Puppets vs Annex

[unclethrill]

I'm looking for opinions on which strategy is more appropriate in which situation.

When is it better to make a puppet state instead of annexing the city?

The way I see it; a puppet state gives 3 unhappy (based on the settings in my current game at least) and you get all the gold, culture and science from the city.

An annexed city gives the same thing but there is 6 unhappy and you can choose what to build.

Here is the kicker though: if you build a courthouse, that 6 becomes 3 unhappy just like a puppet city but you still retain the ability to control the city.

So based on this, as long as you can take the 30-odd turns to build the CH, why would you make a puppet over an annex?

 

[Civsassin]

If you are aiming for a particular national wonder for which you have all of the required buildings in your base empire and annexed cities, if you puppet you can still build it. If you annex, you then have to have the building built in the annexed city. If you've begun building it, construction ends on annex if the annexed city doesn't have the building of course.

If you are aiming for a culture victory, the puppeted cities will not raise the amount of culture you need as an annexed city will. You will, however, get any culture the puppet provides improving your progress toward the culture victory.

When you annex a city, initially, it will provide no production and you cannot buy any buildings. If you puppet it for a short time - until the period of anarchy ends - you can buy or build a courthouse. Leave it puppeted until the anarchy ends.

Puppeted cities are great for gold. Plus they usually build what you need, and you don't need to worry about anything but improving the terrain around them.

 

[unclethrill]

I never thought about puppeting them until they can be productive as an annexed city. That is a great idea.

 

[vexing]

there's more unhappiness without courthouse than just 3, there's extra population based unhappiness.

anyway, i pretty much puppet or raze every city, puppet mainly to avoid the culture hit... that said puppet governor build priorities are annoying as hell. i'll annex if it's on another continent and i want a seaport immediately or such.

 

[wurstburst]

I just leave everything puppeted. It keeps my SP cost low, so I can keep getting policies, plus the national wonders are very accessible. I'd rather have that than another production city. I'll take whatever the puppets produce. It usually works out fine. I find that 2-4 settled cities is usually enough to produce whatever units I need for the game, along with the occasional wonder or national wonder.

I've annexed a few times, when I needed a city to rush buy units on a different continent. On a pangea map, almost never.

I could see doing an early annex if you grab a capital in the early game and it's got good buildings and good tiles. But I usually don't do that either.

 

[chgrogers]

well really you need to add the puppet annex or raze option in almost all cases it is better to raze the city and rebuild in the same good location than to annex and build a Court house. If they are a good city with wonders in them I tend to leave them as puppets.

 

[mondry]

Doesn't the courthouse have a 5 gold maintenance cost too? I think that's why most people will just raze and re-settle.

 

[Roto-Router]

It's just goofy to have to use a workaround like that. It would be better to have some kind of timeout after annexation when the courthouse was no longer necessary for the city to be treated as one of your own.

 

[gaiko]

Agreed. Why should conquest always cost -5 gold until the end of time. Everything else being equal, a self founded city will always be more productive than an annexed city.

 

[Soronery]

The annexing penalty is there so you can just take a bunch of cities and have them pump out a million units...I think.

 

[unclethrill]

Great discussion on the topic. There appears to be more to it than I first thought about.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

1. Social Policies
don't increase cost but can still generate so it actually makes you get policies quicker.
2. National Wonders
You don't need the required buildings in the cities to build national wonders.
3. Things still get built
You may not get to choose what and when things are built, but you'll still get you're markets and libraries and colosseums.

So if you are concerned with the first two, and fine with the limitations of the third point, then there's no reason to annex the city.

 

[Treso]

I was playing a game as Napoleon, prince level.

I just get into the industrial era.

I just settle 3 cities.
I went for a sword/longsword rush and just steam roll 2 cities of Inca, about 6 or 7 of Siam, 2 or 3 of Genghis Khan and 2 cities of Ottomans. All cities were puppets.

Its like my economy is just cripped, but I think its becouse the military rush.

 

[Civsassin]

well really you need to add the puppet annex or raze option in almost all cases it is better to raze the city and rebuild in the same good location than to annex and build a Court house. If they are a good city with wonders in them I tend to leave them as puppets.

I would suggest razing and rebuilding in the early game, but later in the game, a conquered city can still have a high population. In that case, I would live with either puppeting or annexing. Given a decent population, the city can build the courthouse pretty quickly, and its output is more than adequate to pay for the maintenance on the courthouse and still turn a net profit.

I still stand by puppet first and annex only after it has completed it's period of anarchy if you need to annex it at all.

