Puppets are too strong

[The Great Apple]

I find puppets a bit too strong, and there is little incentive to annex. While there is a disadvantage to not being able to directly control their production, the fact that they don't add to the culture required for SPs and the fact that they tend to build fairly good stuff anyway outweighs this disadvantage... especially when annexing costs 5 gpt, and causes a temperary unhappiness hit.

There seems to me to be quite a few a few solutions to this. I've listed a few of my thoughts below:

1) Chance that a puppet state will enter resistance at random. Could last 2-3 turns. More likely when civ is unhappy. Chance that a puppet state could revolt and revert to original owner when civ is really unhappy.
2) Some sort of city maintainance/corruption mechanic. This could come in the form of a science/gold reduction.
3) Puppeted cities cause unhappiness when you're at war with their motherland.
4) Cheaper, faster to build, courthouses.
5) Make puppets add to SP cost as normal... or maybe at a slightly reduced rate.
6) Make puppets unable to contribute culture to the SP pile.
7) Limit puppeted population/city count to a propotion of normal population/city count. 50%? Not sure how this would work when you capture a city and you are not allowed to puppet it. Maybe you'd risk revolts/other bad things if you went over?
8) Well... I'm sure you can think of more!

Obviously I'm not suggesting all of these changes together, however it seems to me that puppeting should be a temperary state for tens of turns, rather than something a city you captured in 1500 BC remains in in 2000 AD. As it stands, excepting very high production cities, it is rarely a good idea to annex.

 

[Thry]

"the fact that they don't add to the culture required for SPs and "

Sorry to have to break this to you, but they do.

Edit: I think you meant to say that they do.


Puppets are fine. Unless you want it to be impossible to attain social policies as a warmonger, don't touch puppets. The problem isn't with puppets, it's with the overall game design.

 

[Sonereal]

Sorry to have to break this to you, but they do.

They don't.

 

[Thry]

They don't.

They do.

 

[edcrane]

They do.

He means that they do not increase the cost of SPs.

 

[Sonereal]

They do.

Ah. I read it wrong. Thought he meant cost for SP required, not the other way around.

Puppets reverting back to old civilization when really unhappy? Nice. Except the AI can get around 80 happiness by Medieval so the penalty would only apply to humans.

 

[Mannu]

Some sort of unrest mechanic would be awesome. If you want to argue that it's only a negative for the player then maybe we could add some sort of benefit to putting the revolt down. Maybe a boost to happiness or gold or something. But you would want to prevent the player from trying to force the city into a revolt just to get the benefit.

I also like the cheaper / more effective courthouses.

 

[Unearthly]

Some sort of unrest mechanic would be awesome. If you want to argue that it's only a negative for the player then maybe we could add some sort of benefit to putting the revolt down. Maybe a boost to happiness or gold or something. But you would want to prevent the player from trying to force the city into a revolt just to get the benefit.

I also like the cheaper / more effective courthouses.

Why is it only a negative for the player? The AI loves to puppet.

 

[Monthar]

Why is it only a negative for the player? The AI loves to puppet.

Have you ever seen the AI without at least some happiness? I haven't. In fact It's rare that I've seen the AI with less happiness than I have, which is only on the few games where I'm going for a cultural win with Piety and have a LOT of happiness to get the extra culture per turn.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Puppets are pretty bad after the patch, unless you're going for a Cultural win. They don't make Science, Great Scientists or units, and that's a problem.

If you're concerned about Cultural wins, adding a hit to SP cost that is less than the cost of a settled/annexed city would help. Otherwise, puppets are now suboptimal.

I don't see a need to nerf them further, because we want puppets to be good for something.

 

[The Great Apple]

One of my main issues is the fact that they don't increase SP cost at all. To me, the sub-optimal (and it's hardly bad!) governer is well worth the 5gpt saving, lower SP cost, and (temporary) unhappiness in most of the cases. One example of this is aimlessgun's Roman Rifle Rush Diety game, in which he only actually has two non-puppet cities throughout the whole game.

 

[Bibor]

I find puppets a bit too strong, and there is little incentive to annex.

I don't see any problems with puppet cities. It's basically either:
a) higher culture and commerce
b) higher production and science

In my last game I had 7 core cities and quadruple amount of puppets. I barely reached the 1000 science per turn mark and I was allied with 5 maritime city-states (most Thalassicus' addons active so maritimes 33% less effective) and almost all my core cities were adjacent to a mountain.
Gold was around 800 GPT when not in golden age, but I was struggling with happiness due to inability to rush happiness buildings in puppets. If not for the extra culture and thus policies from puppets, both science and happiness would've been horrible.

Generally speaking, my best experiences so far were always when I annexed "old conquest" cities and let the new puppets bring in the needed gold. I think a 2:1 ratio (2 puppets per 1 core/annexed city) is a good measure for all but pure cultural wins.