Courthouse "bug"...

[KrikkitTwo]

All of which would be wonderful if buildings appeared instantly.

Conversely, if the argument is so darn strong that the couthouse is more beneficial to use than not use then my point still stands, where's the issue? Even moreso really.

As far as I can tell the current argument is that there is this wonderful building that solves all of your problems and makes your life and your game easier and somehow that's a bad thing?

You are not forced to use them, you can play perfectly without them, you can play perfectly with them. So what is the freaking problem? (Other than the desire for there to be one.)

The courthouse does not narrow you to a single strategy, if anything it opens up strategies. Stay small and build your own or grow wide and take other peoples or grow wide and then tall by taking control yourself. Options are everywhere.

The problem is the "wide then tall" is better for all except SPs. If they want to buff the courthouse, give it 0 maintenance cost (so its equivalent to a settled city, not happier)

OR at LEAST allow the courthouse to be built in settled cities, the game rewards war too much anyways.

 

[Becomedeath]

AARRGGHH...why is that bad?!?! It's enabling, it's a good thing, it makes it possible for you build a massive empire and then when you're done with social policies annex the lot and move up up and up....

What is wrong with that?!

This to me is a serious case of "No no General, I don't need armor, I'll go and fight our enemies armies whilst naked and defeat them with this stick that I've found".

Why purposefully petition for something to be made harder for you when it's use is entirely your choice?! The AI doesn't annex everything so this is entirely a human advantage. You can play with it, or without it, it's optional. Entirely, optional.

 

[Strategist83]

LOL! now i understand why this hasn't been "fixed"...it's not even clear that it is a bug! call me OCD, but i'd like to know if i'm taking advantage of a "bug" or using an undocumented feature. right now, it feels too easy to annex cities, but maybe that's as intended...

I don't think there's anything OCD about wanting to know whether a rather game-breaking bug is really a bug or not. Unfortunately, it is.

I don't think it's a bug because the have fixed some other bugs after last patches pretty rapidly. Why not courthouses too? Probably just undocumented.

I don't think it's too overpowered. There is penalties at being a warmonger. Haters are sometimes hard to control.

Boths arguments are completely invalid. First off, Firaxis' level of support for this game hasn't exactly been to an 'A' - I'm putting it very diplomatically here. You thus cannot attest it not having been fixed yet to their accepting this bug as a 'feature'. It's been proven time and time again that we, the community, understand their game far better than they do themselves. It is much more likely that they are simply unaware of this bug or 'haven't gotten around to fixing it yet'. Remember how Libraries used to have two scientist slots, for instance, before they realized just exactly what that design decision did to the game? Also, just what sort of state would you characterize multiplayer as being in, here one year after release? Sorry, I'd love to think you were right and the developers have things well in hand but it simply isn't the case.

And secondly, yes, it is overpowered. Severely. Haters are hard to control? Well yes, they better well should be, but this bug disrupts precisely that feature! You're supposed to pay the price for your conquests of 1) increased diplomatic tensions and 2) happiness issues. This is to prevent you from effortlessly completely running away with the game after an initial succesful war, to keep the game from being decided right from the onset. With this bug, however, happiness is eliminated as an issue - not to mention, as was pointed out, how ridiculous it is that your conquered cities thus become more valuable than native ones.

Unless you plan on having social policies.

Invalid argument. You are not supposed to run giant puppet empires. They've taken a lot of steps to eliminate precisely that style of play, namely 1) lowering per-city policy cost increase to just 15% and 2) drastically lower production cost and slightly lower maintenance cost of Courthouse. Giant puppet empires is/was just another product of the developer's lack of understanding of their game, as discussed. As such, it simply isn't correct that obtaining social policies isn't possible using annexation - rather, the opposite is more of the truth; that giant puppet empires allow[ed] you to have too many policies.

As for the 600 gold to rushbuy, keep in mind that the Courthouse is (for good reason - precisely to make warmongering harder and less rewarding!) the most expensive building to purchase. However, it costs only 100 points of production.

