New Version - February 17th (2-17)

[MorphBer]

I've taken only a short look, but I saw furs with 100%, but don't know if it was imported or a monopoly. This unlocks Giorgio, which is never wrong. I think civilized jewelers was also possible. After the buff, it's pretty good, with a 10 city empire I had permanent GA and in one turn 3 GP, but atleast one every 5 turns.
I could do a look again and show, which layout I would have taken for the roads and villages, if you want.

Giorgo was taken by Korea, I would have taken it since it's obviously a better choice.

Jeweliers might have been better but not a ton ver twokay, not changing the outcome of the game atleast.

 

[crdvis16]

Mine. Managing cities and empire is my strength. Use internal trade routes to strengthen the weakest cities. Let your routes start from a puppet and ending at a puppet with the shortest duration. This way the target city get the yields per turn and the starting city the instant yields.

Wait, wait, wait. You're claiming that managing cities and empires is your strength and then you go on to say that you use internal trade routes to strengthen PUPPETS? You're actually wasting a trade route to boost a crappy puppet city that is only contributing 20% of its yields to your empire? Do you seriously not see how bad of a game play decision that is? How inefficient it is to waste a trade route boosting a city that will never contribute as much as an annexed/settled city?

Who cares? The unhappiness hit by population is only a minor thing, nothing a new luxury I gain by the conquest wouldnt compensate. My tech/policy cost didnt rise, and every additional yield is beneficial. If I immidiatly annex that city, the tech and policy cost rise, while the yields I gain are minor, as you said.

You completely missed my point. I was pointing out that for a majority of the game your puppets are not anywhere near to as developed as your core cities as they have a long recovery period of population regrowth and re-building destroyed buildings. Saying that they are 0.80 the strength of a core city is just silly. Though then again, if you're wasting your trade routes to help them rebuild then maybe your puppets really do get to 0.80 strength pretty quickly. Meanwhile, a person who understands the game better is using his trade routes to much better effect.

Why shouldnt you pick imperialismn with 15 puppets? You more than double the output of 3/4 of your empire, you probably have now more than 1 monopoly which gets doubled/improved too (+10% science from whales gets increased to +20%, which is the same increase in science gain you get by the whole opener and scaler from rationalismn, but with only one policy)

Again, you completely misunderstand the point I was making. Of course if you have a puppet empire you should pick imperialism. My point is that you can't include the effects of imperialism on the puppet empire without also taking into account the settled/annexed empire choosing their own industrial policy tree and the benefits of them NOT having to go imperialism. In your silly hypothetical you should have boosted the annexed/settled empire with rationalism or industry policies, for example.

Ok, ive checked the values in my last inca game, and get some real values calculation (capital 2 yields, normal city 1 yield, puppet city 0.6 yield, +15% culture by buildings/policies)
Puppet Empire with imperialismn:
The 5 core cities are generating 6.9 yields. The 15 puppets are generating 9, modified by (-50%+15%) = -35% will contribute 5.85 yields.
Total of 12.75 yields.
The culture and tech cost are modified to a value of 130%. Unlocking a new tech/policy would need 130/10.5 = 10,19 turns.

Annexed Empire with industry (+15% additional culture)
Core cities generate (4+2)*1.3 = 7.8 yields and former puppets generate 15*0.6*1,3 = 11.7 yields Total of 19.5 yields.
Culture and tech cost are modified to a value of 242.5%. Unlocking a new tech/policy would need 242.5/19.5 = 12.43 turns.

2:0 for puppets. (Do I have to mention, the full annexed empire has around 150 less happiness than the puppet empire? )

It's just really difficult to take anything you say seriously, to be honest. I'm glad you can create these fictitious hypotheticals but they aren't actually grounded in reality. When your thought experiment doesn't line up with actual in-game experience then maybe your theory is wrong.

I agree with the gold maintenance and with the unability to buy faith buildings. But if you want to go warmonger anyway, you can adjust to it and pick follower related beliefs But empire wise, puppets are as strong as annexed cities. Without the heavy happiness penalty.

