Puppet vs Annex

[Rohili]

Just wondering how do you guys decide whether to puppet or annex a city that you conquered?

I usually annex a city near the frontlines so that I can rush-buy units from it to support my war efforts. I also annex highly productive cities so I can make full use of its production capabilities instead of letting the AI build crap.

 

[MerchantCo]

Puppet.

 

[troublmaker]

I almost always puppet it. If you puppet it it doesn't count against the National Wonders (Every City Must Have an X Built) which is excellent later in the game. I mean nothing is worse than having to build 5 new barracks and 5 new libraries to get your national wonders built.

 

[Tachii]

Annex cities that has the potential to grow big + produce. Puppet everything else.

After the Order policy that gives free courthouses every city you annex, I'd just annex them all since it's late and probably going domination anyways.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

With the 5% increased tech cost, wouldn't it be better to burn crappy cities instead of puppeting them? And for the good cities, why wouldn't you want to annex them later when they come out of resistance?

 

[digrosz]

If city is good and might be worthy in terms of production/science/gold > annex
If city is average, but is necessary in my war efforts (e.g. Housing aircraft, good defensive location)> puppet. You can always turn them into gold farms/ raze them later if they become unnecesarry.
If city is an absolute dumphole with no buildings, wonders, a use in particular > raze (sometimes I will try to sell it but most of the times other player won't take it)

 

[Biologist]

If you want to annex a city, it's always better to puppet first, then annex once the city is out of resistance. This prevents the newly-captured city from just being "dead weight" on your global happiness while you can't use it to produce anything.

Edit: The one exception to this might be if you have the Iron Curtain tenet from Order that gives a free courthouse on annexing a city.

 

[Rohili]

Do you guys think it might actually be better to annex cities with "potential" rather than cities that are already highly developed? A city that is very developed (e.g. AI capitals) probably has little room for further improvement. In contrast, a less developed city sited in a good location can benefit greatly from human micromanagement.

On the other hand, the AI capital will have much better production out of the gate and can help with producing units and wonders.

 

[Strategist83]

Annex. Always annex once city is sufficiently developed unless you have a special reason not to (such as building a national wonder). You never were supposed to leave a city as a puppet indefinitely and with the BNW mechanics Firaxis has finally managed to make this more clear. Perma-puppeting cities is apparently very popular, but it never was how you're supposed to roll and it isn't effective. It's not worth maintaining a nerfed city with reduced outputs that still eats up precious happiness just to avoid slightly increasing policy costs. Puppet cities are generally horrible with their science & culture penalties, terrible build orders and gold-focus that tends to slow their growth to a crawl and severely hurts as well.

Regarding 'potential': That can indeed be a good reason for an early annex. If a size 3 puppet starts building banks, hotels and stock exchanges and you have excess happiness, annex it immediately and have it start producing something more constructive. You don't even have to Courthouse it right away; with so little pop it doesn't eat up much extra happiness. A puppet city building crap buildings is wasted happiness & technology cost increase. Generally, you should always annex cities as soon as it's economically feasible, which typically means sooner rather than later - though it is useful holding off the annex if you are critical on happiness or to avoid paying the -4 gold upkeep on the Courthouse. Only leave them as puppets for an extended period if they're building something moderately useful.

 

[joncnunn]

Just wondering how do you guys decide whether to puppet or annex a city that you conquered?

I usually annex a city near the frontlines so that I can rush-buy units from it to support my war efforts. I also annex highly productive cities so I can make full use of its production capabilities instead of letting the AI build crap.

I tend to raze to the ground about half the AIs cities. (Junk ones); I puppet just about every thing else. It would basically need to be a former capital to be worth requiring yet another copy of every building to build every remaining national wonder.