I can't grant independence

hey guys, new to the forum but not to the game and I've come across a bit of a problem. I have courthouses, banks, grocers, and markets in every city, merchants in as many cities as I can have, civilized jewelers spreading across my now worldwide empire, but I still am somehow loosing over 400 gold per turn. I recently conquered north America and the Incas, a total of 2 civs not including me are left on the map. I see that granting independence to my overseas cities may help, but when I go to the domestic adviser and click on the grant independence icon, click on the list of cities I want to grant independence to, the screen goes away and nothing happens. I don't know if I have the wrong civics for it but I currently run
Hereditary Rule
Emancipation
Free Market (for the decrease in corporate maintenance)
Free Religion
Nationhood
I have no vassals either
don't know what I am doing wrong, and I also don't know if this is the right forum section for this lol. anyone have any ideas as to what this error may be about?

When you say you have no vassals, do you mean that you have chosen not to vassalize anyone or that you have the "No Vassals" option turned on? If you have the option selected, then you can't grant independence because the new civilization would be your vassal. So, "No Vassals" option means no independent colonies either.

If you don't have the option selected, then consider that to grant independence, you have to have three or more cities on the same land mass that you want to become the new independent colony. Also, you can't include cities on other land masses. (This includes islands.)

yeah, vassals is turned on and no civs are vassalized. I have tons of cities on the continent, so that isn't the problem either, and they are all on one landmass

Does the cities have the small fist in the city screen (F1)?

yes they do, when I open it and select the colonies I want to grant independence to the screen disappears, and nothing happens

unmodded bts?

well I did mod it to disable global warming, but other than that it is all default

1) Civilized Jewellers will hardly, if ever, give you a net profit. Corporation payments just stack up too high for that to happen. Even with free market. Gets worse the higher the handicap difficulty level you play at.

2) You must grant independence to at least 2 cities at once to form a new peace-vassal.

3) Something about not being another peace-vassal on the same island/continent or something.... (unsure about this condition)

civ jewelers always makes the economy boom. sometimes it crashes and I have a few years where I loose tons but they are followed by times of great prosperity. yeah no other vassals on the continent and I have tons of cities all over it

Prince and higher the cost of maintaining a corp like civilized jewelers in a large # of high pop cities (you describe spreading worldwide) will crush an economy especially if you have a lot of the corp's consumed resources. You'd probably be better off with mining inc and only spread to a few low pop cities and build wealth. Or spread to AI who is beyond the threshold of failure and allow them to incur the maintenance while you collect the profits in your WS corp HQ

Corps are better used for their bonuses than their $$$. Getting oil or aluminum without having to claim it on the map is cool. Sid's sushi for massive food and culture. Mining Inc for ridiculous production.