No, puppets are not as strong as annexed cities and hopefully people reading this thread aren't duped by your faulty logic. Just because you can make puppets catch up faster by pumping them up with internal trade routes (which, again, is just a terrible, terrible idea) and picking your policies specifically to improve them doesn't mean they are better than annexed/settled cities. A smarter player would have annexed as many of the best puppets as his happiness would allow (and only annexing if there is time left in the game for the annexed city to become a net positive), would be making the most efficient use of his policy choices, and would be doing something much better with his trade routes.

 

[Minh Le]

From my experience a puppet with Imperialism is about 25-30% of an annexed one, and its roughly 10% without Imperialism. Theyre just a little bonus without any downside.
The only puppet which is as strong as an annexed city is Venetian puppet.

 

[Bhawb]

What Diffuculty are you playing at?

Emperor if it is a new civ, Immortal if I've played it a couple times and I have more of an idea what to do.

Should puppets be allowed to contribute to unit supply by design? I think they should not, or if they do, very very little. Also, what happens to Venice and OCC?

Are your puppets currently adding 75% of their supply to the empire, as @BiteInTheMark is claiming? It looks like a bug. (I have no puppets at the moment).

I'm fairly certain puppets aren't adding unintended supply. They currently (afaik) and should add supply from buildings at least, to allow each puppet to add enough supply to defend itself, and if we need more supply for some reason (I don't think we do) we could add a small amount of supply per pop. But overall I think puppet supply is fine atm, you usually end up with more supply than is really necessary by the time puppet supply from pop would be a big issue.

 

[tu_79]

you usually end up with more supply than is really necessary

This is precisely what I am afraid of. Too much supply for puppet empires, very large armies, less tactical wars.

 

[Enginseer]

Too much supply for puppet empires, very large armies, less tactical wars.

*blocks your path*

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Wait, wait, wait. You're claiming that managing cities and empires is your strength and then you go on to say that you use internal trade routes to strengthen PUPPETS? You're actually wasting a trade route to boost a crappy puppet city that is only contributing 20% of its yields to your empire? Do you seriously not see how bad of a game play decision that is? How inefficient it is to waste a trade route boosting a city that will never contribute as much as an annexed/settled city?

First, I have modifiers which didnt come from imperialismn and rise the percentage of yields to 35%. Second, you said it needs a very long time till they reach the same strength as non-puppet cities. The goal of the additionaly hammers is to bring them asap to a good level and annex them, when they can contribute enough yields which compensate the increased tech/policy cost.

You completely missed my point. I was pointing out that for a majority of the game your puppets are not anywhere near to as developed as your core cities as they have a long recovery period of population regrowth and re-building destroyed buildings. Saying that they are 0.80 the strength of a core city is just silly. Though then again, if you're wasting your trade routes to help them rebuild then maybe your puppets really do get to 0.80 strength pretty quickly. Meanwhile, a person who understands the game better is using his trade routes to much better effect.

Better effect? You mean sending a trade route to a city state and gain +3 gold while an internal trade route gives your city +10 hammer?
After conquering my whole continent in classical, I was completly isolated, and had only CS in my range. Allying a CS to gain +2 science/culture for a 15 city empire is a waste of hammers for the expensive diplomats. I was going for order anyway and buffed my internals by my religion, so I was able to push them fast to a level they wouldnt be a drain after annexing. I see no problem with that.

Again, you completely misunderstand the point I was making. Of course if you have a puppet empire you should pick imperialism. My point is that you can't include the effects of imperialism on the puppet empire without also taking into account the settled/annexed empire choosing their own industrial policy tree and the benefits of them NOT having to go imperialism. In your silly hypothetical you should have boosted the annexed/settled empire with rationalism or industry policies, for example.

I have done this correctly in my second example, and Ive taken the base values from my own game. If I have done an error in my calculations, you point me towards it, instead only flaming.

