Question on tile improvements

[ragindrunk]

Is it better to wait to improve a tile until it can be worked or to improve them all quickly and wait for growth?

 

[Browd]

Generally, you should not have idle workers and tile improvement should be paced to stay well ahead of population growth. First, you don't want citizens working unimproved tiles, if at all possible. Second, you will likely need/want to switch citizens between food, hammer, gold, faith and culture tiles, which you can't do (without violating principle 1) if those tiles are not already improved. It's important to note that, except for roads and railroads, tile improvements do not have a maintenance cost, so there is no "penalty" for improving tiles before they are needed (other than opportunity cost associated with improving these tiles vs. those tiles).

 

[Sabrina]

What Browd said, I always work the wheat as soon as I get a worker and the luxuries when I have the techs needed. Idle workers cost maintenance money and your tile improvement should be ahead of your population growth. I usually play with one worker per city and they usually don't get idle the entire game.