 

[D Pedro II]

There is one drawback that the previous posts may be skipping: you can't avoid the growth of the puppet cities. If your empire is on the happiness capor unhappy this could be a limitation to keep your self built cities growing unless you could purchase happiness buildings or luxury resources.

 

[dubrown]

You can in a way slow down a puppets growth by just not giving it foodrich tiles to work with, ofc, a puppet with an abundance of food resources will grow fairly quickly anyway but then it's probably a city you'd sooner or later want to annex anyway.

 

[Bibor]

Here's a nice tip for captured cities.

Step 1: Wait for the puppet to get out of revolt (turns equal to its captured size)
Step 2: Start razing the city
Step 3: Stop razing the city
Step 4: Purchase a settler in this city
Step 5: Continue razing the city
Step 6: Resettle when the city is gone

I do this often because I usually rely on Theocracy (doesn't work on annexes) for my happiness as well as getting rid of the extra 4 GPT ukpeep for annexed cities. I also do this to get rid of two "ugly AI placement" cities in favor of one great spot.

I also use this trick in war, when I'm about to raze a city anyway: I stop razing it for one turn to purchase a unit and then continue to raze it.

There is one drawback that the previous posts may be skipping: you can't avoid the growth of the puppet cities. If your empire is on the happiness capor unhappy this could be a limitation to keep your self built cities growing unless you could purchase happiness buildings or luxury resources.

Actually you can, by replacing all tiles with trade posts. Other than this, puppets rarely, if ever, grow above size 8, except in rare circumstances. I've seen puppets grow over size 11, but that seems to be an exception rather than a rule. This is because some puppets will work farms, unlike most of them.

 

[Monthar]

1) Puppets will build happiness buildings when you your empire is unhappy.
2) The latest patch made it so you can purchase courthouses.
3) Puppets are set to focus on gold, so TP spam them.
4) If you pillage all the farms before you capture the city the puppet won't grow and may even start losing some of its population.

The only time I bother with annexing is if I need a new city that can build/buy units near the front lines. Everything else I puppet and leave puppeted to keep my social policy costs down.

As I understand it, puppets will build market/bank/stock exchange first, science buildings second, culture buildings third and defenses last. They'll only build the happiness buildings if your empire is unhappy and these will take priority over other buildings once the current building finishes.

If you plan to raze the city, it's best to do so as soon as you capture it without annexing it first. This will delay the increased policy cost until your settler replaces the razed city, which might give you enough time to get that next policy you wanted before you resettle that location.

 

[fjordan]

@Bibor: As far as I know once you build a courthouse the wil disappear and Theocracy will apply. And I believe it works for puppets too. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[swordspider]

I'm looking for opinions on which strategy is more appropriate in which situation.

When is it better to make a puppet state instead of annexing the city?

The way I see it; a puppet state gives 3 unhappy (based on the settings in my current game at least) and you get all the gold, culture and science from the city.

An annexed city gives the same thing but there is 6 unhappy and you can choose what to build.

Here is the kicker though: if you build a courthouse, that 6 becomes 3 unhappy just like a puppet city but you still retain the ability to control the city.

So based on this, as long as you can take the 30-odd turns to build the CH, why would you make a puppet over an annex?

Man, the way I see it there is just no reason whatsoever to Annex a city that can be razed (obviously you can't raze capitals and city-states so it doesn't apply there). Usually an existing city is not built in the ideal spot and a new city that you build can be better placed and still benefit from all the improved resources (and of course start and continue without any unhappiness modifiers)! If you are on the push and don't have time to Raze>Replace, then you should puppet all the way and Raze>Replace when you can. As you have already figured out, the unhappiness is much less and besides not being able to buy units and buildings in the city, there really is little other downside if you don't need it as a unit-producer.

Some people argue the unhappiness is not that big of a deal, to them I reply Are You Serious?!?! If an annexed city brings your empire into unhappiness (or even pushes you in that direction that eventually you are unhappy), your huge, important, reliable original cities will grow at 1/4 the rate. This is a HUGE, terrible burden on your empire. Those cities are your cash cows, and your production hubs and by taking a likely useless city (in the grand scheme) you are punishing them! That strategy seems completely flawed to me.

One time that puppeting makes COMPLETE sense though is when you are taking a city with a luxury you do not have. The luxury provides +5 happiness and the puppet takes away 3, providing +2 to the empire. I always conquer local city states with unique luxuries for this bonus because then the unhappiness does not apply, in fact the opposite is true and you pick up a 'free' city that adds to your overall empire.