Wide and Healthy w/o Prosperity

[KrikkitTwo]

Health I find fairly easy to manage, except when it comes to a domination game. You'll usually go minus for a little while, but not hugely so, and its a minor thing. Eventually you are swimming in health.

When you go domination though, each city you take can be a large amount of unhealth, with no way to really get rid of it and becoming worse as the city gets larger (population unhealth scaling is greater than one in captured cities). I wouldn't mind this if it did not for some reason make all my nice very healthy cities a continent away less productive, less scientific, etc.

Most my domination games are just constant razing because of the lack of a courthouse equivalent. ..

The courthouse in BE is free.. you just wait X turns and the annexing penalty goes away (assuming you annex).
If you puppet, their is no 'captured city' health penalty.

Now you might not want the health penalty of another city... but that is what razing is for (you don't want another city... you only wanted your opponent to have less cities as well)

 

[Aimeryan]

The courthouse in BE is free.. you just wait X turns and the annexing penalty goes away (assuming you annex).
If you puppet, their is no 'captured city' health penalty.

Now you might not want the health penalty of another city... but that is what razing is for (you don't want another city... you only wanted your opponent to have less cities as well)

I can not remember the exact health mechanics on captured cities, however, I seem to recall there being a much larger health penalty per population for them (something like 1.33 unhealth per pop vs. 0.75 unhealth per pop for a settled city).

It may be that this is what you are referring to, in which case I am not aware that it goes away after a certain time, nor that it doesn't apply at all to puppet cities.

If there is no penalty at all for a puppet city then we would expect for a size 12 city the following unhealth:

4 + 0.75(12) = 13 unhealth

Some (or all depending on virtues, etc) of this could be offset; 12 health could come from local building/tile happiness. While we need not assume that the AI would have maxed the local health, we should probably assume it has done something regarding it; lets say the city comes with 6 local health - this should give us 6 unhealth (12 unhealth, 6 health) when we capture it as a puppet (if there is indeed no penalty) - and this isn't even including virtues that may help (and artists). Problem is, I can't recall ever seeing such a low unhealth for puppeting a size 12 city (perhaps once I've maxed prosperity and some other health virtues, but by that point I've stopped looking).

If we use the 1.33 unhealth per pop for captured cities we would get:

4 + 1.33(12) = 20 unhealth. Assuming the same offset of 6 health, we get 14 unhealth for a size 12 city captured (again, assuming no virtues) - this seems far more in line with what I seem to remember.

As for annexed cities, since they definitely do give more unhealth than puppet cities there must be some penalty they get that puppets cities do not and it may be this is what goes away, however, this is likely separate from the unhealth per pop.

Then again, perhaps I am just wrong.

 

[Carl_Bar]

Nope. 1.33 is the unhealth per specialist, all it tells you is the city is using a ton of specialists on you.

 

[Aimeryan]

Hmm, I am wondering if the capture choice screen is not reporting the net health/unhealth then and is just reporting the unhealth - it is not unusual to see double-digit figures of unhealth for puppeting a city, something which seems unlikely if there is no penalty and it is the net health/unhealth.

On the other hand, if you just captured a city then it is likely you have units spread over many of that city's tiles - the city may be using lots of specialists in that case (unless the governor adjusts to the now workable-tiles before the capture screen comes up).

I'll have to play a game and check that the unhealth reported matches up with the end result (i.e. the net result). Technically, if there is no penalty, then if the city is large (16+) and the AI has maxed local health we should actually gain health from puppeting a city - has anyone seen this reported on the capture choice screen?

 

[Carl_Bar]

Until the initial capture phase wears off cities can't produce anything, i'd assume they don't contribute energy, health, or science in that time frame too.

 

[Aimeryan]

Until the initial capture phase wears off cities can't produce anything, i'd assume they don't contribute energy, health, or science in that time frame too.

Ah, then it could only possibly report the unhealth in that case. It is a shame it does not also report what the net health after the capture phase ends would be.

So, puppeting may not be as bad as the capture screen is telling you; you definitely have to suffer during the capture phase a global unhealth modifier (why? the population isn't exactly going to be travelling to your cities and taking that unhealth with them during the time the city is being stamped down upon!), but afterwards it may not be so bad - except you have no idea of whether that is going to be the case or not as the capture screen wont tell you, and you can't tell the city to build for more health if it doesn't have much local health (hopefully the governor is intelligent enough to do this...).

Annexing solves the last point of that by putting it in your hands (with the annexing penalty then cancelling that out), but otherwise still suffers from not giving any information on what the net health would be after the capture phase ends. Maybe a UI mod could solve this.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It reports city unhealthy...
however you Get local health even while it is under martial law

So it is possible to puppet a city and have your health go UP... even though it tells you your health will go Down

 

[sprang]

You get health and food (at reduced rate). So just set your governor to Food and spam biowells around cities under Martial Law. You'll get the health with the food.

Also, you can re-home Trade Units to cities that have a Depot after capture, and those units can establish trade routes even under Martial Law. The city won't collect any energy, science, or production, BUT: you can get use internal routes to seriously pump up two or three cities back home. Think of it as War Reparations imposed on the conquered populations.