I need help deciding when to raze or puppet a city

[oPunchDrunko]

What I've gathered from the forums is you raze a city that is junk and keep a good one. How do I decide what city is good and which isn't worth keeping? If the city has luxury resources that I already have, is it worth keeping or should I raze it?

 

[Polisurgist]

I wouldn't base that decision on luxuries, since the only thing a single luxury is going to do is not-quite balance out the increase in unhappiness from keeping the puppet.

What strategic resources are there? What's the population (remember that it'll be reduced after you take it over, but it should bounce back)? Are there wonders in the city that you can use, or specialized, higher-tech buildings?

My general rule is actually to annex capitals, because the AI usually pours a lot of resources into them and they're worth it, puppet mid-sized cities and raze the ones where the AI just spammed it onto an island or something.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

I pretty much puppet if I have the happiness for it, especially if they still have some buildings that provide happiness. Also depends on their location, some I like to have as buffers or to fill in borders. I'll annex cities and build happiness buildings as needed, though only later on after National College and some others are built.

Like you said, if they have a luxury or resource pretty much always puppet or annex. The biggest problem with razing is that some AI will always plant another city there, typically one of civs doing well. I find it very problematic at high levels of difficulty so I try hard to hold anything I take.

 

[Catan_Settler]

If they don't have:

A - A useful wonder
and/or
B - At least one new unique luxury or strategic resouce

They get razed.

As for annexing, I would only ever annex an enemy's capital city. And I would only do that if I have not built 4 cities on my own (you know, with settlers) OR if I'm playing a domination game and there is a good strategic reason to build troops or ships out of that city. For instance: it's a new continent. Or it's the opposite side of a continent, and I want to build ships right on that body of water. For the most part though, I raze almost everything, and puppet anything else. It is indeed quite rare that I annex a city, but once in a while it helps a domination game by cutting down on troop travel time.

 

[joncnunn]

Strongly disagree with Polisurgist and agree with Catan Settler.

AI founds a lot of junk cities. If the city isn't even bringing in a luxury/resource you can use/sell it's not worth having. (Or a natural wonder)

Note that I often conquer the city I'm intending to raze before the one I'm planning on keeping.

Annexing: Only if the city is really good production wise. Usually capitals qualify. Very few non capitals do. (First ring AI cities would have a better shot if I was keeping them at all, but they tend to have no tiles left at all that weren't within range of either the AI's capital or the AI's second ring.)

 

[Sabrina]

I pretty much puppet if I have the happiness for it, especially if they still have some buildings that provide happiness. Also depends on their location, some I like to have as buffers or to fill in borders. I'll annex cities and build happiness buildings as needed, though only later on after National College and some others are built.

Like you said, if they have a luxury or resource pretty much always puppet or annex. The biggest problem with razing is that some AI will always plant another city there, typically one of civs doing well. I find it very problematic at high levels of difficulty so I try hard to hold anything I take.

I agree with you. I tend to puppet to avoid increasing my SP costs.

 

[pilot00]

I wouldn't base that decision on luxuries, since the only thing a single luxury is going to do is not-quite balance out the increase in unhappiness from keeping the puppet.

What strategic resources are there? What's the population (remember that it'll be reduced after you take it over, but it should bounce back)? Are there wonders in the city that you can use, or specialized, higher-tech buildings?

My general rule is actually to annex capitals, because the AI usually pours a lot of resources into them and they're worth it, puppet mid-sized cities and raze the ones where the AI just spammed it onto an island or something.

This actually. Given the fact that you cant control puppet states whatsoever I check a couple of things before hitting the raze button: Location, resources, lux, wonders.Also I check the nearby tiles: Is it in jungle? Ill keep it. Spam trading posts around it and it will grow to decent size (jungles provide food too) and a ton of science and gold (and culture if you have the pantheon).
Is it desert on flood planes? Trading post the hell out of it.
If its in tundra with nothing going for it or away from a vital choke point/strategic location raze it.

Capitals I annex too. Usually they are in very good starting positions and it has to be a completely underdog civ not to have a single wonder. Plus if you have conquered a vast empire you have to have at least 4-6 cities at key points which you want to control production mainly for military purposes (defense/offense).

