How much do you chop in the early game?

[blitzkrieg1980]

Well naturally the river ones get chopped first. But was thinking of plains hills unless I forgot and they can't grow there.Though I guess you would rather use the mine.

Plains hills can generate riverside. I had a couple in my capital last game.

To me, leaving them forested only robs you of a hammer. These tiles are great very early for pushing out a bunch of spawn busters or speeding up an early EXP worker or IMP settler pre-Bronze working. But once you have BW and finished improved resource tiles, I'd rather have a mined plains hill than an unimproved forested one. Plains flatlands with forest provide better production than if chopped. Later on when workshops get good bonuses or when I need to farm that plains to spread irrigation is when I chop these. That's with the caveat that there is no inherent need to chop sooner than later.