I have an excel sheet for planning colonies. I recommend people playing this game for more than a couple matches make one for themselves.

Cost of a level 4 building, for Europeans:
Center
350 Gold, 35 Metals, 15 Goods, 140 Wood
Mill
60 Gold, 25 Metals, 10 Goods, 50 Wood, 200 Labor
Metal
60 Gold, 34 Metals, 14 Goods, 66 Wood, 300 Labor
Farm
34 Metals, 14 Goods, 66 Wood, 400 Labor
Gold
120 Gold, 68 Metals, 28 Goods, 132 Wood, 600 Labor
Commerce
80 Gold, 50 Metals, 33 Goods, 50 Wood, 200 Labor
Fort
110 Gold, 51 Metals, 20 Goods, 160 Wood, 200 Labor
Dock
25 Gold, 17 Metals, 7 Goods, 33 Wood, 300 Labor
House
50 Gold, 17 Metals, 7 Goods, 32 Wood
Tavern
50 Gold, 17 Metals, 7 Goods, 32 Wood
Church
170 Gold, 42 Metals, 17 Goods, 82 Wood

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Effective limit on the number of buildings in one colony is 99, including Center. Opening the building list with more than this will cause the game to crash.

The number of squares in the Level 4 catchment area, including Center, is 164.

Farms have an internal housing space of 40, 80, 120, 160 (per level up). So the Level 4 Farm needs 400 - 160 = 240 Housing.

Each Center upgrade adds +1 trade route and +10 capacity per trade. Each new Dock adds +1 trade route. Each Dock upgrade (2,3,4) adds +10 capacity. Level 4 Docks are extremely inefficient (too much labor); aim for Level 3.

The AI players can put buildings on top of yours. The squares will do double-duty!

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How much does it cost to build a city that dumps gold into the war college?

Cost of a "Lumber Town," an ideal first colony that focuses on wood for building colonies and later exporting.
With 48 mills, a center, 6 mines, 4 farms, 6 commerce, 4 forts, a war college, 8 L-3 docks, and 16 houses:
5330 Gold, 2412 Metals, 1056 Goods, 4808 Wood, 16560 Labor
= 109,210g. 17,640 living space, consumes 24 Metals, 24 Wood, and 189 Food per turn.

Cost of a "Farming Town," a very fast starter and return on investment when you sell crops.
With 20 farms, a center, 5 commerce, 4 forts, a war college, 8 docks, 8 houses:
1610 Gold, 1366 Metals, 627 Goods, 2762 Wood, 11360 Labor
= 61,700g. 12,200 living space, consumes 20 Metals, 20 Wood, and 133 Food per turn.

Cost of a "Commerce Town," a very expensive place with highest eventual gold income for a Craftsman.
With 60 commerce, a center, 4 farms, 4 forts, a war college, 8 docks, 15 houses:
6360 Gold, 3691 Metals, 2267 Goods, 4680 Wood, 15960 Labor
= 158,080g. 16,640 living space, consumes 240 metals, 240 wood, and 399 Food per turn.

The good thing about a city that chops wood is that you don't have to wait for crates to go back and forth across the sea when starting up. That saves a lot of turns. Like other posters, I recommend focusing on crops for cash. Cities that do commerce make a hell of a lot more money but are 3x as expensive. Think hard about how long you intend to carry a game out.

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Cost of a big garrison of six Infantry, Cavalry, & Artillery: 600 Gold, 348 Metals, 72 Goods, 420 living space.

Note that Level 6 (veteran) units are the same number of people as level 5, which is different from lower levels. But Level 6 units are not registered in Forts' query screens.

One of the things that I love about this game is you can really benefit from spreadsheets, but at the same time the variations of terrain and numerous potential colony sites mean that you can't just rely on them and solve your game solely with a spreadsheet.

I would challenge your plan though; specialization can be great for maximizing total production, but the core of expansion is ROI. If you build a lumber mill to support mine construction in another town you have to wait an extra 2 turns for shipping before the wood is used in a building compared to reinvesting it in less efficient mines in the same city. Fewer cities also means less overhead in colony upgrades, settlers, forts, troops, and docks, and less tedious micromanagement. As a result I have come to favor winning with just one or two colonies.

Also, good to hear about 100 buildings crashing the building list. I never figured that one out before.

Well, nothing wrong with having spreadsheets for games, I have had many... but never had real need for that in this little game. And will agree to zantan, the unpredictability of terrain and circumstances bring in enough variance to invalidate total optimization. Place is everything.

I can see how it can help in first 50 turns or so though, but after that I never had any difficulties, costs of anything just stop being really relevant quite fast, so optimizing logistics is far more important than even labor waste level 4 docks may involve.

Maybe because my play style is very different, I never try to rush fast victory, instead I usually play on largest possible map with slow movement, and be very delicate to my neighbors in start (unless they really, really annoys me). My first colony is as balanced as possible, but may as well specialize much later. I rarely launching second colony before turns 40~50 when I can have level 4 settlers and solid production base to get new colonies out and level 4 as fast as possible, but then go build 5, 7 and more colonies before turn 100~110, and max them all out.
To what it may lead, I posted a little game story here

--- Yup, I can confirm this, it played with me few cruel jokes.

Especially remember once I had one inland base that had almost perfectly flat place, river that was covered in docks and 2/3 of its territory forest with wood bonuses in +110~140% range...
I had to cut some docks and few great mills for not-really-needed extra forts just to stay within building limit. And few more than it could be, just because It beyond me to accept available but unused land even if by pure math it could be most efficient choice.

Eventually I figured that plugging a colony into a spreadsheet would save me time. Once a center is at level 4, I can see where all the best tiles for the buildings are. I just need an idea how many houses & farms and inputs are needed, because that changes the tile configurations too, and whether the dreadful 99 limit is going to come and kick me in the face!

I guess another thing that fell into place was timing. The optimal way to grow a city is to get the center to level 4 and then sprawl over every tile with level 1 buildings. The initial construction, Level 1, pays for itself quicker than the upgrades, so only the very best tiles should get early upgrades. So you have 2-3 turns after the city finishes its center, where you should lay out the entire place to how it's going to look at the end of its development. That's a good time to stop and plan out the city carefully.

Maybe I should change my suggestion to "If you LIKE making spreadsheets, this is a good little game for them."

workforce needed:

level 1 2 3 4 total
1. dock/ trading post +30 +60 +90 +120 +300
2. farm +40 +80 +120 +160 +400
3. gold mine +60 +120 +180 +240 +500
4. metal mine +30 +60 +90 +120 +300
5. mill +20 +40 +60 +80 +200
6. commerce +20 +40 +60 +80 +200
7. fort +20 +40 +60 +80 +200
8. housing +0 +0 +0 +0 +0
9. tawern +0 +0 +0 +0 +0
10.church +0 +0 +0 +0 +0
11.war college +120 n/a n/a n/a +120

i thought I'll add on the per level basis, sometimes it does come in handy :)