AARRGGHH...why is that bad?!?! It's enabling, it's a good thing, it makes it possible for you build a massive empire and then when you're done with social policies annex the lot and move up up and up....

What is wrong with that?!

This to me is a serious case of "No no General, I don't need armor, I'll go and fight our enemies armies whilst naked and defeat them with this stick that I've found".

Maybe I simply don't understand; you are fine with bugs being in the game that you can then choose not to abuse? What about multiplayer?

 

[Tabarnak]

It's been proven time and time again that we, the community, understand their game far better than they do themselves.

As for the 600 gold to rushbuy, keep in mind that the Courthouse is (for good reason - precisely to make warmongering harder and less rewarding!) the most expensive building to purchase. However, it costs only 100 points of production.

What about multiplayer?

First sentence... True!

But the actual courthouse benefit is still not too much overpowered i think.

100 can be 8-9 turns of big unhappiness issues for an average city. Enough to let an AI to regrowth their strengh at high levels. You may stop your campaign to not fight under -9 . 600 is justified because you get insta bonus.

Multiplayer : Annexing cities is the way to go in some cases. But only the most productive ones. Happiness is harder to maintain and a courthouse is a huge benefit(especially early in the game when the city is still not too large). The goal is to dominate opponents with military, extra production powerhouses is an advantage. The earlier the better for annexing cities. Gold is more scarce, buying a courthouse in mp is a huge investment. From that point, a courthouse is way more powerful in sp than mp mode.

 

[The Pilgrim]

All of which would be wonderful if buildings appeared instantly.

They don't appear instantly in your own cities either. Why to have cities at all? They need to be managed and mess the SP's. OCC is the only way, right?

Conversely, if the argument is so darn strong that the couthouse is more beneficial to use than not use then my point still stands, where's the issue? Even moreso really.

As far as I can tell the current argument is that there is this wonderful building that solves all of your problems and makes your life and your game easier and somehow that's a bad thing?

Multiple Oxfords also make your life and game easier. Why not to glorify this 'feature'?

 

[The Pilgrim]

But the actual courthouse benefit is still not too much overpowered i think.

100 can be 8-9 turns of big unhappiness issues for an average city. Enough to let an AI to regrowth their strengh at high levels. You may stop your campaign to not fight under -9 . 600 is justified because you get insta bonus.

Define too much overpowered. Not crazy overpowered because you still need to find the bucks. And you, probably, like most warmongers (just a sec, did you say something about being a warmonger is hard? ) infinitely buy units until a point you're too lazy to move new ones. But if you have them and especially since AI doesn't annex what it should annex despite all these zillions of gold, you can outrun it production-wise rather quickly. Even on deity. Playing Askia, for example, you'll never have cash problems past T100 or so.

 

[Tabarnak]

It's a strong option for warmongers i agree. Annexing cities while pursuit a dom. victory is a no brainer in most cases. Like other strategies related to RAs and selling luxs, there is a point in the game where you can be very lazy and still win easily. The problem come from the early stages.

If you annex like 2-3 cities in your games, it's only 6-9 free happiness to your whole empire. What is game breaking in this strategy? Playing Egypt or rush buy courthouses?

 

[smallfish]

It's a strong option for warmongerers only because the AI has a stunning tendency to misuse its military. If they instead knew, say, how to bury your civ with the auto-raze option of nuclear missile spam, instead of just sitting aimlessly in the waters without doing a damn thing, I heavily doubt this "courthouse bug" would be on everyone's mind as the problem.

 

[The Pilgrim]

It's a strong option for warmongers i agree. Annexing cities while pursuit a dom. victory is a no brainer in most cases. Like other strategies related to RAs and selling luxs, there is a point in the game where you can be very lazy and still win easily. The problem come from the early stages.

If you annex like 2-3 cities in your games, it's only 6-9 free happiness to your whole empire. What is game breaking in this strategy? Playing Egypt or rush buy courthouses?

