20 turns at that time.

What?
Oh, you were playing Marathon. Was already flabbergasted at the amount of turns it took with such an empire.
No, they aren't OP, for the simple reason you have stated yourself: happiness. On top of that, you can't rushbuy units in them either, although with SBombers that's not a problem as you can rushbuy as many as you want.
You could also get the +3 from Autocracy from courthouses and rushbuy courts everywhere.

 

[PhilBowles]

I was surprised
- that even if the AI is ahead in science and has 40 cities and tons of Gold against one city, the AI cannot counter artillery and stealth bomber. Siam had reached Future Age and had about 250.000 - 300.000 Gold but didn't rush buy units in noteworthy number.

Although it happens occasionally, the AI rarely sets fighters to intercept - it's not bad offensively with aircraft (except quite often throwing them at cities known to be defended by 3+ jet fighters), but it struggles to defend against them. Then again, stealth bombers are designed to be one of the game's most powerful units.

- that the puppet-empire with 109 puppets worked so well and accumulated such a big income of everything without causing too much chaos and unhappiness in my Empire.

Are Puppet Empires overpowered?

No, you've just rediscovered the Civ truism that large empires are a lot more powerful than small ones - it's generally less apparent in Civ V than earlier games because people are disinclined to build as many cities, and because you aren't forced to build large empires to win so people don't make the extra effort to overcome the happiness penalties. You'd have encountered this phenomenon whether the cities were puppeted, home-grown, or annexed (and would have had greater excess happiness if they were annexed with courthouses - in my last game I controlled most of the cities, except for a few Siamese and American holdouts and six surviving city-states, and had more than 30 happiness with mostly annexed cities and four native Songhai cities). The AI will usually build lots of happiness builidings, and by default if you've taken all the cities you'll have all the happiness wonders, so you're likely to have excess happiness. My happiness went from -9 to +30 just taking Delhi in my last game.

 

[historix69]

if you've taken all the cities you'll have all the happiness wonders,

Except for Great Wall (which I missed) and coastal / mountain wonders (which I couldn't build) I built all wonders in my capital which had a late game productivity of 100-200 hammers per turn depending on bonus.

Although it happens occasionally, the AI rarely sets fighters to intercept - it's not bad offensively with aircraft (except quite often throwing them at cities known to be defended by 3+ jet fighters), but it struggles to defend against them. Then again, stealth bombers are designed to be one of the game's most powerful units.

The only way to effectively deal with my capital would be to rush buy as many nukes / missiles / Bombers / Stealth Bombers as needed to reduce my city defense from save distance and then attack with a couple of quick assault units as tanks or mechs to take the city preferably at the same turn. (Coordinated city-killing-strategy)

By the way, nobody built Manhattan project so there were no nukes in the game.

 

[DevilHell]

I'm sorry, I might be asleed or something, but I think I read "109 cities" and "+14 happiness" but most important, again I think I dreamt about a "I didn't take Order or Autocracy"
Simply, no way, -.- you are inefficient -.- how can you not take Order! ? !!

Happiness modifiers:

Meritocracy- 1
University - 1
Public School - 1
Probably you took Freedom so then half the unhappiness from specialists, which puppets have on markets and banks but that isn't too much
And maybe Monarchy, 1 for every 2 citizens in your capital, again not so much
You then really had to wait for these universities and Public Schools along the turns to keep on conquering
Why didn'`t you go Order????

 

[joncnunn]

I would tend to agree for a large puppet empire. But possible if he went full Honor he did not need the extra happiness since puppets are in love with building walls.

Of course 109 more happiness on top of that would have given him more golden ages.

 

[PhilBowles]

Except for Great Wall (which I missed) and coastal / mountain wonders (which I couldn't build) I built all wonders in my capital which had a late game productivity of 100-200 hammers per turn depending on bonus.

I mean you'll have all the Wonders all the other civs built because you'll have captured their cities.

