What is the 'Courthouse Bug'?

[El Caballerion]

I've been reading a lot about this 'bug' that I never knew was a bug in the first place.

• What was wrong with the courthouses in vanilla?
• Why is this being changed in G&K?
• What do we expect to happen with game place after this 'bug' is resolved?'

 

[Gucumatz]

- They provided extra happiness that they shouldn't have
- Unintentionally gave conquerers an easier method to keep large empires/happiness with less work
- The bug was resolved with the patch, meaning building a courthouse does not give you additional happiness, only removes the happiness from being annexed. Means it is harder to have a wider empire slightly

 

[fuzzatron717]

What bug? Courthouses work fine with me.

 

[prince_caspian]

Courthouses used to remove the base 3 unhappiness (6 for Gandhi) + unhappiness from being an occupied city. Now it just removes the occupied unhappiness which is what should have been from long ago I gather. So Police State has become that much more important now.

 

[Scarpa]

Before the patch an annexed city + courthouse contributed less unhappiness than your own cities, given equal population. Now they are the same for a given population.

 

[nokmirt]

But how do you keep puppeted cities happy? Their happiness in my game never reduced, what is up with that? I puppeted a city and my empire happiness went to -11 and never changed. This was going on after resistance ended. That puppet city added -9 happiness. My question is what is the sense of having a puppeted city anymore? You might as well annex or raise it, right? I remember before puppets used to reduce happiness as resistance lessened. It has not happened is it a bug or something?

 

[Sharku]

My question is what is the sense of having a puppeted city anymore?

There isn't. The entire happiness system was designed to make conquering annoying.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

The bug is fixed. to counteract the new gameplay you have to get happiness from policies. And a lot of them.
with the correct policies it is easy to have a wide empire.

 

[The Pilgrim]

But how do you keep puppeted cities happy? Their happiness in my game never reduced, what is up with that? I puppeted a city and my empire happiness went to -11 and never changed. This was going on after resistance ended. That puppet city added -9 happiness. My question is what is the sense of having a puppeted city anymore? You might as well annex or raise it, right? I remember before puppets used to reduce happiness as resistance lessened. It has not happened is it a bug or something?

Courthouses had nothing to do with puppets. They are built in annexed cities. Before this patch annexed cities were actually 'happier' than your own, which was ludicrous. Now they are equivalent to natively settled cities with little upkeep cost.
Unhappiness is reduced after resistance when puppets have happiness buildings. They 'start' to work only when it's over. If your puppet didn't have any, the unhappiness was not supposed to be reduced.

 

[prince_caspian]

But how do you keep puppeted cities happy? Their happiness in my game never reduced, what is up with that? I puppeted a city and my empire happiness went to -11 and never changed. This was going on after resistance ended. That puppet city added -9 happiness. My question is what is the sense of having a puppeted city anymore? You might as well annex or raise it, right? I remember before puppets used to reduce happiness as resistance lessened. It has not happened is it a bug or something?

Assuming no glitch from the latest patch then the standard answer would be the usual SPs to counter puppet unhappiness - piety, honor, etc. Puppets will build happiness buildings when they see unhappiness. Annexing is not as beneficial as before, because it still gives the same unhappiness as a puppet. The argument might be, now go Autocracy instead but not every civ or game requires it. It may even be counterproductive to do so. Razing on the other hand would be better happiness wise but you have to deal with a huge initial unhappiness hit.

 

[cccv]

My question is what is the sense of having a puppeted city anymore? You might as well annex or raise it, right?

Also, puppeting cities doesn't increase the cost of the next social policy, and annexing does.

 

[Ulthwithian]

IIRC from the original reading of the rules, Annexing a city allowed you to control its production, but had a 3 happiness penalty until a Courthouse is built, and also counted as a city for all purposes.

Puppetting a city, OTOH, did not allow production control, but did not count as a city for costs that scaled with number of cities (SPs foremost among them), and had only a 1 happiness penalty as opposed to other cities.

 

[Calouste]

There isn't. The entire happiness system was designed to make conquering annoying.

Over the course of history, most people have not been terribly enthousiastic about being conquered.

 

[pspboy7]

There isn't. The entire happiness system was designed to make conquering annoying.

LOL, I've been noticing that a lot lately in my domination games