Question about multiple city connections and road network

So I understand that City Connections establishes another kind of 'trade route' between cities that you own and they generate gold, with more bonuses if it is connected to your capital.

However, how does this system work with regards to multiple city connections? Like Three cities in a triangle /_\ , the top one being the capital, but you establish a road between the two bottom cities just like a triangle, so you have two cities connected to both the capital and each other. Does this generate more gold?

Furthermore, does the capital connection bonus only apply to cities directly connected to the Capital, or as long as it's connected to the network with the Capital?

Only cities connected to the capital (either directly or via a roundabout route through multiple cities) will count, and they only count once per city (i.e., a city that is connected to the capital through two or more routes, via other cities, only counts as one city connection).

This War Academy article was for the vanilla game, when city connections were called trade routes, but it is still an accurate summary of the mechanic (including the computation of income and expense of the city connection): http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438745

Thanks