He's partisan with a bias toward space victories. And he's convinced me that cottages are the way to go for space win as a SE cannot compete late-game with an empire full of towns. It just can't.
Hmm. depends.
An Obsolete's style Super Capital can do wonders !!!

In a recent game(Warlord/monarch), i out teched (with Memhed) Liz whole empire with it and a secondary science city, all others cities were just making some money.
Granted, it was quite a bit food overpowered (five sea ressources, + some grass land farms and 4 hills.
The secondary city had too much flood plains too, so quite not the average game, i agree