Puppeting is good, which is very bad!

[LordTC]

This is a thread to discuss the disturbing tendency in Civ to introduce incredibly unfun game mechanics and attach bonuses to them to make them incredibly powerful.

I think puppetting is the worst example since corruption!

The whole fun of Civ is controlling your cities, yet puppeting gives you massive bonuses to not do that! It's frustrating that puppets don't build anything sensible, and you can't even script them reasonably, but the bonuses are so high (less unhappiness penalty don't count as cities for purposes of size (basically amounts to a big research and culture bonus), that its often worth doing.

I think the very idea of giving me a bonus to not manage my city is incredibly unfun as a game mechanic and wish that the people working on this had realized this was bad game design and never spent time implementing it or trying to make it competitive with Annexation.

 

[PawelS]

I don't like it either, does anyone know how to mod the game to disable puppeting?

 

[vallu751]

Mod whatever you like, but I really like the puppeting. It reduces the repetitive end-games, especially when going for domination victory. I very rarely finished games in any of the previous civs because every turn I did forced me to set production for a ton of cities. That was tedious.

 

[boehj]

Hopefully the city governors will, thru' patching, end up building fewer and fewer 'useless' buildings. I think they already avoid buildings that require strategic resources.

Overall, I'm for this simplification of the game but it can be improved. Perhaps more 'micro' control over your puppets should be possible (e.g. being able to select production focus instead of gold focus, or even cap growth).

But yeh, if you want a quick simple game just rush a few civs and reap the rewards of a puppet empire.

 

[Slowpoke]

I don't like it either, does anyone know how to mod the game to disable puppeting?

Yeah I modded puppeting out. AFAIK lua is unfortunately the only way. Go to PuppetCityPopup, and just take out everything in the "initalize puppet button" thing. No more button for puppets. A.I. can use them, but who cares, they have so much happiness puppeting isn't great for them.

Just remember to make courthouses 50 hammers or you'll go insane.

 

[PawelS]

Yeah I modded puppeting out. AFAIK lua is unfortunately the only way. Go to PuppetCityPopup, and just take out everything in the "initalize puppet button" thing. No more button for puppets. A.I. can use them, but who cares, they have so much happiness puppeting isn't great for them.

Just remember to make courthouses 50 hammers or you'll go insane.

Thanks for the info. I already made unhappiness from captured cities the same as normal, and Courthouse serves a totally different purpose in my mod. I'd prefer the AI not to puppet, because I don't want them to get policies too easily. Maybe it's possible to make a LUA script that converts their puppets to normal cities every turn? Btw has anyone seen the AI annexing a city? It even keeps its capital as puppet after losing the original one

 

[Snapp]

IMO they should remove the maintenance on court houses (maybe to 0) and then reduce hammers on courthouses.

Then at least once you have the policies you want you can annex for little penalty.

IMO the issue is not puppeting but the huge penalty of annexing.

 

[snoochems]

I like my puppets too. I think the courthouse maintenance needs to drop though, with a shorter build time. That is one of the main reasons why I do not annex.

In fact, in order of preference:
Puppet
Annex, build settler, raze, build new city
Annex

 

[El Caballerion]

While puppeting has its flaws, I kinda like not having to control a huge amount of cities. This is even more true toward the end of the game. I remember having to control like 30+ cities in CIV IV (most of which didn't even have the basics, i.e. granary, barracks etc.) which became a huge pain in the ass.

 

[bitula]

The whole fun of Civ is controlling your cities, yet puppeting gives you massive bonuses to not do that!

Exactly, and even worse that since the game punishes annexing there is absolutely no point in annexing. Another example of nonsense "Innovative Ideas". I wish Firaxis were less "Innovative".

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You'd think that puppeting should cost a lot (A LOT!) of gold in exchange for the benefits of culture and happiness. As it is, the game actually punishes you for having the audacity to want to run your own cities. I'm not against the puppet idea, but should at least be a difficult decision to make between puppeting and annexing.

