So uh...Oops.

[GenocideBringer]

I was at war with Germany and kicking their teeth in pretty thoroughly, when they decide to surrender and give me all their cities except Berlin in the process.

I'm feeling pretty pleased with this up until the point where I rocket up to 55 unhappiness and rebel infantry start spawning next to my capital....


Is there any way I can salvage this? I puppeted all the new cities for what it's worth, so I can't have all of them build happiness buildings or anything. Suggestions?

 

[lilnev]

Figure out which cities are the worst offenders (large cities that burned down their happy building for pillage) and sell them to an AI.

 

[luwathamere]

Starve the population.

 

[basta]

Better to avoid these gift horses next time and take the cities by force (the AI is obviously fatally weakened anyway when it makes the offer) and raze the marginal ones as you go, so you get the gold bonus for capturing them and so you can conquer the capital. This way your unhappiness is manageable.

Selling off marginal cities to a weak AI is good, or annex and raze them if you don't want an AI on your doorstep (good pseudo for this question, btw).

I always send workers to TP spam most existing farms for puppets other than the AI's capital, which can come in handy to annex for late-game production.

 

[Justicex]

Oh man, this is too funny! I was just gonna post about this myself!

I am playing on Prince and trying to learn how to play on that level (I don't normally play past Chieftan) and decided that I wanted a Domination victory before the game started. So, I am playing as Germany. Fairly early on, I wipe out Siam and it's three cities by accident (Fog covered the fact that Siam's capital was their last) so that hurt me in diplomatic relations with my other neighbors, that at this time, I hadn't met yet.

So, getting to the reason for my post. It's centuries later and my civ has grown like a tower up the middle of the continent it's on. To the northeast is a rather expansed China, to the northwest is a mouthy Japan, and to the west is a clueless England. I finally have enough of Nobunaga and get mideval on his heinie. He sues for peace and offers me 3 cities as part of the deal. I accept because my military is getting strung out and Wu is getting pretty bold herself in her statements. We all know how much German's love 2-sided wars

So, It's a few turns after the peace treaty has expired and Oda decides "Hey! I have a couple of Samurai. Let's squash Germany!" So they immediately re-take one of the cities they gave me in a peace treaty because it was on the far side of the Japanese empire from me and I couldn't garrison it and came after me. A few turns after this, Elisabeth decides that now is a good time to attack since I'm distracted with Japan. Now I'll be honest. The British force that came after me was much bigger than I had anticipated. Anywho, A few turns after this, Wu Zetian comes after me because I have land and precious resources that she needs and won't risk losing them to another civ.

So at this point, I think I'm screwed. But I battle on, playing a purely defensive game and eventually push back all 3 attackers. All 3 treaties offer me cities which I graciously accept, expecially since some of those cities were very strategically placed and I was appreciative of not having to actually fight to get them.

Now for the fun part. I puppet them all and find myself at -106 happy at the end of that turn! I had rebels pop up that I didn't even know existed! I've never had enough unhappy to get rebels before.

But the other thing I noticed was that I was getting 6 unhappy per city instead of the usual 3. This applied to cities I puppeted via peace talks and cities I took forcibly. Why did this happen? It's around turn 300-350, I think I'm in the renaisance era (possibly the industrial, I think I have access to Coal), playing on Prince difficulty as Germany.

 

[Buccaneer]

One must always be prepared for war and its consequences (which include having the proper happiness level). If you can't handle the consequences (e.g., of a surrender or its diplomatic fallout), then don't do it.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

This is why I always negotiate peace treaties on my turn, allowing me to see what might happen. It would be nice to see happiness consequences and city resources shown as a mouse over tip in the deal screen.

 

[truefrequencie]

If you get peace treaties involving cities, always click on View City and check all the info about the city: city size, does it have any luxury resources that you don't have, and any happiness buildings. But also whether it has decent to good tiles around and placement that is beneficial. If you can't make a case for any or all of the above, then it’s likely a crumby city that you should either a) raze or b) sell to another civ for cash (one which won’t gain much from the extra city).

 

[Justicex]

As an update:

I kept all the cities and struggled through. I even marched on and took London. I would have taken China's capitol as well, but it was too late in the game to get a Dom victory since I would have still needed 2 more Capitols after that one. So I bunkered down and tried to win the UN Vote (someone else had built it). So, I ran out of time and lost on score to Russia. For like the last 5 votes, it was 8 (me), 2, 2, 0, 0.

But, in that time, I was able to restore positive happy and it made for what was probably the most interesting game of Civ I have ever played.

 

[Bibor]

Suggestions?

Either gift away or sell the cities you can't support. Keep the rest.
I usually "resurrect" one leader just to be able to gift it cities.

 

[eric_]

If you can't handle the consequences (e.g., of a surrender or its diplomatic fallout), then don't do it.

Or, just manage peace negotiations better. I *rarely* accept cities, and if I do, I usually planned on taking them in the first place.

 

[Buccaneer]

Or, just manage peace negotiations better. I *rarely* accept cities, and if I do, I usually planned on taking them in the first place.

That is a simpler solution. Most of the time, I do not accept their offer at all and wait until I am ready to name my terms.