What to do with massive amounts of puppet cities?

[TexasTiger]

So I made a thread about this same game (the settlers/military one) and now am in a different predicament. While I was focusing on filling out my sizable living space due to some aggresive settling and taking out my next door neighbor, Egypt declared war on me pretty much as soon as they could following their last peace treaty with me. This time however I was not fighting a two pronged attack from the much stronger Germany and after opening a second front in the east and advancing on Thebes with my main army, they sued for peace. And sued they did.

Egypt gave me literally ALL of their cities besides Thebes as well as pretty much everything else they could. Obviously, I accepted. Here is where my issue comes in though. I left all the cities as puppets since that's what I normally do and now my happiness went from around 2 to -27. Since none of these cities are annexed, 100% of that happiness is coming from the added population and number of cities, though at least I do have meritocracy and FP to reduce that.

So what I'm asking is what can I do to get down to a more manageable happiness level. I don't see how razing will be the blanket answer as none of the unhappiness is due to annexed cities plus every civ has settlers just roaming around waiting to start a new city. Do I just rush buy as many collesiums as possible? I have a very strong economy (200+ gpt), so that might be the best answer. Any advice would be great. Oh and I have 11(!) luxuries already so that can't be my issue. And the Freedom SP.

Attached is a screenshot for those interested.

Spoiler :

 

[Akaoz]

OVer time the puppets will build a lot of colosseums, so you will probably be alright. Also get the Order tree...

 

[ZwodahS]

Give/sell some Weaker positioned city to some far away civ. Or You can have fun by putting different civs in a area and see them asking for pact or secrecy against each other.

Some people consider selling city cheesy tho.

 

[Zenstrive]

Order and Liberalism. And Piety. Always go Piety when you are massive. I can have 200 happiness due to Piety, Order, Liberalism and some wonders

 

[Celevin]

Sell off a couple of the crappier cities for some cash to rush buy some colosseums. You can probably just do some napkin math to figure out the smallest number you need to sell. Your goal isn't to get above 0 unhappiness, but merely -10. Your empire's actually stronger at -9 than 0 happiness, if the difference is caused solely by population.

 

[TexasTiger]

Well I got back to around neutral happiness, but it took a lot of gold to get there. And I'm out of cities that can buy collesiums. I don't really want to replace the Egyptian puppets either because they have tons of buildings in them already. I guess I'll just shoot for happiness through SP

 

[TheNoodle]

For some unclear reason, the happiness from specialists under the freedom SP is rounded in the player's favour, BY CiTY. so make sure you have 1 specialist (or an odd number) working for you there. Actually, post patch, I've been building workshops and longhouses a lot Hammers are scarce and it s a bargain with the extra happiness. Was able to pull A turn 199 win with hiawatha and turn 212 with bismark (warpath a lot stronger than furor teutonicus for ics lol ) . Most important is just to enjoy the game Norm

 

[Soronery]

Sell the cities. If you don't you get a very heavy global penalty (-production, -33% combat effectiveness)...it's really bad to get to a "very unhappy" state.

 

[Rathelon]

I know you said you're not sure about razing them, but that is one way to get your happiness back up. Even though they are puppets, they are giving you unhappiness - just not as much as annexed cities would (without courthouses). If there are some that are in just really lousy spots, crammed too close to a good city, or in resource poor areas - I'd raze them. Tell the other civs not to settle near you, and if they do, KILL 'EM ALL!

 

[Jibekn]

Sell one city to each nation in a round robin. This way they all border each other and will DOW each other in short order.

 

[Paradigne]

Sell one city to each nation in a round robin. This way they all border each other and will DOW each other in short order.

That's pretty funny right there

 

[alpaca]

That's pretty funny right there

And very much exploiting that the AI can't differentiate between "core" and "some random colony"

On topic: Raze away, most of them are probably pretty bad anyways. The typical answer to conquering a city should be razing unless you have a good reason to keep them around (like going for a culture victory). I wouldn't recommend keeping them around on -50% production levels anyhow. If you like, gift or sell them to an AI and re-conquer them later when you have more happiness.

 

[elthrasher]

On topic: Raze away, most of them are probably pretty bad anyways. The typical answer to conquering a city should be razing unless you have a good reason to keep them around (like going for a culture victory). I wouldn't recommend keeping them around on -50% production levels anyhow. If you like, gift or sell them to an AI and re-conquer them later when you have more happiness.

Science and gold are good reasons to keep cities. I don't like to raze my winnings. You can have quite a mighty economy of puppets.

 

[Zenstrive]

Science and gold are good reasons to keep cities. I don't like to raze my winnings. You can have quite a mighty economy of puppets.

This I agree. Got 600+ GPT and 150+ happiness and 1000+ culture from my recent game which I can win seven ways to sunday. Domination? Grab that one last city. Culture? Let this Utopia project finished. Science? Let those cities switch productions from research to SS parts.