I wouldn't say it's a game breaker, but it makes things a lot easier than they should be. Just like Oxford bug. In my current game I was at zero balance with two puppets growing and one courthouse completing next turn. Basically a crappy city which I wouldn't usually bother to annex but it was close to the front and I stupidly lost couple of units lately. Miraculously enough, I'm up at 6 next turn after puppets grew.

You can annex a city once in several turns and to 'feed' with its happiness at least one more puppet. By the time you troops are ready to take over the next target another courthouse is done and so on and on... You'll never fall in again. Definitely not in . Before modern SP's come in it's a huge advantage. I don't think that was devs' intension.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I wouldn't say it's a game breaker, but it makes things a lot easier than they should be. Just like Oxford bug. In my current game I was at zero balance with two puppets growing and one courthouse completing next turn. Basically a crappy city which I wouldn't usually bother to annex but it was close to the front and I stupidly lost couple of units lately. Miraculously enough, I'm up at 6 next turn after puppets grew.

You can annex a city once in several turns and to 'feed' with its happiness at least one more puppet. By the time you troops are ready to take over the next target another courthouse is done and so on and on... You'll never fall in again. Definitely not in . Before modern SP's come in it's a huge advantage. I don't think that was devs' intension.

I agree, I think the idea should be to either
1. make Courthoused cities equivalent to settled cities (Courthouses Build/buy is just the cost of getting that equivalency... so no more bug and no maintenance cost)
OR
2. make Courthouses buildable in all non-Puppet cities

 

[The Pilgrim]

I agree, I think the idea should be to either
1. make Courthoused cities equivalent to settled cities (Courthouses Build/buy is just the cost of getting that equivalency... so no more bug and no maintenance cost)
OR
2. make Courthouses buildable in all non-Puppet cities

Frankly, I don't mind maintenance costs. 600g for a fully functional city with buildings and pop that someone built and grew for you is very very cheap. Building it from scratch won't cost you less probably.
Allowing courthouses in native cities, on the other hand, sounds reasonable, by I'm afraid it will screw more that it will fix. What will courthouses do? Eliminate pop unhappiness? It will ruin the whole fragile game balance. Happiness is the limiting factor and if you add some here you have to cut some somewhere else. I just don't believe the devs can do a very good job with it. They'd better not to touch things that work and only fix the things that don't. Fortunately, there a plenty of those.

 

[kamex]

I agree this 'feature' needs to be either fixed or made official. One or the other pretty soon.

The real problem with the 'bug' (and I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread yet) is India. India gets 6 happiness per Courthouse, and this combined with 1/2 unhappiness per citizen is completely game breaking!

Also, somebody mentioned that AIs never Annex. This isn't true. I have seen the AI annex occasionally.

 

[Kwik E Mart]

With this bug, however, happiness is eliminated as an issue - not to mention, as was pointed out, how ridiculous it is that your conquered cities thus become more valuable than native ones.

^This is what i think bothers me the most. It seems counter intuitive (I know - it's a game, dummy...but...) that by conquering cities, annexing them and building courthouses it's easier to control happiness than not. I've had games where my happiness is dipping and there's few lux's around. Easy! Conquer a city and plop in a courthouse and the happiness issue starts looking much more rosy than NOT conquering the city.

As to the argument that if you don't like them, don't use them - I guess I'd rather see some other building in that tech spot (Mathematics?) that WOULD be used.

Sorry, it feels like a "game breaker" to me and I guess I just don't like "game breakers" around if at all possible...

 

[elprofesor]

Also, somebody mentioned that AIs never Annex. This isn't true. I have seen the AI annex occasionally.

There's a scheme I like to indulge with when the situation presents itself that makes me think that this is extremely rare:

I conquer some god-forsaken city in the middle of nowhere (preferably in tundra or desert, but I can't always choose) from an aggressive civ, puppet it, and then sell/gift it to some AI whose last city is in my territory; finally, I DoW that civ, and get that city that makes my mini-map look so ugly.

