Help with my current game

[He-Who-Hunts]

I'm playing Germany, on King, on a Pangea map and I'm in the 1800's.

I have 5 cities that I founded and are mine and about 25 cities that are puppets. I want to continue my expansion in a mighty war with France (who are about the same score as me) but I am having problems maintaining a good happiness level, in fact for alot of the game I have been operating just above -10, sometimes even dipping under.

With so many puppets and only 5 founded cities I am racking up social policies every 20 odd turns, I see 2 policies that could help:

-Planned economy: Unhappiness due to number of cities reduced by 50%
-Police state: -50% Unhappiness in Annexed Cities

Now I'm already running Autocracy and have Militarism so Police state is only 1 sp away, but I'm wondering if that -50% effects puppet states. Planned economy is only 3 sp's away but I don't mind the bonuses I get as they will help greatly.

Note that I already have the Forbidden castle.

I also know I could go for Theocracy but the 2 other sp's along the way, adopting piety and organized religion, don't really seem worth while at this point.

Plan?

 

[Martin Alvito]

Planned. It leads to Communism, which will cause your productivity to explode, and it will net you +30 Happy.

You won't get help with puppets from Police State.

I'd start razing French conquests that lack Wonders as well, if I were you. Eventually you want to go vertical, and you're probably well past that point now.

 

[wurstburst]

If you have a lot of gold and are well along in science, you can annex one puppet and rush buy a colisseum and theater and circus (annex one with horses nearby for most efficiency).

Then put it right to work producing a courthouse. It'll only increase your SP cost a little.