Yes, you CAN access resources outside your city "cross"

[hahntsak]

Ok... A tile is being "worked" when a citizen from the town is assigned to the tile. That means that in the city info screen, the tile must have a white circle around it. If this is the case, the tile is being worked. If it is not, the tile is not being worked. This means that only tiles within the 21 square "fat cross" of a city can be worked. Citizens working tiles give you a direct benefit of food, hammers, and/or gold depending on the tile being worked.

Worker units have the ability to improve tiles. They can build roads anywhere, and they can build various improvements on the terrain depending on what the terrain is and what technologies you've discovered. A worker does it's job and then it's done. No direct benefit is gained from what the worker does in terms of food/hammers/gold except in the case of chopping down a forest which can give a one-time hammer bonus to a city. Just about everything workers do is designed to increase the output of the tile when citizens in a city "work" the tile as described above.

It's semantically incorrect to say that a worker is "working" a tile because it can be easily confused with what citizens do. Workers improve tiles, and that's it.

does that mean that the cottage within my borders, but outside any city's fat cross, will never become a hamlet?

 

[walkerjks]

does that mean that the cottage within my borders, but outside any city's fat cross, will never become a hamlet?

Correct. There is no point in putting any improvement on a tile outside of the city cross unless it's for movement or to exploit a resource.

 

[Fieryphoenix]

The "benefits" that the manual refers to are the increased food, hammers, or shields the the improvement "mine, pasture, etc" gives to the square. If the tile is not in the area worked by the city's citizens, you get only the resource itself, NOT those extra benefits. The manual is correct, you just need to be clear on the terminology.

 

[brokguitar]

You guys can test this out yourself. If a Food Resource is within your borders AND improved AND next to a river, you DO NOT have to connect it to a road to receive the +1 bonus to health, etc. I tested this out with food resources, has anyone found this to be true with others?

 

[KingSponge]

Improved resources within the "Fat cross" are available to you regardless of whether or not they are connected to the trade network.

Those outside the "Fat cross" must be connected to your trade network.

The manual is a bit unclear on this topic. I think the confusion stems from not understanding the differences between an improved resource's bonus "yield" with regards to the local city's production (ie food, hammers, commerce) and its specific "benefit" to your entire civilization when it's "connected" to your trade network (ie strategic, health, and happiness). There's a distinct difference between the two.

For example, consider this scenario:

- You found Moscow right next to a Plains tile with Cows on it.
- On the City Screen you see a white circle around the Plains tile with the Cows roaming on it. That means your only available citizen (remember, population is 1 right now) is "working" this tile.
- This tile on the City Screen shows a production "yield" of 2 Food and 1 Hammer because:

Plains = 1 Food, 1 Hammer
Cows = 1 Food (without the Pasture improvement)

- Ok, so let's say a few turns go by and you have a Worker Unit improve the Cows tile by building a Pasture on it.
- Now you open the City Screen and see that the Cow tile's production "yield" is now 3 Food and 3 Hammers because:

Plains = 1 Food, 1 Hammer
Cows = 2 Food, 2 Hammers (with the Pasture improvement)

Now, here's where all the confusion comes in when one reads about "hooking up" and/or "accessing" a resource and getting its "benefit".

- Back in the City Screen you look up in the top right corner at the Resources columns and wonder why there's no Cow icon showing up! Well, it's because the Cows are not connected to your Trade Network yet! The Pasture doesn't connect them. Having them within your City Radius doesn't connect them either. The only things that can connect your Cows is a road, river, or rail.
- Knowing this, you send your Worker Unit to build a Road on the Cow tile.
- Back in the City Screen again and now there is a little Cow icon listed in the Health Resources column (the middle one) with a +1 and "red cross" icon next to it. This means that the City is now benefitting from the Cow's special "health" bonus.

And that's it!

Also note that you can "connect" resources to get their benefit no matter where they are so long as they're within your Cultural Borders! They do not have to be in a City's radius. But you will have to a) improve the tile with the respective improvement (ie Pasture, Mine, Camp, etc) and b) connect the tile to your network via road, river, or rail or some combination thereof.

Does that make sense?

 

[KingSponge]

You guys can test this out yourself. If a Food Resource is within your borders AND improved AND next to a river, you DO NOT have to connect it to a road to receive the +1 bonus to health, etc. I tested this out with food resources, has anyone found this to be true with others?

Yes, this is true because the river acts as a trade network "vehicle". It gets your resource to your cities via teeny little invisible boats.

 

[brokguitar]

Yes, this is true because the river acts as a trade network "vehicle". It gets your resource to your cities via teeny little invisible boats.

I tested out other resources and this doesnt work, only for food. What i am saying is if you have EX:Corn next to a river, send a worker to build a farm only after that no road is needed on that same tile and it will still give you bonus. Yes it should be understood if u make a road to a river it will act as a road(trade route) but this happens without building the road on the corn tile.I beleive this to be a bug.

 

[Dakhor]

If u really want a bonus resource early in game and not having to wait for the "winery" tech to be able to build a winery. Just pop a city on the bonus resource in question.

/DaK/

 

[Zhahz]

Then you do gain access to it and gain full benefit from the resource.

Not exactly true - you don't get the FULL benefits because most worked resources give a large amount of food, production, or commerce in addition to their resource benefit, and you don't get that unless the resource is within range of a city.

But yeah, I definitely hook up all resources in my cultural boundries even if they're not within a city boundry.

 

[Myrrdin]

A new "feature" connected to this is that it's impossible to get a resource that is within the big cross but on another landmass.

For example see the attached image. The tile with oil has both the necessary improvement and it is roaded, but since it's not considered to be connected to the trade network it's virtually useless except the shield-bonus. I didn't play it much, but was it like this in Civ3?

In any way I find it a bit silly that the supposed workers can get there to work the tile, but can find no way to transport the oil back to the city. Do they swim?

 

[Ranos]

A new "feature" connected to this is that it's impossible to get a resource that is within the big cross but on another landmass.

For example see the attached image. The tile with oil has both the necessary improvement and it is roaded, but since it's not considered to be connected to the trade network it's virtually useless except the shield-bonus. I didn't play it much, but was it like this in Civ3?

In any way I find it a bit silly that the supposed workers can get there to work the tile, but can find no way to transport the oil back to the city. Do they swim?

This was the same in Civ 3 and just as aggrivating. You should be able to build a road to the coast just like you build it to a river and then the little boats should be able to bring it to your city. Hopeflly this will be something patched or modded.