Is it better to Raze and re-Settle? Or Puppet/Annex

xxblackdog

Chieftain
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Is it better to Raze a city and re-settle it? Or, conversely, to Annex a city?. For example, Zulu has massive amounts of salt within a city next to my borders; I would like to procure his resources. So, if I Raze his city I can start with a fresh city of my own, or I can Annex it... but I am unsure what the penalties would be, and ESPECIALLY if those penalties will last the rest of the game.

Just survived a massive assault by his Impi's (good grief). Shaka will pay. [Also, I'm in the Renaissance era].
 
If the city is placed in the right spot, has a good border expansion, has infrastructure and population then puppeting until the resistance is over and then building a courthouse is an easy call. When some of the above are lacking then it gets tougher. A small city with no buildings, better to raze and resettle.

With the new science drag of 5% applying to puppets, I prefer to annex and build courthouses when I can handle the happiness hit until the courthouse is in place. Large puppet empires are a ticket to failure now.

The warmonger penalties are worse for razing than for conquering. The backstabbing, hypocritical peace lovers will hate you either way. Better to befriend the warmonger types as they will be true friends. Shaka actually makes a great friend as long as you are not too close.

If you are planning on a domination victory, or you can become strong enough not to care, then the disapproval of the other civs is not a factor. If you need a lot of resource trades or research agreements then the warmonger penalty will be a problem, especially if the chain denouncements start.

The warmonger penalty lasts all game but only with civs that you know at the time. If you kill off your whole continent, when you meet the other continent they will not care about the warfare. Better to totally exterminate your neighbors then to leave them around as bitter cripples who will hate and denounce you forever. Attacking a friend or breaking a move your troops promise will apply to everyone including civs that you have not met yet.
 
It's often worth razing a city, because AI placement is crap or maybe because you don't have the happiness to support it. But with the difficulties BNW has imposed on early war However, with the changes in BNW making early war extremely difficult, I don't see there being much reason for raze-resettlement anymore. Not very efficient.

Here are your options on capturing a city:

  • Raze it. Good for washing your hands of marginal cities at any point in the game but you should avoid ever having to raze in the first place as much as possible because of the warmongerer hate. Having to contend with the happiness drain it causes isn't exactly a net positive either. Immediate razing does not raise social policy costs.
  • Puppet it. Good for "ok" cities that are worth keeping but not good enough to annex. Puppets produce less unhappiness per pop point than normal cities but less science as well, are set to Gold focus by default, and occasionally annoyingly erect money-draining buildings Airports and such for no good reason - because, well, AI. If you puppet a city best cover it in trading post spam. Puppeting does not raise social policy cost.
  • Annex it. Produces a lump of extra unhappiness until you build the Courthouse and raises the costs of your social policies, but absolutely worth it for well-placed cities and, usually, enemy capitals. Avoid annexing a conquered city immediately, though, it'll just add unhappiness and raise the policy cost while in resistance.
  • Gift it. Grab it, puppet it, gift it to another AI. Depending on the AI they may be willing to give you a serious amount of cash for even a marginal city position; in the late game once everyone becomes an ideologue it may be worth conquering or treaty-seizing cities just to sap cash from sufficiently non-threatening civs and bring them into conflict with the city's original owner.
  • Liberate it. Big diplomatic reward plus ally status with any liberated city-states.
 
"Liberate It"

That gave me a flash. The game would be more interesting if you could take cities from the AI and then liberate them to become new allied City-States.

Thanks for the idea, Mario.
 
  • Annex it. Produces a lump of extra unhappiness until you build the Courthouse and raises the costs of your social policies, but absolutely worth it for well-placed cities and, usually, enemy capitals. Avoid annexing a conquered city immediately, though, it'll just add unhappiness and raise the policy cost while in resistance.

Important note, if you get the Iron Curtain policy in order that grants free courthouses to captured cities, it only triggers if you annex the city directly.
 
Cool. Will take note. Unfortunately, Shaka magically summoned something like INFINITE Impi's and the war didn't go so well. Now he's on the attack after a 10 turn peace settlement. Just waiting on a few Riflemen to take care of business (fortunately, Science is coming along smoothly through all this!)
 
The warmonger penalty lasts all game but only with civs that you know at the time. If you kill off your whole continent, when you meet the other continent they will not care about the warfare.

Are you sure this is correct? I swear it used to be this way, but changed in one of the patches or expansions.
 
I just had a game on small continents, only had met three civs when I conquered Ethiopia as the Huns. Those two civs thought I was the antichrist but all the rest of the civs were fine. At least until I started conquering the rest. One of the two civs were the Inca, they were hostile for the entire game.

Just make sure that you do not break a move your troops from the border promise or attack a friend. Those penalties last forever and apply to people you have not met yet as well.
 
I find about half of the AIs city sites to be junk and raze those and don't re-settle.

I can't think of a circumstance where I'd raze and resettle in exactly the same spot, but there might be occasions where razing 2 AI cities and then self founding a single city between them that take in all the key tiles both had is worth while. (But even in this case, you'll need to pony up cash for getting this self built city to have the final copy of several buildings needed for national wonders)

Second most common thing for me to do would be puppet the city. This won't impact planned national wonders, and it's fairly easy even for a puppet to bring in enough science to offset the 5% science cost penalty.

