This may seem obvious but...

[steftymo]

If a city only works tiles that are within a 3 tile zone.....
A] Are any farms, lumber mills, trading posts outside this zone worthless and should never have been built ?
B] Do any resource tiles( bonus, luxury or strategic) that have improvements on them outside this zone give any extra food, production or gold.
C] If a resource tile that has been improved is outside the zone will it still produce its resource....Iron, horses, cotton, pigs etc.

Also am I right in thinking that any tile within the zone will not produce anything unless worked by a citizen?
So should I only improve tiles (farm etc.) if I have enough citizens to work them ?

Sorry for the rambling but I have only just started to play and though I am really enjoying it I cannot seem to get these basic points straight in my head.

 

[ColinTH]

A - They will give you a good start if you build another City but they are worthless to the initial City.
B - No
C - Yes, but not pigs
You should continue to improve in preparation for City growth unless you are short of workers and another City needs improving.

 

[steftymo]

A - They will give you a good start if you build another City but they are worthless to the initial City.
B - No
C - Yes, but not pigs
You should continue to improve in preparation for City growth unless you are short of workers and another City needs improving.

So if I improve tiles that are outside the zone they may be used by another city built close by ?

 

[Babri]

So if I improve tiles that are outside the zone they may be used by another city built close by ?

 

[weakciv]

Situation:
a hex is in your culture but outside of the workable area of a city

if that hex has a Luxury or Strategic resource, improve it. you will get the resource but not any bonus food/prod/gold from improving it.
Bonus resources only provide bonus food/prod/gold and thus are only worth improving in the above situation if you are planning on putting a city near it.