Diplomatic Marriage question

[guenzak]

Was playing my first game as Austria and"married" my first city state and it gave me the option to puppet or annex. I'm confused because both options raised my unhappiness by 8. I thought puppeting was supposed to give u less happiness. How come not with diplomatic marriage?
Also, after that even tho it raised my unhappiness 8 it would not give me the option of building a courthouse. If it raises unhappiness so much just to annex and puppet why can't you build a courthouse.
Also, if you are gaining the territory through "marriage" why does it raise happiness at all? You didn't conquer the territory.

Can someone lay out exactly how the puppet/annex/unhappiness mechanics work because I am a bit confused

Thanks

 

[Yzman]

There is no point in puppeting for married city states. Since they act like one of your cities you are just receiving unhappiness from population and city count, not from it being occupied. So in this case, you are getting the "puppeted happiness" whether you puppet it or not, so may as well annex.

 

[Harv72b]

The difference is, a puppeted city does not raise your culture cost for future policies, nor the production cost/availability of national wonders. So yeah, there are times when it could make more sense to puppet after marrying into your city state.

 

[fuzzatron717]

It's because you're getting the normal unhappiness from the city like population having the extra city raises your unhappiness.