But possible if he went full Honor he did not need the extra happiness since puppets are in love with building walls

I went Honor in my last game and people misunderstand this policy, and consequently underestimate it. People tend to assume they're selecting a policy which will just give them benefits to things they'd be doing anyway, and say "Walls? Waste of time - I'm not building walls so that's pointless", when the correct way to look at it is "this policy gives every city I own up to four generally cheap, maintenance-free happiness buildings that have an incidental defensive benefit". You don't take the policy because you build walls; you build walls because you take this policy. It's extremely strong, as if fully exploited is the Honor tree generally - the Liberty GP is very attractive, but is a one-off benefit. The regular gold from Honor is an exceptional bonus if you're engaged in a lot of wars, particularly in the late game where every unit gets you 50-60 gold - I've run empires on negative income and spent all the gold I accumulate buying units/buildings, simply because I can reliably run on -10-20 gold a turn because I'll be making more than that through unit kills every turn, supplemented by the occasional city capture.

 

[historix69]

I finished Tradition, Honor, Freedom, Rationalism, Commerce in that game. I also had Liberty for better workers and road-happiness.

I did not plan the puppet empire. I started OCC wonder building and there Tradition, Freedom (for specialists, big tile improvements) and Rationalism (for RA, Science boost) were important. When the war started it was too late to switch policies.

Next time for a puppet empire I would try Tradition, (Liberty), (Honor), Piety, Order and ev. (Commerce).
For an ICS empire with own cities I would rather go Liberty, (Honor), (Tradition), Piety, Order, (Commerce right side)

Policy Trees in brackets (...) mean taking single policies from that tree to buff happiness but not completing the tree.

Problem with puppet empire is you have to wait until AI has settled all those small cities you want to take over and while waiting you must be able to keep track in science, otherwise you won't be able to compete in military affairs. If the puppet cities are too far away, it is too expensive to build roads and you won't get the "traderoute" money and road-connection happiness. In the game the closest puppet (Ottoman city) was 4 tiles from my capital. Almost all AI cities were in range of 4 tiles from other AI cities so road connection was not a problem.

 

[chazzycat]

honor (right side) & piety (org. religion) are the keys for happiness in a puppet empire

puppets will always build walls, castles, monument, temple - thats 4 happy right there, plus one more if you garrison your cities (which you should with scouts)

 

[PhilBowles]

I finished Tradition, Honor, Freedom, Rationalism, Commerce in that game. I also had Liberty for better workers and road-happiness.

I did not plan the puppet empire. I started OCC wonder building and there Tradition, Freedom (for specialists, big tile improvements) and Rationalism (for RA, Science boost) were important. When the war started it was too late to switch policies.

Next time for a puppet empire I would try Tradition, (Liberty), (Honor), Piety, Order and ev. (Commerce).
For an ICS empire with own cities I would rather go Liberty, (Honor), (Tradition), Piety, Order, (Commerce right side)

I seem to have defaulted to Commerce for my second branch in most games, Patronage if focused on CSes. Piety only if going for culture victory because I prefer Rationalism in the later game. I make a lot of use of specialists, so while the commerce finisher isn't brilliant, especially with a small empire, I'll definitely get some use out of it.

If the puppet cities are too far away, it is too expensive to build roads and you won't get the "traderoute" money and road-connection happiness. In the game the closest puppet (Ottoman city) was 4 tiles from my capital. Almost all AI cities were in range of 4 tiles from other AI cities so road connection was not a problem

.

AIs always build roads between their cities, so the only times you need to worry about road building are building a road between your first puppet and your capital, and then between cities from different civs/CSes.

 

[Haig]

Just a speculation, but the Gods & Kings expansion might have made the scenario a bit different:

Nowadays the AI doesn't do a big naval invasions across the ocean unless there's a small distance, but after G&K they are supposed to do brutal invasions and cap coastal cities, and ships will be harder to defend without a navy. So in this sort of scenario one must be on watch against other continents too.

Also I bet a huge change will be that artillery units won't be as effective as troops anymore, but more of a siege weapon against cities. THAT will rework many strategies in battle, including mine!
So a small army like yours with a few infantry and loads of arty wont be as powerful.

 

[_hero_]

If comparing a puppet empire to an equal sized empire with your own cities (not annexed) you gain a ton more social policies, but you lose the ability to build multiple things at once.

Happiness wise (I think) you gain nothing by having puppets over building cities yourself. If anything, you might lose a little by losing the ability to control what goes on in the city.

