Puppet cities are aweful?!

[Willy Wonka]

I honestly think that the gameplay wasn't either not tested at all

It's a disgrace. It's like Helen Keller was resurrected and assigned as a Civ 5 tester. People who were involved in the testing should be ashamed of themselves and hopefully all of them are at least a light year away from ever being able to test the next one. If the people who tested V get to test VI, might as well write off the franchise now.

As has been stated many times, this game is "broken". Its flaws piled on top of flaws wrapped in cellophane and sold to the masses. Mind boggling that people could test this garbage for a year or so and give it a seal of approval.

 

[Svest]

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.

Actually this is not true. I've had puppets build units on several occasions. Its rare but it happens.

 

[drachasor]

Actually this is not true. I've had puppets build units on several occasions. Its rare but it happens.

That's a bug then. It is explicitly stated in the game that they never produce units (well, except great people).


Anyhow, puppet cities are a good idea, but the implementation needs a lot of work. Perhaps if you had a bit more control over them (picking a specialization) and the culture they generate didn't help with social policies (or was reduced a lot), then they'd be better. Personally I think you should be able to found puppet cities to grab resources and the like.

 

[The Great Apple]

If one never produces units what does it do when there are no buildings to be built and wealth/research isn't available?

 

[drachasor]

If one never produces units what does it do when there are no buildings to be built and wealth/research isn't available?

Nothing, I suppose. It's almost impossible to get to that point though, given how long buildings take and how quick early tech is.

 

[cairnsy44]

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.

I really like the idea of removing buildings. Much like the eliminating of units. No reason this should not be possible.

 

[Lord Parkin]

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.

That's a decent idea. Of course, it's still an artificial workaround that really shouldn't have to be followed. Puppets need more work, period.

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

This is an excellent quote.

 

[smitbr]

not to mention puppets trying to build factories and burning through any coal i get. Ive played games where ive had puppets for 200 turns then as soon as i get the tech that allows factories i have to go around annexing them as soon as they start building one, otherwise i have useless cities taking up a rare strategic resource.

didnt i conquer them? sure theyre a puppet so they do as they please, but i control the flow of resources! should be an option as to what puppets are allowed to build

 

[civilapediac]

Because the fact that the stupid AI just built a barracks and walls while i am never going to built units there or fight there kind of screws my budget... Besides Kyoto built a harbor (good one!) but there is no trade route!? I dont understand really....

Oh yeah, this drives me nuts too. The walls and barracks are one thing at 1gpt, but after that a puppet city will frequently start building an armory and then a forge, which are 3gpt, and even a military academy. Its really infuriating because the cities can't even build units anyways, and those buildings are fairly useless, imho, even in cities where units can be built.

Edit: so i annexed it. Guess what social policy cost remained equal!! Only 6 unhappiness extra was added but that was the only change.
Did something go wrong??
I added a save before annexing.

I feel like I might have seen this glitch before too, where sometimes it increases the policy costs, but sometimes it doesn't, but I cannot pin down what is going on.

 

[rsirangelo]

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.

SHIFT + ENTER forces end of turn