Puppets are better then your own cities.

[Ermak-]

After making the initial 4-5 cities around capital,- it is rather a drain on economy to make any new cities. It is much better to puppet cities getting their income and science without the unhappines and ever more unreachanble social policy limit. The porduction you cannot control but puppets always foucs on economy with buildings. What you can do is just orient ur own towns toward unit porduction and problem solved. I often feel cheated if i have too much land and not enough people to conquor, because now my policy limit is ridiculous.

 

[catfish99]

Sometimes the game makes it better to "unpuppet" cities if you need to direct production for specific builds. Example 1 - you are landlocked and conquer a city with ocean access - this city needs to be controlled to allow you to build ships. Example 2 - you capture a high production city and need to crank out troops to gain an advantage in the war.
Otherwise, the game does call for puppet cities rather than direct control.

 

[Bobafett0610]

You made some good points. Same ones I've been saying in a few other posts. I usually settle 3 cities total; 4 if I can grab an extra lux resourse i don't have or a tile with 6 iron if i don't have any iron early on. Then i conquer and puppet everything else. I love the social policy trees (left side of honor, liberty, and most of autocracy could use some improvement) so I live to fill out some of those first and with only 3-4 settled cities you can get SP crazy fast. Especially if you go monument>workshop>temple>operahouse etc. and ally with some cultural civs. I usually get tradition>legalism> landed peoples and then i go full patronage (science bonuses from having 3-4 or more CS allies is amazing) after that i usually have freedom open so i go down left side of that and work my ass off on trying to get the cristo retardjesus wonder. Once the puppets get some culture buildings it gets really crazy with SP.

 

[lilnev]

I've been building up to 5 cities to claim and sell luxuries. But sometimes 5 feels like too many, and I can't get to the social policies I want. I only annex under extraordinary circumstances -- maybe once per game, more likely not at all. Or in the very late game, I might decide I won't be getting any more SPs, and go on an annexation binge.

 

[J-War]

well, I personally like to annex puppet cities. Initially, I leave conquered cities as puppet states in order to mitigate unhappiness during the initial turns of disorder. Then, after disorder passes and it becomes convenient, I annex them and shell out the gold to purchase a courthouse (only 300 after big ben). This has a number of benefits: you can micromanage a city's activities, build wonders, train units, purchase tiles, and (most importantly) not suffer the unhappiness penalty of having a puppet city.

 

[ShadeSigma]

City states are just as good believe me. If you supply them a bit with a nice army and become allies with them, they will push your enemy very hard. I have Cape Town smashing Napoleon one time and Cape Town had like 3 cities and resources I automatically had. Just supply them with a bit of a good army and its like have a city without any serious upkeep. It works very well, the downside is that you don't get any science or production from them, but at least the resources keep the people happy. AND, you can build nice trade routes with them and get some nice gold too.

 

[J-War]

sure, but the question is whether its better to annex conquered enemy cities or leave them as puppets. City-states are a different matter.

 

[Nares]

It's not even worth it to settle a second city if your plan is to puppet heavily.

 

[Airey]

You are basing this on the fact of gaining social policies sooner.

Buy building more cities, you get more specific build early on, thus able to shap what kind of game you want. AI with fewer cities = less modern units to fight later.
Why are people derailed by trying to get that science/hammer bonus via social policy later on, when we can just settle a new city and get it now.

Mass puppets games are all the same...but they're not necessary better than a built city.

 

[Civsassin]

Puppets can actually stunt your ability to grow your empire. If you selected Theocracy within the Piety social policy tree, reduces happiness in UNOCCUPIED cities by 25%. Let's follow this to its logical conclusion. If you puppet a city (it's now occupied), and it grows to size 12, you now have 15 unhappiness (3 from puppeting and one from each population. Now annex it, and build or buy the courthouse, and you actually add happiness to the empire. The four maintenance for the courthouse is easily made back with the population working good gold-producing hexs.

I had this situation occur in a recent game. I had +3 happiness. When I annexed the city, it dropped to -6 happiness. I bought the courthouse, and it increased to +6 a net of +3 happiness for 600 gold. I had a few other puppets with similar population, but I had to save gold for the several puppets I had. I don't exactly understand the mathematics, but those are the numbers. Granted, it costs quite a bit of gold to purchase the courthouse, but if you need the happiness, which is common if you expand in the late game and can afford the cost, annex and build courthouses in your higher population puppets.

 

[DaveMcW]

If you puppet a city (it's now occupied).

Wrong. Theocracy works on puppets.

 

[Civsassin]

Wrong. Theocracy works on puppets.

Than what's the mechanism. I explained the numbers. I posted exactly what happened in terms of happiness. I gained +3 happiness by annexing and building a courthouse, and I had selected theocracy... I assumed a puppet was considered occupied city until annexed and a courthouse built. Check out the first post in this thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=382767

It defines a normal city as one built by your civilization or an annexed city AFTER a courthouse is built. It defines an occupied city as an annexed city without a courthouse or a puppet.

You're wrong.

 

[Bobafett0610]

Puppet means its simple a puppet city for your empire. If it's occupied then it has the red chains. That is why theroc. SP works on puppeted cities as well.