Gold wise, puppets focus on gold but can never exceed what you'd be able to produce yourself with the city if you chose to. If you spammed trading posts and put all your cities on gold focus, and skipped the same buildings that puppets skip, you'd have just as much gold.

As a little side note, if you're not going for culture victory and you have a puppet empire, going down the autocracy tree and getting happiness back from courthouses in annexed cities will turn that puppet empire into an annexed empire of doom.

 

[historix69]

The main advantage of puppets is that they increase your culture, science and gold income without increasing costs of social policies. And if the puppets stay small due to lack of farms they do not cause unhappiness. (109 puppets and still +14 happiness)

If you conquer a city, you can
- raze it. (Causes temporarily unhappiness.) (neutral to your income (sience, culture, gold))
(The AI will probably settle the spot again in a view turns.)
- sell it. (neutral to your income, but strengthen the AI)
- annex it. (increases income but also increases costs of social policies)
- puppet it. (increases income a little bit but does not increase costs of social policies)

If comparing a puppet empire to an equal sized empire with your own cities (not annexed) you gain a ton more social policies, but you lose the ability to build multiple things at once.

I could rush buy / build almost everything in my capital in a view turns. Due to OCC start, all possible buildings, all National Wonders and most World Wonders it had very strong production and low purchase costs. I bought about 120 military units instead of building them. Due to flat inland start position, I could not buy / build any mountain, coastal or naval buildings / units but this wasn't really a problem. So I did not really miss additional production cities.

I chose puppets to keep my low social policy costs. At the end of game a new S.P. cost around 25.000 culture and any annexed city would have increased it by 5% = around 1.250 culture or equal 1 turn. Annexing 100 cities would have increased the cost by 500% to 150.000 culture or 120 turns instead of 20 turns. So to continue in social policies and keep the option to do a cultural victory later I did not annex.

 

[Callonia]

Nope, a puppeted city cannot build units. And your route of reinforcement if, a large puppet empire is too long one.

The puppeting feature breaks the game when AI can rush buy walls castle etc in puppeted city when you cannot, they however seem to be unable to rushbuy units in puppeted city at least.

I barely puppet cities, I just puppet em during the riot phase and then annex after people is done being angry.

If AI was capable, puppet empire would be more dangerous route to take.

 

[Haig]

I think razing a lot of cities gives a negative diplo hit too?

 

[historix69]

I just checked the costs for National Wonders in Techtree. They are 10.455 hammers per National Wonder. (There are probably 2 puppets not connected by road which I overlooked making a total of 111 puppets.)

10.455 = 375 + (1 capital + 111 puppets) * 90 (marathon game speed)

Costs for space-ship parts are 1.500 / 2.250 for comparison.

National Wonders definitely become too expensive in an unrealistic way if number of cities increase. They only give a fixed local bonus to the city they are built in (e.g. 50% science, +8 Gold, +8 Production) without any advantage from the other cities so there is no realistic reason for the increase in costs when other cities do not contribute. There is also no realistic reason for the other cities to all have the basic buildings as libraries, marketplaces built prior to be able to build N.W. when the other cities do not contribute at all. You need the basic buildings in your own and in annexed cities but not in puppets.

(N.W. rules are obviously a Game design to force the player to choose between
- OCC and minimal costs for N.W. or
- early limited expansion and medium costs for N.W. or
- early wide empire and no N.W..
If costs for N.W. increase with number of cities, a rational mind would expect that the benefit would also increase, e.g. National College = +50 % Science + N Science where N is the number of Libraries in Empire.

In other games the true costs are just the opportunity costs to have or have not certain things in a certain moment. Build a settler or military units early and expand and build N.C. later or build a N.C. early and expand later. N.C. early gives you advance in Science, N.C. later gives you a second city, ressources, military power. There is no need to increase costs for N.C..

The common exploit to increasing N.W. costs is to first build all N.W. and then to expand.

An easy counter to this exploit would be to scale down the benefit of the N.W. with the number of cities or base buildings (e.g. library) in your Empire. N.W.s would have fixed costs but benefit would be just Base Benefit / (number of Cities or base buildings in Empire). Only players sticking to OCC would still build N.W.. I'm not sure if this would be more realistic or unrealistic, but it would at least stop the exploit.)