Puppet cities are aweful?!

[dannythefool]

Once you're paying 20 gpt in maintenance for all the barracks, walls, and other useless junk they build and you puppet five or six cities, you might change your mind. Left alone they can destroy your gold production.

I'm not happy with them building all this unnecessary military stuff, but on the other hand, if they only built what I actually want them to build, there would be no drawback at all to puppeting them instead of annexing them... nobody would annex a city anymore.

 

[Tridus]

If they only built stuff that the city itself could support gold production wise, then it wouldn't be as bad. It wouldn't make you money, but it wouldn't bankrupt you either.

It makes absolutely no sense that a "puppet" can run around doing whatever it wants and drain your treasury while you have no influence over it whatsoever. That's not what "puppet governments" do.

 

[Lord Parkin]

If they only built stuff that the city itself could support gold production wise, then it wouldn't be as bad. It wouldn't make you money, but it wouldn't bankrupt you either.

I guess they would make you a lot of culture very quickly though - which is what you'd most likely focus them on if you could. That might be a bit overpowered with social policies as hard to get as they are.

Still, it would be nice to at least not have the puppets building unit-boosting buildings when they never seem to produce units.

Actually, that's a question that's been bugging me for a while - has anyone actually ever seen a puppet produce a unit? I haven't, and I've played quite a few games now. I'm presuming they're somehow disabled from building units? In which case, the unit-boosting buildings should probably be disabled for them too.

Annoyingly, they never seem to produce their own Work Boats either. I have to build them for them in other cities.

 

[PrAyTeLLa]

You do realise of course if you annex the city later on, you can then opt to raze it to the ground at any time (excluding capitals), so if you find that you dont want it later on you just annex & raze.

 

[lynxxyarly]

They need to just disable building military buildings and draining your strategic resources. Everything else is tolerable.

 

[kroket]

Ok so it's not something related to the capital at all like i thought! Too bad you can't raze capitals because Kyoto is just a terrible city really... besides the marble.

As for the harbour taking some turns to kick in... well it took more than a few, it didnt kick in at all when it was a puppet... I had astronomy btw before the harbour was built...

But for the moment i am just going to raze or annex and leave puppet cities alone, seems like the best solution. When you are playing cultural its tough that you cant raze capitals but ok...

 

[Collic]

It feels to me as though them building military buildings (and economic ones that require strategic resources) is a mistake. The decision to annex should be about the social policy costs, and whether or not you need it as a base for military production (the in-game 'new city' dialog certainly suggests this) rather than just maintenance costs.

When using puppets it always feels as though you're fighting against the mechanics, rather than making a decision with them in mind. This feels wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's changed.

 

[spfun]

someone needs to make a mod which just removes all military buildings & resource using things. Krepost though should stay for its culture buff.

Thats a mod im looking for cause puppet states drive me up the wall.

 

[Akaoz]

If they only built stuff that the city itself could support gold production wise, then it wouldn't be as bad. It wouldn't make you money, but it wouldn't bankrupt you either.

It makes absolutely no sense that a "puppet" can run around doing whatever it wants and drain your treasury while you have no influence over it whatsoever. That's not what "puppet governments" do.

This.

If the idea was to make sure the puppets become a drain on your coffers in the long run, they should just introduce a corruption (negative gpt) factor that goes up over time until you annex of liberate them.

Either that or give me the ability to destroy buildings that I don't need or want in my own cities.

 

[Tridus]

Actually, that's a question that's been bugging me for a while - has anyone actually ever seen a puppet produce a unit? I haven't, and I've played quite a few games now. I'm presuming they're somehow disabled from building units? In which case, the unit-boosting buildings should probably be disabled for them too.

Annoyingly, they never seem to produce their own Work Boats either. I have to build them for them in other cities.

Puppets never produce units, by design. The benefit of annexing is that you can get it to produce units... and of course that you can control what it builds.

 

[Frosty_AUT]

That's why I'm saying that puppet states need a complete overhaul. They should convert all their production to wealth, their population should grow at half the normal pace and they should only contribute half the science/culture of a normal city. So instead of slowly turning into money sinks, they'll be mildly useful economically, but they won't be a huge advantage to your empire either.

Also, annexing a city shouldn't be such a pain. The whole concept of extra unhappiness that can only be removed by a maintenance-intensive building that takes long to build and cannot be rushed feels waaay too artificial.

 

[Tutkarz]

I'm not happy with them building all this unnecessary military stuff, but on the other hand, if they only built what I actually want them to build, there would be no drawback at all to puppeting them instead of annexing them... nobody would annex a city anymore.

Problem is that people are annexing cities because they dont know what effects it has.

- You have to build expensive courthouse which costs 5gpt. Which is alot if you have few captured cities. Such a city sometimes cant earn more than it costs.
- Policy that removes 20% unhappiness from own cities dont work on captured ones.
- unable to destroy some buildings you dont need

It creates situation, that people cant afford puppet cities because they are expensive (due to random production), they cant afford annexed cities due to costs and unhappiness.
So only solution is to raze city. And build new one on top of old one. Which is bad mechanic. And why? Because someone got great idea of removing local happiness and there is no other way to distinguish conquered cities. And local unhappiness was best way to tell that this city has been just conquerred and need to be sorted out. Which was possible and didnt required high maintenance forever.