No, puppets are not as strong as annexed cities and hopefully people reading this thread aren't duped by your faulty logic. Just because you can make puppets catch up faster by pumping them up with internal trade routes (which, again, is just a terrible, terrible idea) and picking your policies specifically to improve them doesn't mean they are better than annexed/settled cities. A smarter player would have annexed as many of the best puppets as his happiness would allow (and only annexing if there is time left in the game for the annexed city to become a net positive), would be making the most efficient use of his policy choices, and would be doing something much better with his trade routes.

Staying with a lot of puppets can give you more than annexing them, if you go later on for imperialismn. You are able to concentrate all your guilds/national wonders in your few core cites which generate 100+%, while the puppets give culture/science without any cost penalty. Imperialismn gives much more than only an improve for puppets. Alone the doubled effect of monopolies will be extremly beneficial to you, cause with a lot of conquered cities, you probably will have several monopolies.

 

[crdvis16]

First, I have modifiers which didnt come from imperialismn and rise the percentage of yields to 35%. Second, you said it needs a very long time till they reach the same strength as non-puppet cities. The goal of the additionaly hammers is to bring them asap to a good level and annex them, when they can contribute enough yields which compensate the increased tech/policy cost.


Better effect? You mean sending a trade route to a city state and gain +3 gold while an internal trade route gives your city +10 hammer?
After conquering my whole continent in classical, I was completly isolated, and had only CS in my range. Allying a CS to gain +2 science/culture for a 15 city empire is a waste of hammers for the expensive diplomats. I was going for order anyway and buffed my internals by my religion, so I was able to push them fast to a level they wouldnt be a drain after annexing. I see no problem with that.


I have done this correctly in my second example, and Ive taken the base values from my own game. If I have done an error in my calculations, you point me towards it, instead only flaming.


Staying with a lot of puppets can give you more than annexing them, if you go later on for imperialismn. You are able to concentrate all your guilds/national wonders in your few core cites which generate 100+%, while the puppets give culture/science without any cost penalty. Imperialismn gives much more than only an improve for puppets. Alone the doubled effect of monopolies will be extremly beneficial to you, cause with a lot of conquered cities, you probably will have several monopolies.

I think I see the problem here. You're taking a late game situation where you have a 5 settled +15 puppet empire and have imperialism's bonus and you're comparing those yields to what you would have if you just annexed them all at that late stage in the game. That's a comparison that heavily favors the puppet strategy.

What you need to compare to is what your progression would have been if you had annexed the best of those 15 puppets back when you originally took them (100+ turns ago?), which is what players like myself and Minh would have probably done. My guess is that of those 15 puppets 2 or 3 are probably capitals and maybe 2 or 3 others are particularly strong (maybe have a wonder or particularly good tiles). If you had annexed those 4-6 puppets 100+ turns ago back when you captured them you would have been enjoying 100% yields instead of the reduced amount due to puppeting that whole time and would be much further ahead in every yield and would have flexibility in building units or buying with gold/faith.

If I conquer cities in the late game and have imperialism then I would leave those newly conquered cities as puppets too. But long before that all the best cities I conquered would have been annexed (as long as I have the happiness to support it). THAT'S what Minh and I mean when we say annexing is better.

 

[tu_79]

*blocks your path*

Sorry, can't find this flag or enseign. Joke missed.

What you need to compare to is what your progression would have been if you had annexed the best of those 15 puppets back when you originally took them (100+ turns ago?)

Wait, wait. Didn't we have this conversation long ago?

 

[Enginseer]

Sorry, can't find this flag or enseign. Joke missed.

The British Raj.

 

[tu_79]

The British Raj.

 

[Minh Le]

First, I have modifiers which didnt come from imperialismn and rise the percentage of yields to 35%. Second, you said it needs a very long time till they reach the same strength as non-puppet cities. The goal of the additionaly hammers is to bring them asap to a good level and annex them, when they can contribute enough yields which compensate the increased tech/policy cost.


Better effect? You mean sending a trade route to a city state and gain +3 gold while an internal trade route gives your city +10 hammer?
After conquering my whole continent in classical, I was completly isolated, and had only CS in my range. Allying a CS to gain +2 science/culture for a 15 city empire is a waste of hammers for the expensive diplomats. I was going for order anyway and buffed my internals by my religion, so I was able to push them fast to a level they wouldnt be a drain after annexing. I see no problem with that.


