Puppeting isn't helpful

[crossmr]

I was just taking a look at my puppets and I discovered that you actually spend more unhappiness taking care of a puppet than a regular city, so long as you can afford the courthouse.

With a courthouse the amount of unhappiness generated by the city is the same as without. The difference is puppets add more to the "number of cities" unhappiness than regular cities do. Annexing a puppet and buying a courthouse had the effect of raising my overall happiness by about 3 points, and then I have direct control over the city and I can buy crucial resource tiles if they are near by.

It does still keep culture requirements low for policies, but it seems a lot of people are struggling with happiness.

 

[Louis XXIV]

If you have happiness problems and can afford to annex, think of puppets as only temporary. They ideally should be incorporated at some point unless you're going for a cultural victory.

 

[pspboy7]

Weird, I have had more problems with annexing than with puppets, I'll have to experiment with that hehe. I guess the only reason I could ever hate puppeting is by not making my conquered cities specific to my current needs.

 

[Ranos]

I was just taking a look at my puppets and I discovered that you actually spend more unhappiness taking care of a puppet than a regular city, so long as you can afford the courthouse.

With a courthouse the amount of unhappiness generated by the city is the same as without. The difference is puppets add more to the "number of cities" unhappiness than regular cities do. Annexing a puppet and buying a courthouse had the effect of raising my overall happiness by about 3 points, and then I have direct control over the city and I can buy crucial resource tiles if they are near by.

It does still keep culture requirements low for policies, but it seems a lot of people are struggling with happiness.

Actually puppets have the same hapiness as regular cities and annexing increases that. The problem is courthouses are bugged and instead of just removing the extra unhappiness produced by a captured city, it removes all unhappiness for number of cities.

It's an unfortunate bug that has not been fixed for some reason.

 

[Becomedeath]

Actually puppets have the same hapiness as regular cities and annexing increases that. The problem is courthouses are bugged and instead of just removing the extra unhappiness produced by a captured city, it removes all unhappiness for number of cities.

It's an unfortunate bug that has not been fixed for some reason.

I wouldn't have said it was a bug, it's a trade. You get unhappiness wiped out, but you take the cultural hit and have to manage the city yourself.

If the definition of a bug is something extremely helpful that makes my life easier, then bug on people, bug on!

 

[Nightshades]

Why you annex stuff:
-Gives you the control over the production
-Gives you control over worked tiles
-Allows you to produce military units in the city
-Gives you more happiness - as long as you can afford a courthouse

Why you puppet stuff:
-Gives you more happiness if you can't afford courthouses
-Gives you more GPT since maintaining a courthouse is expensive
-Gives you new policies more often since you avoid the culture penalty
-Still gives you money, research and buildings that you need

So the bottom line is that it's very situational.

 

[jtb1127]

I think the bonus against unhappiness is good enough to do it. Happiness is always an issue.

 

[Tavenier]

I usually annex the best cities I conquer (like the enemy capital) and puppet the medium sized ones. Small ones I sometimes raze.

 

[Nebular]

Why you puppet stuff:
-Gives you more GPT since maintaining a courthouse is expensive

I've found the trade off isn't worth it after a short while. While the GPT for a Courthouse is a little on the high side, I find it eventually pales in comparison to the GPT from usless buildings a puppet eventually creates. I got sick of puppets buildings all of these high maintenance cost buildings I never wanted them to have (like public schools when they're a low-science city and I'm not going for a tech victory) and found that annexing was far cheaper in the long run for me. (Though I really haven't puppeted a city since about 2 patches ago, so things might have changed with how they work.)

 

[ShahJahanII]

For once I agree with you on something, crossmr.
Unless of course you are going for a cultural victory or you want some policy really badly.
It is useful temporarily, but later, I get some workers out there, trading post everything, and build a courthouse, its maintenance will be balanced out by the trading posts. They are good for research after completing rationalism as well.

 

[PasturedCow]

I puppet temporarily. Even if I'm not going for culture, I'll often delay annexing until I've got a few policies in my desired later paths (like Rationalism or Freedom) just to keep them cheap. When my puppets start building stupid things or I have the key policies I want I'll annex them 1-by-1.

 

[Ranos]

I almost always puppet or raze. The only time I annex is when the city is in a location with lots of production. To make up for the gold problem and to prevent happiness from getting out of hand too quickly, I spam trading posts over everything that I can. The population stays low, the city doesn't build a ton of buildings I don't need or it doesn't very quickly anyway and I get a lot of gold to make up for it all.

 

[AriochIV]

Since the AI attacks you pretty relentlessly -- and will keep doing it unless you punish them for it -- I end up capturing a lot of cities. Unless you puppet them, you can pretty much forget about advancing through the policies, and policies are now pretty key in keeping your happiness under control.

I also tend to be right at the happiness limit most of the time, since the only thing that keeps me from taking all the enemy's cities is the limit. So the added happiness hit of annexing a city is very often not an attractive option (and razing them even less so).

 

[AmbientDarkness]

It's probably worth noting that there seems to be no reason to immediately annex a conquered city, at least until that city comes out of resistance. While it's in resistance, it can't produce anything and only increases unhappiness, and I believe it increases SP costs as well.

Normally, I initially puppet the good cities I conquer and raze the rest, only annexing key cities that have either lots of production or a key location.