Conquering the last non-occupied city when the ai has puppets left?

[Greasy Dave]

Simple question, what happens if I take out the Ai's last non-occupied city, but he has puppets left?

Does one of the puppets become the capital? Or is the civ terminated and I get a warmonger penalty?

I'm trying to take down Harald, and I want his capital. But to get to it I need to take out his only other non-occupied city. Which means, if I take his capital too, he's only left with puppets.

What happens at that point?

I don't want to get the warmonger penalty. But I don't want the puppets to flip back to their preivous owner, the Songhai.

 

[trickofthehand]

This actually just happened to me with Rome. They had only capital and 2 puppets left, one of which was a city-state. I conquered Rome and interestingly enough neither of the two puppets became a capital. I left the Romans alone for a few hundred years and neither puppet city became non-puppet, nor a capital. The city-state remained under Roman control though.

 

[noncognosco]

When you conquer the capital their largest city becomes the new capital. Doesn't matter if it is a puppet. I have seen the AI have a puppet capital many times.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Not the largest. I think it's the one that was settled first. If all they have is a non-capital puppet and a CS puppet, the former CS will become the new capital.