I have done this correctly in my second example, and Ive taken the base values from my own game. If I have done an error in my calculations, you point me towards it, instead only flaming.


Staying with a lot of puppets can give you more than annexing them, if you go later on for imperialismn. You are able to concentrate all your guilds/national wonders in your few core cites which generate 100+%, while the puppets give culture/science without any cost penalty. Imperialismn gives much more than only an improve for puppets. Alone the doubled effect of monopolies will be extremly beneficial to you, cause with a lot of conquered cities, you probably will have several monopolies.

1. Annexing right away and invest money in a city is twice (three times actually because you decide which building to build) as effective as sending TRs to feed a puppet.
2. For the reason above, sending Internal TRs to an annexed, founded city is twice as effective as send it to a puppet.
3. Im bad at math so no comment on this.
4. Puppet can never out produce an annexed one, even with Imperialism (except Venice, thats why Venice is so powerful). Culture is just a factor, you have much more science/gold/production (and even culture tbh, guild is just 1 source of culture). All national wonders which have % effect should be built in your capital only, with all Academies, Holy Sites to maximize Science/culture output. Normally my capital produce 4x science/culture compare to other cities.
Take a look at this picture:

Spoiler Picture :

View attachment 519546

Persepolis, an annexed city, produce more science than all of my founded one because it has academies. If I keep it as puppet, it will contribute 30 science only.
Honolulu, while still have many buildings to be build, contribute more culture than my guilds cities, because of moai.

 

[MorphBer]

Emperor if it is a new civ, Immortal if I've played it a couple times and I have more of an idea what to do.

Well if you are playing a diffuculty lelel below your limit it's not very surprising it doesnt seem to diffucult for you. I can steamroll the AI at -1 difficulty as well....

 

[John.B.C]

In my games almost every AI seem to go tradition these days, in an earlier patch it was progress.

 

[Rekk]

In my games almost every AI seem to go tradition these days, in an earlier patch it was progress.

In my current game, we've got a decent spread between authority/progress/tradition. The top two AI are tradition and progress. The authority warmongers made some early gains but were unable to hurt the top two AI, so are in the middle-of-the-pack and hated by everyone. One of them killed a civilization, and took the capital of a second for a few turns before it was retaken.

 

[shangela]

This patch, I've noticed (on immortal/deity, multiple different maps, standard speed, etc) that the AI practically never chooses progress. I almost always see mostly Tradition with a few Authority (especially on tighter maps). This is pretty contrary to last patch where the AI was rarely picking authority and instead split between Tradition & Progress.

Am I just having weird luck, or is progress less desirable this patch?

 

[Gazebo]

This patch, I've noticed (on immortal/deity, multiple different maps, standard speed, etc) that the AI practically never chooses progress. I almost always see mostly Tradition with a few Authority (especially on tighter maps). This is pretty contrary to last patch where the AI was rarely picking authority and instead split between Tradition & Progress.

Am I just having weird luck, or is progress less desirable this patch?

This can be easily discerned if you look at the PolicyAI.log

G

 

[tu_79]

This patch, I've noticed (on immortal/deity, multiple different maps, standard speed, etc) that the AI practically never chooses progress. I almost always see mostly Tradition with a few Authority (especially on tighter maps). This is pretty contrary to last patch where the AI was rarely picking authority and instead split between Tradition & Progress.

Am I just having weird luck, or is progress less desirable this patch?

Are you playing with the same maps, same expansion room? I should think that having more space for settling makes AI choose Progress more often.

 

[Txurce]

Gazebo, I've noticed that the AI still doesn't try to extort gold or luxuries the way it once did. I vaguely recall that this would be reviewed. What's the status on this?

 

[black213]

Are third party denouncement requests from AIs also gone for good? Haven't seen it happen once in VP. But I did see some demands, albeit a few versions ago.