Only if the city is really good (such as a former capital) would it be worthwhile to annex. Even then unless you have Iron Curtain, puppet initially and wait for it to come out of resistance before annexing.
 
Second most common thing for me to do would be puppet the city. This won't impact planned national wonders, and it's fairly easy even for a puppet to bring in enough science to offset the 5% science cost penalty.

puppets add to tech penalty?
its quite counter-intuitive as they dont add to policy penalty... :(

so puppets are useless crap..
 
Thread is a little dated. For me, the main decision factor to OP is city location. If the city is in a spot that I would have settled, then I will puppet it until NW are done.

The warmonger penalties are worse for razing than for conquering.

This bit is not correct AFAIK. Feels like it should be true, but I have seen no evidence.

puppets add to tech penalty?

I don't believe they raise tech costs. They do have a beaker production penalty as compared to annexed/founded cities, but they still contribute beakers, so very much a net positive.

so puppets are useless crap..

No, puppet is still generally the best of the three bad choices. You get science/gold/culture that is better than what you would get from nothing. The cost is happiness, but annexing and razing cost more happiness, especially in the short term.

The only way to avoid the happiness hit is to pick raze, sell the most expensive building, and then gift or sell the city. But how often is that better than puppet? I will say that this works pretty okay for cities turned over in a peace deal because (1) they tend to be more remote, (2) they haven't lost pop from being conquered and therefore are relatively large and come with a high happiness penalty, and (3) if you sell/gift them to an AI other than the original owner, the AI might raze them anyway, so no long-term strategic loss to the player.
 
I don't believe they raise tech costs. They do have a beaker production penalty as compared to annexed/founded cities, but they still contribute beakers, so very much a net positive.

Puppets do increase tech costs, in addition to their 25% beaker production penalty.
 
I have to say that I have kept puppets and annexations because cities usually allow road connections for trade routes.
 
Puppets do increase tech costs, in addition to their 25% beaker production penalty.

that makes puppets suck badly, its not a viable option anymore but a temporary state of a conquered city, feels like redundant feature. i used to love vanilla puppets design very much as they diminished routine while having their benifits (unlike automatic governors in previous civ games).
 
You get science/gold/culture that is better than what you would get from nothing. The cost is happiness, but annexing and razing cost more happiness, especially in the short term.
but its far worse than that of an annexed city or a newly built city
almost all the puppet's benefits are short term

lets make totals..

unhappiness: less unhappiness short term (several turns, while excess population is genocided or courthouse is being built), but long term - more unhappiness, as a) courthouse removes 3 per-city unhappiness b) in an occupied city you can control population and build order, to restrict growth or prioritize happiness buildings
gold: more gold short term (as theres no courthouse) but less gold long term, as a) puppets build everything so their maintenance rises b) it takes them ages to build banks and stock exchanges as they would always work plantation tiles instead of mined hills.
science: much less 'thanks' to the additional 20% penalty and inability to run scientists and build science buildings in time.
faith: you cant add faith-purchased buildings there, period.
culture: puppets dont increase policy costs and thats great. although, you cant buy religious buildings there, cant prioritize amphitheaters etc, and theres a -20% culture penalty on top of that, so even in this aspect puppets can be worse (unless you have got a dozen).
NWs: the only thing puppets are undoubtly good for.
 
After the resistance period, everything you get from a puppet is positive. Benefits are long term and on-going. Benefits apply equally to one puppet or a dozen.

I don’t believe annexed city with courthouse is more happiness than puppet city. But it is a significant disadvantage to not be able to rush buy happy buildings and faith buy happy buildings.

Puppet governors are gold focused, so while they won’t do better than the player, they generate good income. Whatever science and culture you get is also a freebie (but right, not as good as annexed city).

The long term cost of annexing is primarily the delay to National Wonders. If you don’t care about NW, then by all means, annex.
 
I don’t believe annexed city with courthouse is more happiness than puppet city.

that is. puppet is just like your own city: 3 :c5unhappy: + 1/pop. occupied is 5 :c5unhappy: + 1.33/pop, but as you've built/bought a courthouse it changes to 0 :c5unhappy: + 1/pop
 
I believe the 0 :c5unhappy: + 1/pop is only with Autocracy.

Anyway, I like to puppet in hopes that I can settle somewhere else later. In my Piety games I also like to pick a puppet and settle all my prophets there (minus 2, of course). The gold bonus to holy sites from Piety makes sure my citizens work the faith tiles.
 
puppet is just like your own city: 3 :c5unhappy: + 1/pop. occupied is 5 :c5unhappy: + 1.33/pop, but as you've built/bought a courthouse it changes to 0 :c5unhappy: + 1/pop

What do you mean by “occupied”? Is that an annexed city, after period of resistance, but no courthouse?

Are you saying that an annexed city with courthouse causes less unhappiness than a self-founded city? If so, that like a pretty unbalanced game mechanic! I thought the courthouse only eliminated the annexing penalty.
 
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