And also there are alot of bugs. In my last game i was fighting France and they wanted to sign peace with me. I agreed and they handed me 12 cities. I liberated ones i could and the rest i puppetted because i would have high unhappiness. Problem is that i couldnt end turn because i stuck with "choose production" button in my puppet cities while i couldnt do this. So i restarted/reloaded and problem was not solved. Then i annexed all cities and problem was solved but i left with 90 unhappiness. Good thing is that it was 5 turns till i won diplomatic victory but well ... Something needs to be fixed/tweaked.

 

[Tutkarz]

That's why I'm saying that puppet states need a complete overhaul. They should convert all their production to wealth, their population should grow at half the normal pace and they should only contribute half the science/culture of a normal city. So instead of slowly turning into money sinks, they'll be mildly useful economically, but they won't be a huge advantage to your empire either.

Also, annexing a city shouldn't be such a pain. The whole concept of extra unhappiness that can only be removed by a maintenance-intensive building that takes long to build and cannot be rushed feels waaay too artificial.

Problem is that min/maxers will still raze such city and build new one if they are not going for cultural victory (which is more than likely considering how small empire you have to have to win).
I would like vassals and colonies more than this wierd puppet mechanism.

 

[The Great Apple]

I tend to annex them as soon as I see them building something I don't like. Usually the first two or three buildings are ok.

5 GPT for a courthouse is expensive, and it's often simply better to raise the city and place your own settler there. I'll tend to keep them if they have wonders or if I'm feeling rich...

 

[Stuie]

1. Puppet city.
2. Tear up all tile improvements that add production except strategic resources.
3. Build trading posts everywhere in the city's radius.

That should slow down production and pay for whatever they do build.

 

[DagHammarskjol]

1. Puppet city.
2. Tear up all tile improvements that add production except strategic resources.
3. Build trading posts everywhere in the city's radius.

That should slow down production and pay for whatever they do build.

 

[Frosty_AUT]

Problem is that min/maxers will still raze such city and build new one if they are not going for cultural victory (which is more than likely considering how small empire you have to have to win).

Yeah, but that's an issue of its own that has to do with how undesireable annexing a city is as opposed to razing and rebuilding it.

Even if you're not going for a cultural victory, puppet states still serve the purpose of giving you additional output (resources, science, etc.) without increasing your SP cost and unhappiness. Also, these cities no longer belong to the enemy, which is also a definitive advantage. The drawback is that they ruin your economy, because they'd be way too good otherwise: A city that contributes science/culture/resources/territory with no extra penalty to happiness/SP cost at the price of not being able to produce anything? I'd go on conquering sprees just to get more puppets.

This is why puppet states need a drawback that is different from "ruin your economy by randomly building useless high-maintenance buildings". They should simply contribute way less science etc. than a normal/annexed city, grow much slower and produce nothing but wealth, so that annexing puppets feels more like an UPGRADE rather than a burden.

Of course, since annexing is just that undesireable in many situations, there needs to be some reconsideration about what exactly courthouses do and how long it should take to get rid of the extra unhappiness.

Edit:

I would like vassals and colonies more than this wierd puppet mechanism.

Don't know about colonies (never had one in BTS), but I liked the vassal feature a lot and I was quite disappointed to see that it wasn't among Civ 5's features.

 

[Maxor127]

The stupid thing about puppet cities is that you can't pull any of the strings.

 

[Dhaeman]

Just go for horsemen early on, ignore the bottom 'iron' tech track. Capture cities early and puppet. By ignoring iron they won't build barracks/armories and puppets will become good cities. Later in the game when you have been forced to research the 'iron' track just start annexing them before they do anything crazy.

Puppets have turned out to be a good idea, but bad in practice. Puppets should probably influence culture and courthouses should probably cost less. Proper game design to me is that you should only be using puppets as temporary solutions.

 

[PrAyTeLLa]

And also there are alot of bugs. In my last game i was fighting France and they wanted to sign peace with me. I agreed and they handed me 12 cities. I liberated ones i could and the rest i puppetted because i would have high unhappiness. Problem is that i couldnt end turn because i stuck with "choose production" button in my puppet cities while i couldnt do this. So i restarted/reloaded and problem was not solved. Then i annexed all cities and problem was solved but i left with 90 unhappiness. Good thing is that it was 5 turns till i won diplomatic victory but well ... Something needs to be fixed/tweaked.

I had the same bug. Ended up reloading from memory and not accepting the peace deal as their was no other "happy" way around this bug if I accepted and was handed these cities. So just built 5 settlers and kept the war going, razing as I went and rebuilding.

Of course, once you've defeated their army, there is nothing stopping you from wiping the entire civilization off the map. I wish they'd fix this more then anything. Stupid AI should have some gold reserves to buy few units and at least keep a couple of units as back up to start with.

Of course, I always puppet the cities, watch what they build (they always go for good buildings first luckily) and once they start with barracks I annex & build courthouse. Usually this means only one city at a time gets annexed before the next one needs to be. This allows some time for the city to increase their hammers by growth, and I usually buy a workshop etc to speed things as much as possible if I have the cash.

If you decide not to keep the puppet, you just select annex, go into the city screen and raze the . Easy.