Can't liberate a puppet?

[crossmr]

Is there a certain amount of time a city can be held before your opportunity to "liberate it" on capturing it runs out? I just took some cities that clearly did not originally belong to Siam (like Calcutta) but I was not given an option to liberate it like I was for some other cities/units.

They're clearly shown with the puppet symbol and not annexed.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Is there a certain amount of time a city can be held before your opportunity to "liberate it" on capturing it runs out? I just took some cities that clearly did not originally belong to Siam (like Calcutta) but I was not given an option to liberate it like I was for some other cities/units.

They're clearly shown with the puppet symbol and not annexed.

I do believe you can only liberate capitals.

 

[crossmr]

I do believe you can only liberate capitals.

I do believe you're wrong as I've been given the opportunity to liberate several different cities belonging to one faction, and obviously they aren't all his capital.
But other cities I was not given the option to liberate them.

 

[ShahJahanII]

I do believe you're wrong as I've been given the opportunity to liberate several different cities belonging to one faction, and obviously they aren't all his capital.
But other cities I was not given the option to liberate them.

My bad then, I was given that impression somehow..

 

[Jaybe]

I THINK you can only liberate cities of DESTROYED civs. If India was still on the map, then Calcutta would not be liberate-able.

 

[basta]

Great question--this has always puzzled me, too.

So then, you can only liberate the one city that revives a civ, or liberate a CS? Other cities have to be gifted?

 

[ShahJahanII]

I THINK you can only liberate cities of DESTROYED civs. If India was still on the map, then Calcutta would not be liberate-able.

Maybe that was it.
I was confused at first.

 

[crossmr]

I THINK you can only liberate cities of DESTROYED civs. If India was still on the map, then Calcutta would not be liberate-able.

What a mess. It ends up making you a war monger for rescuing someone. I would expect if I want to improve relations with Civ X who has lost some cities to some attacker, I could go in, liberate his cities and return them and get a huge relationship bonus from. Instead there seems to be no real reason to return them. They don't give much of a boost.
Mongolia liked me most of the game, went guarded at some point. I joined their war against siam, gifted him like half a dozen cities, and gave him a couple free luxury resources, and he's still "guarded"

 

[ImperialSteeze]

If a civ has been eliminated you can liberate ONE of their former cities. It doesn't matter if it was their capital or not.

 

[Babri]

If a civ has been eliminated you can liberate ONE of their former cities. It doesn't matter if it was their capital or not.

This.

 

[wobuffet]

Liberating major Civs is totally broken at this point. There's basically no reason to ever do it, unless the stars align and you're one vote away from a Diplomatic victory. The liberated Civ is far too crippled with a half-demolished city and is bound to be way behind on technologies to boot.

 

[guczy]

I probably should report this in some bug forum, but i was not able to liberate Lhasa 2 games ago, when i conquered it from Persia

 

[Camikaze]

The liberation mechanic does seem rather odd. I guess the purpose it is meant to serve is to bring back civs from the dead, but you'd think it'd make some sense to allow liberation of any city if you are going to allow liberation at all.

 

[ShahJahanII]

The liberation mechanic does seem rather odd. I guess the purpose it is meant to serve is to bring back civs from the dead, but you'd think it'd make some sense to allow liberation of any city if you are going to allow liberation at all.

This is usually the case in modern wars in fact.
When Germany lost WWII did America or the Russians just annex Poland and leave it there?
When Japan lost WWII did we just annex the country?
When Italy lost Rome in WWII did we annex it?
But there are also scenarios like the Spanish-American War where we did annex Guam and the Philippines.