 

[Polisurgist]

Strongly disagree with Polisurgist and agree with Catan Settler.

AI founds a lot of junk cities. If the city isn't even bringing in a luxury/resource you can use/sell it's not worth having. (Or a natural wonder)

Note that I often conquer the city I'm intending to raze before the one I'm planning on keeping.

Annexing: Only if the city is really good production wise. Usually capitals qualify. Very few non capitals do. (First ring AI cities would have a better shot if I was keeping them at all, but they tend to have no tiles left at all that weren't within range of either the AI's capital or the AI's second ring.)

Obviously the AI puts junk cities out there; I didn't suggest that you puppet every city Augustus shat onto a one-tile island in the ocean just because it had 2 iron. But the 2nd or 3rd city that most AIs found will still yield enough to make the happiness hit worth it, and capitals are usually good enough to be worth keeping, and far enough from your own cities that it would be handy to have them produce units, so I'll annex them.

I just think that the existence of luxuries, unique or not, is the wrong criteria to judge by. If the AI built a Coliseum in the city at any point, the net happiness is the same as if it had a unique luxury, then Circuses, Theatres and Stadiums just count on top of that, plus anything they might have that will give happiness once absorbed into your empire. Whatever the situation is, it's all baked into the tooltip that tells you how much your happiness will change for each option.

Better to puppet/annex based on wonders (natural or world), positioning, buildings and yield.

 

[pilot00]

Heres a quick rough example of good and bad city placement for puppet/anexing:

EDIT: OK either I do something wrong or there is a problem with uploading....

 

[reddishrecue]

Usually it is not necessary to conquer every city to be dominant only the capital of rival civs. Annexing is something I sometimes do since the unhappiness rating rises so I make puppets instead. I annex only when im close to golden ages and have a lot of happiness or obtain police state social policy which reduces a lot of unhappies. I rarely raze for the exception of island one tile cities that lack resources. The paradise scenario also has many one tile islands and are the only places to make cities unless you conquer the ai's cities.

 

[joncnunn]

Obviously the AI puts junk cities out there; I didn't suggest that you puppet every city Augustus shat onto a one-tile island in the ocean just because it had 2 iron. But the 2nd or 3rd city that most AIs found will still yield enough to make the happiness hit worth it, and capitals are usually good enough to be worth keeping, and far enough from your own cities that it would be handy to have them produce units, so I'll annex them.

I just think that the existence of luxuries, unique or not, is the wrong criteria to judge by. If the AI built a Coliseum in the city at any point, the net happiness is the same as if it had a unique luxury, then Circuses, Theatres and Stadiums just count on top of that, plus anything they might have that will give happiness once absorbed into your empire. Whatever the situation is, it's all baked into the tooltip that tells you how much your happiness will change for each option.

Better to puppet/annex based on wonders (natural or world), positioning, buildings and yield.

Wonders: If national wonder present, auto destroyed upon you capturing. World wonders: Most often only present in either the AI capital or a city that had something useful besides the wonder anyway just to get up to enough production.

New unique Luxury you can sell: 240 gold every 30 turns.

That mere 2 Iron is a bit below threshold at only 90 gold every 30 turns; (and if late enough in the game becomes useless to sell anyway).

Local happiness of the city is a poor indicator (or any other building) for that matter because its flavor driven. Seeing an AI city with a Theater already present means every other city that particular AI has had for a while will have one as well.

 

[Polisurgist]

Wonders: If national wonder present, auto destroyed upon you capturing. World wonders: Most often only present in either the AI capital or a city that had something useful besides the wonder anyway just to get up to enough production.

Natural Wonders.

New unique Luxury you can sell: 240 gold every 30 turns.

True whether or not it's unique; though that 240 is still not going to be enough to make pr break the city for me, especially if I'm on a domination tear and don't plan on having many allies.

That mere 2 Iron is a bit below threshold at only 90 gold every 30 turns; (and if late enough in the game becomes useless to sell anyway).

Right, hence the razing.

Unless you're making an argument for keeping the bad cities and razing the good ones.

Local happiness of the city is a poor indicator (or any other building) for that matter because its flavor driven. Seeing an AI city with a Theater already present means every other city that particular AI has had for a while will have one as well.

