Re-captured cities need a courthouse

[tlaurila]

I took back one of my cities taken by the AI. It was held by the enemy for about 100 turns. I didn't have the option to puppet it, which I thought fine, I'm liberating it. But once occupied, I had to build a courthouse The city also had 0 buildings in it, but that could of course be legit as well.

Is this intentional? I thought it's either puppet or courthouse or liberate. Perhaps the enemy having built a courthouse somehow breaks this?

 

[tlaurila]

And now that I did build the courthouse, happiness was unaffected. So the liberated city can build a courthouse (also has the "Can Haz Courthouse" token), it shows as occupied , but the only effect of building the courthouse seems to be the icon going away.

This is all with the GotM version. (I don't get much playtime, so am still only halfway through the GotM)

ADD: Forgot to mention that without the courthouse, the "liberated-but-not" city had happiness just like it would be self-founded city, fas as I could tell. So happiness doesn't persist too high with courthouse, was already low without it.

 

[Thalassicus]

Thank you for bringing this up.

I suspect this is a problem in vanilla too. Ideally the city should return to its original pre-capture status, whether that was puppet, occupied, or self-founded. I'll work on changing this. It might take a while to do, since I'll need to store the prior status of the city and debug the process to ensure it works properly.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Moved to bug reports.

 

[Torvald]

Thal,

I can confirm that when using v108.6, after recapturing one of my cities the unhappiness symbol poped up and I had to build a courthouse to make it go away.

Thanks for offering to look into this anomaly in the future.

 

[tlaurila]

Ideally the city should return to its original pre-capture status

I'd toss in the idea that this might not necessarily so. If you lost a city just after you settled it, and the conqueror governed it for 2000 years (represented by courthouse presence), growing it from size 1 to 20, then it doesn't exactly make sense that you're simply liberating it when you retake it, and it's like it's always been yours.

So, ideally speaking, perhaps the courthouse's cost/pop mechanism could be used something like:
1) If city is a puppet or has no courthouse when you re-take it, simply liberate like it's always been yours.
2) If courthouse was built by conqueror, when taking it back you have to build a courthouse. But only for the current amount of population minus the amount of population the enemy built a courthouse for. Or in other words, you need to assimilate with the courthouse the amount of population that grew while under the enemy's courthouse, minus refugees created by capture. If this is zero or negative, simple liberation like 1).

 

[Ahriman]

I agree with this:

So, ideally speaking, perhaps the courthouse's cost/pop mechanism could be used something like:
1) If city is a puppet or has no courthouse when you re-take it, simply liberate like it's always been yours.
2) If courthouse was built by conqueror, when taking it back you have to build a courthouse.

The courthouse mechanic is what is used to represent assimilation. If a city has assimilated to the conqueror culture, then it isn't really "yours" anymore.
It doesn't really matter that Byzantium->Constantinople was a Roman city; the Ottomans assimilated it. If the Italians conquered it today, they'd face resistance.

But I don't agree with this:

but only for the current amount of population minus the amount of population the enemy built a courthouse for.

Needless complexity. There is no such thing as "assimilating an amount of population" in Civ5. Cities are either assimilated or they aren't.

 

[Dd_Infiltrator]

I'd toss in the idea that this might not necessarily so. If you lost a city just after you settled it, and the conqueror governed it for 2000 years (represented by courthouse presence), growing it from size 1 to 20, then it doesn't exactly make sense that you're simply liberating it when you retake it, and it's like it's always been yours.

So, ideally speaking, perhaps the courthouse's cost/pop mechanism could be used something like:
1) If city is a puppet or has no courthouse when you re-take it, simply liberate like it's always been yours.
2) If courthouse was built by conqueror, when taking it back you have to build a courthouse. But only for the current amount of population minus the amount of population the enemy built a courthouse for. Or in other words, you need to assimilate with the courthouse the amount of population that grew while under the enemy's courthouse, minus refugees created by capture. If this is zero or negative, simple liberation like 1).

I would say take it one step further and use the Civ IV (or was it in III?) mechanic of multiple cultures per city and assimilation of cultures. This way, the longer you hold a city, the more "yours" it becomes. You could also have policies to expediate the process.

 

[tlaurila]

It doesn't really matter that Byzantium->Constantinople was a Roman city; the Ottomans assimilated it. If the Italians conquered it today, they'd face resistance.

I'd venture a guess that the Italians would face significantly less resistance than, say, the Chinese would. The cultural narrative of assimilation is still there.

Needless complexity. There is no such thing as "assimilating an amount of population" in Civ5. Cities are either assimilated or they aren't.

But of course the gameplay effect is what truly matters, not a semblance historical accuracy which will be a stretch either way. By the courthouse mechanism I was suggesting precisely a mechanism of "assimilating an amount" that would relatively readily be doable. Or in other words the city's history never completely vanishing. Assimilating a major metropolis with a courthouse takes, what, 20 turns max to run out resistance and then buy the courthouse? Historically this is a blink of an eye, finding out your city has turned completely alien to you in 20 years is just too short. So I would differ on the "needless" part. But it's not a major impact thing, either way.

I would say take it one step further and use the Civ IV (or was it in III?) mechanic of multiple cultures per city and assimilation of cultures.

I really liked the culture points assimilating people mechanism, but that'd be a huge addition to the game, since civ5, as I know it, has no mechanism to keep track of "cultural identity" of population points. Since happiness became global, as opposed to being local in IV and III, having such complex cultural identity and assimilation effects on happiness is a huge undertaking to include to the game and balance.

 

[Ahriman]

I'd venture a guess that the Italians would face significantly less resistance than, say, the Chinese would. The cultural narrative of assimilation is still there.

I'd say that the Italians would face no less opposition than Germans, French, English or Spanish would, none of whom ever controlled it.
The fact that it was once Roman is irrelevant today. Turks don't care.

But of course the gameplay effect is what truly matters

Right. And I don't see a strong gameplay ened.

By the courthouse mechanism I was suggesting precisely a mechanism of "assimilating an amount" that would relatively readily be doable.

How would it be readily doable? There is no such thing in the game as having an affect that affects only some of the population in that city. No such mechanism exists.

Or in other words the city's history never completely vanishing. Assimilating a major metropolis with a courthouse takes, what, 20 turns max to run out resistance and then buy the courthouse? Historically this is a blink of an eye, finding out your city has turned completely alien to you in 20 years is just too short. So I would differ on the "needless" part.

This argument seems pretty weak to me; if it is so easy for the other side to assimilate you, then surely it is also easy for you to assimilate back.
I'd also say, 20 turns represents decades to centuries. And buying a courthouse represents a huge amount of resources. I think you could buy an awful lot of compliance and favor from a country or city by gifting it with, say, 30 years worth of GDP.

but that'd be a huge addition to the game, since civ5, as I know it, has no mechanism to keep track of "cultural identity" of population points. Since happiness became global, as opposed to being local in IV and III, having such complex cultural identity and assimilation effects on happiness is a huge undertaking to include to the game and balance.

Right. But having a building that somehow only affects some members of the city (ie having to build a courthouse to assimilate some city members but not others) also seems pretty complex.