 

[Bob1475]

I have come to love puppeting! I agree that as your civ grows it used to be extremely time consuming making each build decision in your worldwide empire. Puppeting IMHO is a good compromise. You don't have to destroy the cities but you don't have to worry about them since they do their own builds (which will improve). You can eventually focus your own and annexed cities on units or wonders, etc.
For those who want to eliminate coutrhouse maintenance you will make it too easy to get more cities. This does not play out well. I think courthouse maintenance is about right. If you want to annex you have to pay.
Leave puppeting the way it is but if you want the city you have to pay.

 

[lschnarch]

I have come to love puppeting! I agree that as your civ grows it used to be extremely time consuming making each build decision in your worldwide empire. Puppeting IMHO is a good compromise. You don't have to destroy the cities but you don't have to worry about them since they do their own builds (which will improve). You can eventually focus your own and annexed cities on units or wonders, etc.
For those who want to eliminate coutrhouse maintenance you will make it too easy to get more cities. This does not play out well. I think courthouse maintenance is about right. If you want to annex you have to pay.
Leave puppeting the way it is but if you want the city you have to pay.

These seem to be contradictory statements.
If puppeting right now is fine, there isn't a reason to make annexing so tedious, because there isn't so much incentive for it.
When annexing otoh would be desirable, then puppeting wouldn't be so good.

 

[shozum]

Puppeting should be a temporary solution, not a permanent one! Hopefully further expansions will allow additional options with puppet cities as well as adding a few penalties. How about a happiness penalty based on the amount of time the city remains puppeted (-1 happy every 10 turns or something) or at least an increase in city maintenance. An additional option of vassal statehood or making it into a city state would be interesting to see and make use of.
Plenty of directions they can go with this and I look forward to our first major CiV expansion. DLC is nice as a treat but nothing will beat the amazing content the Civilization series is known to deliver in it's expansions.

 

[XeroTheta]

Not saying it justifies it, but maintenance costs for those buildings that puppets spam can add up quickly. Maybe the maintenance costs of buildings in puppet states could be increased by a certain percentage? Also, maybe courthouses could reduce the culture penalty of having extra cities by a certain percentage as well. Right now there is a 30 percent increase in civics cost for extra cities. The courthouse could offer a discount to that on top of the current unhappiness reduction. Just throwing things out there.

 

[Rohili]

I think a simple fix would be for puppets to add more unhappiness than annexed cities. It makes sense that the city under a puppet regime would be more unhappy than a city that has been properly assimilated into your culture.

That way, you can still have puppets (and the benefits of low SP/GP costs), but at the cost of happiness.

 

[Rohili]

For those who want to eliminate coutrhouse maintenance you will make it too easy to get more cities. This does not play out well. I think courthouse maintenance is about right. If you want to annex you have to pay.
Leave puppeting the way it is but if you want the city you have to pay.

That's absurd. It is far better to just build a settler than to annex a city - you don't need to spend a bazillion turns building a courthouse and then paying out of your nose for maintenance afterwards. And this is not counting the effort and resources you expended on conquering the city in the first place.

Annexing cities definitely needs a buff, especially after the latest patch where puppets became so good.

 

[lschnarch]

I think a simple fix would be for puppets to add more unhappiness than annexed cities. It makes sense that the city under a puppet regime would be more unhappy than a city that has been properly assimilated into your culture.

That way, you can still have puppets (and the benefits of low SP/GP costs), but at the cost of happiness.

Why would I puppet then? Unhappiness is the ONE limiting factor in the whole game.
There may be a short timespan before adding a new SP, but except for this I would just raze then.

 

[Rohili]

Why would I puppet then? Unhappiness is the ONE limiting factor in the whole game.
There may be a short timespan before adding a new SP, but except for this I would just raze then.

That's exactly the point. You puppet because you want cheap social polices/GPs while still retaining the benefits of the extra gold, research and luxuries that a puppet would provide. Puppets will still be beneficial; it's just that they will be balanced against your need for happiness.

Currently, there is no balance at all. There really is no reason to annex a city over puppeting it, unless you need to rush-buy something from that particular city.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I agree, can't remember the last game I had more than four cities on my own. Rest were puppets, and Deity or no Deity it was definitely better than having to build them myself, not even mentioning the annex-painful courthouse building.

I can ICS with puppets just fine thank you ^^