I'm not talking about looking at local happiness. I'm saying that when you're given the option, hovering over the Raze, Annex or Puppet buttons will tell you how much doing either option will increase Unhappiness, and the changes from all buildings and luxuries are already baked into that. Your net happiness is almost never going to be positive, so taking it based on luxuries is pointless...especially if you're taking it based on unique luxuries alone. Redundant ones, you can at least sell off.

 

[Sid Simelia]

Yeah, when you first take the city you get the happiness, from wonders/buildings/luxuries, what have you. Then you get the unhappiness hit after you choose what you want to do.

Also I believe there is a misconception about social policies, currently if you raze a city upon capture your policy cost will stay the same. So that shouldn't factor in to the raze/puppet decision.

I have been playing a lot of culture games recently, and in a couple I had to go rogue because I had early runaways right next to me spamming cities everywhere. So I burned them all down and just kept the capitals as puppets.

I had about three founded cities pushing huge culture, and then across the continent just the two or three puppet capitols. I was not very popular overseas on account of eliminating civs, but I still managed to make one friend at least.

The interesting thing to me was, with all that unclaimed land - fertile land with resources and everything, the civs from the other continents did not want to settle on my continent. It seemed like they were afraid to settle near me because I was burning cities and eliminating civs. In the two games I'm thinking of, I only had one settler come and try to make a city on my continent (Catherine of course), and I responded by declaring war and burning that one as well.

Anyways when I completed the Utopia Project there were only 3 cities and 3 puppets on this whole huge continent, I thought it was pretty fun.

 

[oPunchDrunko]

Hey guys, I'm sorry for bumping this topic because it is almost a year old, but I have another question.

What if a city has a bunch of useful buildings in it, but it completely weighs your GPT and happiness? In my current game as the Zulu, I went to war with the Ottomans and they offered me one of their cities for peace. I viewed the city and it had pretty much all of the buildings built in it for the era. I decided to puppet it and it cost me -70 GPT and I went into extreme unhappiness. Needless to say, I ended up razing it because it was a terrible choice.

Was that a good choice or would have you guys kept the city?

 

[civ54lyfe]

if the city can't fit into your gameplan and/or you know that you can't fix that situation in reasonable time you can 1)raze+sell the most expensive bldgs every turn+swap all Great Works out of it ... 2)gift the city to another AI for giggles ... 3)combine #1 and #2 by half razing the city and selling the best bldgs then gift it to an AI.

 

[SULOMON]

In SP I just raze cities almost universally and just resettle the area if the razed city had a natural wonder or something. In MP I puppet cities that have luxuries or are at least not completely worthless.

 

[Mr. Grieves]

Hey guys, I'm sorry for bumping this topic because it is almost a year old, but I have another question.

What if a city has a bunch of useful buildings in it, but it completely weighs your GPT and happiness? In my current game as the Zulu, I went to war with the Ottomans and they offered me one of their cities for peace. I viewed the city and it had pretty much all of the buildings built in it for the era. I decided to puppet it and it cost me -70 GPT and I went into extreme unhappiness. Needless to say, I ended up razing it because it was a terrible choice.

Was that a good choice or would have you guys kept the city?

Was the city still in resistance? A city in resistance won't produce anything, while you do need to pay its maintenance costs.

 

[Gamewizard]

I wouldn't take any cities in a peace deal, as there is a bug that causes the city tile to have 0 yield.

As for the original question, I puppet as long as my happiness can handle it AND if there are enough GOOD tiles to be worked to make it ATLEAST a self-sustained size 10 city. I eventually annex when the puppet starts working merchants instead of mines and/or starts wasting hammers on useless buildings.

 

[oPunchDrunko]

Was the city still in resistance? A city in resistance won't produce anything, while you do need to pay its maintenance costs.

Yes it was, but it would have taken 15 turns for it to come out of resistance. I couldn't afford that, so I just razed it.

 

[reddishrecue]

Capturing cities isn't as easy as it looks. Ais sometimes notice when you capture a city when you get the major warmonger penalty. In multiplayer, you can capture and raze/annex differently from single player since humans are different from ai.