@Harriet: Thanks for the e-mail prodding me out of the books.
Now back to one of my favorite pastimes - goading the ol' Monk.
Bede said:
...I have a prejudice against crossing fields without fully improving them
As do I... generally. What I actually hate is wasting worker moves... and it's easy to waste worker moves when you cross a river.
Bede said:
...the locomotive for the TGOM - food! gold! shields!
You said it! Now consider this:
Move the worker to the #1 tile in your screenshot, and road that sucker. In my opinion, you will always want a citizen working the cow... if you take the worker over there and road that bovine tile, you'll net yourself another shilling, will you not?
I think if you consider roading the cow as the worker's second task, you might find you have some nice options that don't involve wasting worker moves. From there you can irrigate the cow or go back over to #1 and mine the BG...without wasting a worker move.
The main thing you
don't want to do is cross the river onto a tile that's already roaded. If you road #1 and #4, then cross the river to work #2...then you'll want to go to the tile NW of the city center when you come back across the river...
Just my $0.02 from the peanut gallery.
...and oh yeah, good luck team!