Just because someone decided to make a thread with some numbers in it doesn't make it correct.

 

[Monthar]

Than what's the mechanism. I explained the numbers. I posted exactly what happened in terms of happiness. I gained +3 happiness by annexing and building a courthouse, and I had selected theocracy... I assumed a puppet was considered occupied city until annexed and a courthouse built. Check out the first post in this thread.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=382767

It defines a normal city as one built by your civilization or an annexed city AFTER a courthouse is built. It defines an occupied city as an annexed city without a courthouse or a puppet.

You're wrong.

That thread is incorrect.

As I posted there

Wrong, puppets are not considered as occupied.

Here's the proof. You can clearly see in this screenshot that I have 4 puppeted cities and I do not have any unhappiness from "occupied cities" nor "population in occupied cities".

Spoiler :

Edit:
I did misread this one line from that other thread. I think you may have misread it as well.

Occupied Cities = Cities which are Annex and not Normal or Puppet City.

It says occupied cities are only those you've annexed, but haven't built the courthouse. It also says normal (cities you built) and puppet cities are not occupied cities.

Edit 2:
Theocracy states, "Reduces Unhappiness from Citizens in non-occupied Cities by 25%." Since only annexed cities are considered as occupied, this bonus must be applying to citizens in puppet cities as well, because puppets fit the definition of non-occupied.

 

[vexing]

After making the initial 4-5 cities around capital,- it is rather a drain on economy to make any new cities.

that's a ridiculous assertion, you can have any new city be a gold focus city just like puppets are. the only thing you lose out on are social policies.
you'd have to be a pretty bad player to have puppets end up better than your normal cities.

 

[starfury1]

Courthouses remove the number of cities unhappiness for that city currently. So, technically an annexed city with a courthouse will have more potential happiness than a puppet.

This fact makes annexed cities very potent with Gandhi. You lose the -4 # of cities unhappiness for a city with a courthouse. I've had 30 city empires with all cities except capital annexed with courthouses and have had +100 happiness surplus with only coliseums/circus/courthouse in all the cities. Used all farms and had no need to stop growth anywhere! Who would have thought that Gandhi would make an excellent bloodthirsty warmonger?

 

[Celevin]

that's a ridiculous assertion, you can have any new city be a gold focus city just like puppets are. the only thing you lose out on are social policies.
you'd have to be a pretty bad player to have puppets end up better than your normal cities.

Social policies, National Wonders, and that puppets aren't that much harder to manage than normal cities. Since version 1, puppets have seen only buffs. 1-2 extra policies are all you need to make a puppet empire much stronger than a regular empire, and they get much more than that.

Puppets are completely overpowered. All my fastest/easiest wins have been done by getting a bunch of early puppets.

 

[elthrasher]

Puppets are completely overpowered. All my fastest/easiest wins have been done by getting a bunch of early puppets.

Is the second statement meant to support the first?

All of my fastest/easiest wins have involved building monuments at some point or other. Does that make monuments overpowered?

In Civ IV it was often good to make a run at your neighbor in the early game. You gain turf and resources and have one fewer enemy to worry about. This is always a strong play in these games. The puppet mechanic has nothing to do with it. If anything, Civ V punishes you more for this than its predecessors. You have to make a choice between annexing (additional unhappiness) or puppetting (can't control builds) and the warmonger hate is so high in this game, you won't normalize relations ever unless you kill all the witnesses.

 

[Celevin]

Is the second statement meant to support the first?

All of my fastest/easiest wins have involved building monuments at some point or other. Does that make monuments overpowered?

In Civ IV it was often good to make a run at your neighbor in the early game. You gain turf and resources and have one fewer enemy to worry about. This is always a strong play in these games. The puppet mechanic has nothing to do with it. If anything, Civ V punishes you more for this than its predecessors. You have to make a choice between annexing (additional unhappiness) or puppetting (can't control builds) and the warmonger hate is so high in this game, you won't normalize relations ever unless you kill all the witnesses.

Let me clarify. All my fastest/easiest wins have involved only 1-3 actual controlled cities, and the rest puppets. I normally play on Standard world size mostly, so 1-3 cities is nothing compared to your whole empire. I would rather a puppet over a city I settled myself. Once it's at that point, there's something wrong with the entire system.

I've been writing about puppets since the first week of release. Getting a city bonus in trade for not being able to interact with my city makes for bad gameplay, especially when 1) that bonus is obscenely good especially post-patch, and 2) the loss in interaction is easily mitigated. Puppets are bad for the game.

Do a quick graph of the social policy cost modifier, and see what happens when you add on a lot of static culture gains (gains that you don't need to build additional cities to achieve - generally you need more cities to produce more culture). With even just a couple puppets, the numbers are baffling. Going from 1 non-puppet to 4 non-puppets doubles your social policy cost. Going to 7-8 triples it. All of a sudden your Stonehenge and puppets are more than halved in their policy gain rate.

 

[ShadeSigma]

I dont rely on puppets that much because on a higher difficulty, a civ can take them out and because you made them so precious it will dent your plans. Puppets are good at some point, but it's better to develop your cities at best for the long run.