Can city borders cross water?

[clinton]

I want to build a city three tiles from a horse on an island with just one tile of coast between it and the mainland. Will the cities borders eventually take in the horse tile?

 

[Browd]

Absolutely.

 

[Fluffball]

You may be better off simply buying up that tile though. If there are four horses especially you can usually reimburse the cost of purchasing the tiles buy selling them all once.

 

[fuzzatron717]

It will get it get lots of culture. Culture promotes border growth.

 

[Pook]

I want to build a city three tiles from a horse on an island with just one tile of coast between it and the mainland. Will the cities borders eventually take in the horse tile?

Yes. How quickly it happens depends on you. Your options:
1) Do nothing. Eventually, you'll get that hex. Could take much of the game.
2) Help the process along a little bit by buying a water hex next to the island equines. That way, your city governor is more likely to pick the horses as the next hex to expand culturally.
3) Do as Fluffball suggested, and buy the water hex and the horse hex. If you have a worker to build a pasture (will require Optics for worker to travel across water), you can likely sell those horses for more than the cost of buying the hexes. 4 horses x 50 gold (standard speed) = 200 gold for 30 turns of horse-trading.

 

[Dentalfury]

Pook is right on all counts.

You can also, if your taking the 'natural' expansion route invest in culture buildings or wonders to speed the rate of expansion. Angor Wat comes to mind but it's really only worth getting if there are multiple luxuries or strategic resources on the outskirts of all your cities you want access to quickly and cheaply.

 

[Browd]

Ditto on Pook's reply, with one clarification -- full price for horses and other strategic resources on standard is only 45 gold per item, so 180 gold for 4 horses.