I have explained the uselessness of CHs in different threads for many times. Unfortunately usually that CH supporter eventually found himself defeated and started attacking personally. So I don't want a debate here.
Alright, as someone who has read the posts that you're referring to, I will concede that some of the people who countered your points were making things a little too personal for what would be considered an acceptable debate, I will not do this nor will I tolerate it. The situation was further exacerbated for you as your unconventional tactics left you in the minority; you were arguing your point alone against several people arguing against you. I applaud you bringing unconventional and effective tactics to the forum, this is the principal reason why we are all here.
However, the CH supporters were not "defeated." You brought your argument regarding oranges and they brought their argument regarding apples. They didn't make things personal because they were beaten, rather because they were frustrated that you weren't accepting their points and they were unable to conduct themselves in the debate as well as you did.
To those who question how she (with a name like Lily, I assume you're female. Apologies if this isn't so) creates an economy that supports the units needed to succeed without commercial hubs (
@cazaderonus among others), there's three economic maneuvers that she's using.
First, she stated that she uses the Public Transport civic (50 gold per appeal of a tile when replacing a farm with a neighborhood) to such a degree that its clearly manipulating a design flaw. The gold is issued when you place the district instead of when you finish it, so you just switch to the civic, place a district in every city, and get a huge lump sum. You then never complete a neighborhood district. I see this tactic as situational for two reasons. First, it comes late in the game and doesn't apply to the renaissance era or prior. Second, it's very limited. Even if you have a 20 city empire and all city's place a neighborhood on a farm, they're probably going to average 4 appeal, meaning 200 gold per neighborhood placement. Multiply that times 20 cities, and you get 4,000 gold, which as most of you who develop your commercial hubs know, is about 3 turns worth of gold production once your cities and commercial hubs are developed. But I guess that boost may be enough, and she isn't investing (or in her view, "wasiting") the hammers that produce and develop those commercial hubs.
Second, she mentioned the use of privateers (as well as general pillaging gains) as an alternative to CH for economic gains. Again, I find the tactic situational as it relies on coastal access to tiles to be effective, and as with the previous point, doesn't matter until you unlock privateers, which means you need to find another source of income up until the renaissance era.
Third and most importantly, her games are GotM games. Which means that the maps... and the STARTS... that you salivate over, are the maps and starts that she has every game. Look at some of the ridiculous GotM starts and you will see how unconventional tactics become viable. Most start of a plains hill and are adjacent to three or four of a luxury resource that you can trade and another 3 or 4 bonus resources to get you up and running. So yes, when the map gives you god-like tile yields, you don't need commercial hubs.
So to conclude on this diversion from the OP, commercial hubs aren't optimal in games where you're playing a speedrun, and often aren't necessary when you're given god-tier maps. But in the standard, everyday, roll-up-a-random-Pangaea, they are extremely useful for all the reasons that you already know about.
