Money vs Science cities

Second city is shrined with 2 golds.

Ahh...I didn't scroll down that far. Now you need to send forth your Confucian missionaries!

How come there's no National Epic in Amsterdam? All those Wonders, and all that food for Specialists - one of the best GP farms I've seen. A Corporate economy would be very feasible, here.

I'd be looking to put Oxford in a third city, with a food source or two and a big wiggly river - really make the most of FIN

I added the marble myself, but the 4 foods in the capital, and 2 golds in second city were rolled by RNG.

I suck at putting up natural wonders.

I've rolled a legit 4 pig start once. But it wasn't riverside or marble hill, but I just worldbuilder those in

I disagree with some posters here. With cottage heavy Econ, I usually convert my gp farm to merchants after education. Cost isn't a concern with Org Rel whipping. Come banking, even a mediocre city can produce a lot of gold running 4 merchants and remaining pop on hammer tiles building wealth. Had one game with a few mediocre cities doing this and I was running 90% with surplus gold and no holy city shrine to speak of.

Additionally not all games are all war. If every game is spam units, conquer, build wealth in newly captured city it would get pretty old pretty quickly, no? Well, at least for me it would.

Try EE (espionage economy) and build only EE buildings. They are quite cheap and its the most effective economy. The effectiveness free up a lot of production and gold for other things (like goldrushing). Also sci buildings is not effective as you will not run slider at 100% all the time. Same goes for goldbuildings. Specialists is very ineffective (if not gpfarm) as you can practically support 2 cottages instead of one specialist. EE is also synergistic with nationhood that gives +25%ep and allows you to draft, a effective mechanic that you dont want to miss using (1f=7,33h, rifleman).