Ok I have this issue, I tend to play as Elizabeth giving the nice financial trait, I also tend to rush Pyramids if I can so I can grab Representation or Universal Suffrage as needed.
This gives the possibility of having some VERY strong early game cottages/hamlets/towns etc with the extra gold from tiles and the hammer produced with US.
My main issue is that I do not know if want to stick them around the capital or not, particularly say on a river, the extra gold instantly due to financial is a nice boon at the start of the game, also that extra hammer always helps.
Now I normally build my capital into god tier production and GP powerhouses, full of wonders and pumping out GP's like nobody business, thus its farms and workshops for it, cottages on “extra” tiles were I do not feel I need another workshop. This results in a city where I am often pumping out military units at a rate of 1 per turn! Which is fantastic when you get into a scrape and suddenly need to beef out your army, in the 6 or 7 turns your opponent takes to get his army to the city he is going for you can have beefed up its defences with new units, also continually adding great generals as specialists is also amusing, when every brand new unit has three promotions you can really get your expansionist ball rolling.
However by building early cottages around the capital, by the time I reach mid game I would have a massive amount of income from it, giving faster advancement and better income to manipulate global affairs and purchase buildings in smaller cities to get them up and running faster. I am lothe to give up techs rather than cash to buy peace when 3 or 5 AIs decare on war on me at once, also it would give good production in the eras before workshops become amazing, but also a smaller population. I am so torn, this is one of the reasons why I dislike specialists outside of the capital, its often so hard trying to figure out the “optimal” setup for them that I just decide to work another tile and grow the city in question.
For my next game the military production centre is being moved to a different city (preferably on on the coast so naval units can get the great general promos as well as land units).
This frees up my capital for sniping wonders and other such things, but the question with this is that if I still want to pump out GP's do I want farms for expanding the city and thus more specialists? Or do I want to grab early cottages for that early game boost and stronger midgame income and science output? Or should I leave that to the satellite cities?
Normally satellite cities are turned into commerce centres with cottages all around them, but having sat down and worked out how gosh darn powerful they are, even at early game with ancient era US and Financial and I am wondering if I am doing myself a disservice by neglecting them in my capital.
I should point out that by mid game I tend not to have any more than 6 or 7 cities, I am not keen on pumping out next to useless drains on the economy like the AI does. A small empire, but one with lots of cash and pumping out colonies on unpopulated islands like nobodys business, ironically just like the British Empire did
.
This gives the possibility of having some VERY strong early game cottages/hamlets/towns etc with the extra gold from tiles and the hammer produced with US.
My main issue is that I do not know if want to stick them around the capital or not, particularly say on a river, the extra gold instantly due to financial is a nice boon at the start of the game, also that extra hammer always helps.
Now I normally build my capital into god tier production and GP powerhouses, full of wonders and pumping out GP's like nobody business, thus its farms and workshops for it, cottages on “extra” tiles were I do not feel I need another workshop. This results in a city where I am often pumping out military units at a rate of 1 per turn! Which is fantastic when you get into a scrape and suddenly need to beef out your army, in the 6 or 7 turns your opponent takes to get his army to the city he is going for you can have beefed up its defences with new units, also continually adding great generals as specialists is also amusing, when every brand new unit has three promotions you can really get your expansionist ball rolling.
However by building early cottages around the capital, by the time I reach mid game I would have a massive amount of income from it, giving faster advancement and better income to manipulate global affairs and purchase buildings in smaller cities to get them up and running faster. I am lothe to give up techs rather than cash to buy peace when 3 or 5 AIs decare on war on me at once, also it would give good production in the eras before workshops become amazing, but also a smaller population. I am so torn, this is one of the reasons why I dislike specialists outside of the capital, its often so hard trying to figure out the “optimal” setup for them that I just decide to work another tile and grow the city in question.
For my next game the military production centre is being moved to a different city (preferably on on the coast so naval units can get the great general promos as well as land units).
This frees up my capital for sniping wonders and other such things, but the question with this is that if I still want to pump out GP's do I want farms for expanding the city and thus more specialists? Or do I want to grab early cottages for that early game boost and stronger midgame income and science output? Or should I leave that to the satellite cities?
Normally satellite cities are turned into commerce centres with cottages all around them, but having sat down and worked out how gosh darn powerful they are, even at early game with ancient era US and Financial and I am wondering if I am doing myself a disservice by neglecting them in my capital.
I should point out that by mid game I tend not to have any more than 6 or 7 cities, I am not keen on pumping out next to useless drains on the economy like the AI does. A small empire, but one with lots of cash and pumping out colonies on unpopulated islands like nobodys business, ironically just like the British Empire did
.
and took 1 turn, Cavalry was 2 turns for the first then 1 turn for the next with production overspill.
You know what else is good for boosting your gold output? building wealth 