Result: the AI hates my guts to death, but they only have one city left, and that city is left as a puppet! So I don't have to fear about a backstab, they can't send a thing against me. Plus, I didn't get the "oh you're so nasty you've just genocided another civ" diplo penalty, only the "you are constantly DoWing everybody, and it starts bothering us" one

 

[The Pilgrim]

The real problem with the 'bug' (and I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread yet) is India. India gets 6 happiness per Courthouse, and this combined with 1/2 unhappiness per citizen is completely game breaking!

Oh yeah. India can be a crazy city spammer. The good thing it's rarely used in warmongering games. Maybe stereotypes come in play, maybe because it's hard to impossible to cut throats early on when you don't have a lot of cash to whip courthouses in masses or maybe people are just reluctant to abuse this bug to the unfair extent. I know I do. I'm trying to survive without rushing courthouses everywhere when I can. I cannot skip them completely, but I'm trying.

Also, somebody mentioned that AIs never Annex. This isn't true. I have seen the AI annex occasionally.

Rarely. And the same way it choses where to settle it also choses what to annex. That doesn't really help it. The funny thing, on higher difficulties AI has more than enough happiness to annex every single good city.

Result: the AI hates my guts to death, but they only have one city left, and that city is left as a puppet!

Exactly. It not uncommon to see AI left with a single city which is a puppet. Go figure.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Sorry, it feels like a "game breaker" to me and I guess I just don't like "game breakers" around if at all possible...

Having successful war is a game breaker. If you hopelessly behind in tech courthouses won't help you. If you cannot control diplomatic situation and get dogpiled they won't help you either. Just as SP's happiness by itself doesn't win games. What you with it does. The fact is people do win domination Deity games without continuously plopping courthouses. But it still a bug and should be fixed. And if it's not, by some weird reason, then it should be nerfed anyway.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Frankly, I don't mind maintenance costs. 600g for a fully functional city with buildings and pop that someone built and grew for you is very very cheap. Building it from scratch won't cost you less probably.
Allowing courthouses in native cities, on the other hand, sounds reasonable, by I'm afraid it will screw more that it will fix. What will courthouses do? Eliminate pop unhappiness? It will ruin the whole fragile game balance. Happiness is the limiting factor and if you add some here you have to cut some somewhere else. I just don't believe the devs can do a very good job with it. They'd better not to touch things that work and only fix the things that don't. Fortunately, there a plenty of those.

Courthouses in settled cities would do the same thing they do in annexed cities: eliminate City unhappiness [and make population unhappiness non-occupied, but that is already done].

They might need to be nerfed (+3 for only 3 gpt and 100 hammers Classical building is a bit low, probably up it to 200 hammers.)

 

[The Pilgrim]

Courthouses in settled cities would do the same thing they do in annexed cities: eliminate City unhappiness [and make population unhappiness non-occupied, but that is already done].

They might need to be nerfed (+3 for only 3 gpt and 100 hammers Classical building is a bit low, probably up it to 200 hammers.)

This might work. Although it will turn courthouses into regular 'boring' happiness buildings, something that devs probably tried to avoid. But since they didn't make them function the way they wanted and failed to fix that for a long time, I'll take anything at this point.

 

[Rpger29]

I still believe people have blown this whole thing out of proportion.

An annexed city with a courthouse increases SP costs. A courthouse costs GPT.

It's just not that big of a deal. Yes it is clearly better to eventually convert most cities to annexed status. This seems to follow common sense.

 

[MkLh]

Having successful war is a game breaker. If you hopelessly behind in tech courthouses won't help you. If you cannot control diplomatic situation and get dogpiled they won't help you either. Just as SP's happiness by itself doesn't win games. What you with it does. The fact is people do win domination Deity games without continuously plopping courthouses. But it still a bug and should be fixed. And if it's not, by some weird reason, then it should be nerfed anyway.

The problem is that puppeting is a better option alredy in most cases. If you remove the bug or other way nerf courhouses, puppeting will become no-brainer and annexing useless. This indeed was the case before latest patches. I'm quite sure the bug has been kept in purpose, to make annexing stronger and to balance the game.