Mid-game city build order

Many people would argue that if you never need colosseums then your cities are too small and you're losing out on science, production, gold etc...
There are another ways to get happiness for gold:
lux from AI
lux/happiness from CS

I am not saying you must never build colosseums, but you should try hardly not to build them. The later you are forced to build them - the better.
 
With Liberty, I find that I need Colosseums in every city, despite having all the available luxuries. There is not always a need for Zoos because your ideology gives a huge boost to happiness, but it still happens.
 
I don't understand the hatred vs happiness buildings in this thread.

1gpt for 1 happiness :) isnt so bad. The absolute worse case scenario you build a trading post and get 1 science for the population. A more realistic scenario is 2+gold and 2+ science from the trading post with building multipliers (librarys markets) social policies like the (rationalism: free thought ) and techs like economics.

The population is alot more efficient in the capital where you can get 2 pop per happiness with tradition. The conversion to hammers with farms and mines is a bit more complicated but more hammers to build units to win the game isn't a bad option either.

I'm used to playing on diety where happiness can be quite hard to come by. I find my late games turning into units\happiness\ money building cycles. Razing cities down to size 2-4 is a viable way to handle happiness problems but I still like decent sized happy cities :)
 
I don't understand the hatred vs happiness buildings in this thread.
I am not getting that either. I almost always build coliseums soon after markets, and unlocking the NW is important too.

Razing cities down to size 2-4 is a viable way to handle happiness problems but I still like decent sized happy cities
I have never resorted to that since it requires annexing. If I raze, I want the city gone. If I annex, it is because I want the city large and productive (and probably building units). Razing down to size 2-4 seems like the worst of all possibilities!
 
I have never resorted to that since it requires annexing. If I raze, I want the city gone. If I annex, it is because I want the city large and productive (and probably building units). Razing down to size 2-4 seems like the worst of all possibilities!

The main reason to keep a small city like that is too control the land. You need routes for your armys to take enemy capitals. It also stops the pesky AI from settling new citys or backstabbing you far away from your army.

This is mainly a super lategame strategy when you are taking massive capitals that cant be razed and put a huge strain on your happiness :)
 
If you are warmongering late game you can temporarily keep cities for airbases and land to heal your army. Once the front has advanced and that city is no longer relevant you can set it ablaze. If you plan this carefully you end up with no increase on the maximum number of cities, since you are always conquering new cities.
 
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