A Reluctant Warmonger could use a hand

I know the city didn't have Notre Dame (that was with the Ottomans). I had deliberately looked for it since I was struggling with happiness and I had previously experienced the positive happiness effects from capturing Notre Dame.

So it must have been the forbidden palace. I did have four pretty substantial cities. 1 x 25, 3 x 20 give or take. That's 85 pop => around 8.5 unhappiness reduction from FP.

Sounds like the other option would have been to save some gold for a few turns, annex Paris (may largest Puppet) and gold-buy the courthouse.

Thanks for the reply SD.

If you have the money i would have annexed the most productive of the puppet cities and instantly buy a courthouse. then have those cities build nothing but happiness buildings. the puppet cities create additional unhappiness.

Rush buy courthouses only if you have happiness trouble without it. Otherwise you should build them since courthouses have one of the worst gold per hammer ratio in the game.