Courthouses are a waste to build with 7 cities unless you're ORG / going espionage.
I have no doubt that you disagree with this, because you probably build the vast majority of all the infrastructure, and get all cities to size 20.
I don't use canned strategies. If I have a situation where 7 great cities is what I've got (due to diplo, lack of metal, prot neighbor, whatever), then, yes, I'll try to grow those cities as large as possible. Yes, I will put courthouses in most or all of my cities so that maintenance is cut in half. Even on emperor, you're going to want courthouses in cities that will be very large in population.
As sinimusta said if I'm at 7 cities (which I don't consider small for a lib breakout anywhos...) then I'm going to want as much production as possible. And that is going to happen by spamming workshops.
7 cities at 1AD is pretty normal on standard settings and by no means a large empire by the time you have access to SP. Since SP comes with Communism and isn't activated by anything else other than that tech, it is gotten in the late game. So we're talking about late game here, my friend. In that case, 7 cities IS a small empire. Pre-communism and pre-chemistry, workshops are a relatively weak improvement.
IDK what you mean about "not having the time to slow build an army", I guess you're hoping people on the "slavery rules bandwagon" come to back you up, which is weird because you said earlier that you never tried late game whip yourself oO.
Alright, ease up my friend. I'm not hoping for anyone's backup. Slow build vs. rush-buy/drafting is really what I was referring to but none of that has to do with SP because SP is LATE game (again). And if you are playing at any difficulty that actually challenges you, workshops in a small 7 city empire are not going to slow build you an army that will matter during the time of Communism. AI usually tech-surging
And this would fly against your "if your cities aren't big you're misplaying" line of thought earlier, as whippers usually have smaller cities then workshoppers do.
Again, not talking about whipping. Mostly talking about US/rush-buy (for which the commerce from FM can help with). But that only applies to conquest victories with a small empire. In peaceful victory games, I just have one city spam units which is the norm AFAIK.
It's also clear you've never tried spamming workshops. You can build units very quickly and before biology, kremlin, etc. You don't need to rush build when you are slow building things in a few turns. And drafting limits what you can build. It basically only makes sense in cannon wars. Regardless this isn't a battle between whipping/workshopping, its about SP > FM.
You're wrong, I spam workshops every time I use SP in large empire/domination games. As for drafting limiting what I can build, I'd agree, but since infantry are all I really want to build in a mid-late industrial conquest victory, it's pretty powerful (plus they 2 pop draft which mitigates some of the
from drafting). I'm not even talking about whipping v. workshops, I'm talking about how SP is not efficient vs FM with a small empire. It's what I've always been talking about. I believe you brought slavery into this debate.