adwcta
King
Oh, it's also pretty useful for smaller empires. I mostly go tall and Commerce is one of my favorite trees. I'd probably pick it over Patronage if I had to choose. The Opener and Wagon Trains increase your gold regardless of the number of cities you have, and the 25% gold bonus in the capital has very good synergy with Tradition. And while +2 per luxury may be more useful for larger empires, you can never have too much happiness for Golden Ages and culture from Fine Arts. The ability to buy 40% cheaper with Big Ben is also very useful to get your national wonders early.
Yes.
And who says you can't trade post spam your capital? I have a 4 city empire with a capital, I run 3 food routes to my capital for most of the game, and run the other 5 (or 6, I love Colossus) as international trade routes to all generate gold from my capital for the 25% bonus.
Then, when it feels right, I start trade post spamming tiles I'm not currently working, and eventually start converting my old farms into trade posts. Trade posts are +3 gold +1 science. You can't beat that. Especially when you have other sources of food.
When my economy is good enough that I never need to hard-build anything anymore, I start converting the mines into trade routes.
I end all my 4-city tall Immortal/Deity games with Commerce with 0 farms, 0 mines in my capital. All trade posts. My city outputs close to 1k gold by itself (after I hit critical point, and switch my domestic trade routes to international trade routes).
I'm still very annoyed by the +2 gold for caravans policy though. I go commerce even with a coastal start, and it's a 100% useless policy. =/