Some noob questions (and probably more as they arise)

[Ghostlight]

What does the phrase "per citizens working the city hex" (as seen on the Colosseum for example) mean? I never have citizens working the city hex, and there is no way to make that happen that I can see.

Next, I occasionally see a small icon to the right of the city name that looks like a Spartan helmet with a red line thru it. What does that indicate?

[Lactose Intolerant Volcano God]

Originally posted by Ghostlight:

What does the phrase "per citizens working the city hex" (as seen on the Colosseum for example) mean? I never have citizens working the city hex, and there is no way to make that happen that I can see.

I was also confused about that when I started playing. You can move citizens to the city hex. It normally costs 1 hammer to move a citizen, but it's free when they are flashing and green (which happens when they are a new addition to the population).

The game automatically assigns citizens to hexes, so unless you want to make different choices, you can let the game manage it. Early in the game, it will prioritise terrain surrounding your city as it provides greater yield. When you have built city buildings that improve the city hex's yield, the game will automatically assign more new citizens to the city tile. (Note there are no buildings that give food yield per citizen working the city hex, so it will still prioritise some farms or other food terrain to provide food for the city.)

Originally posted by Ghostlight:

Next, I occasionally see a small icon to the right of the city name that looks like a Spartan helmet with a red line thru it. What does that indicate?

That sounds like the icon that indicates that no further units can be built in that city this turn. There is a similar icon displayed when you cannot build any more buildings in the city this turn.

[Ghostlight]

Not sure how I missed the fact there was a worker space on the cities. Thanks for that.

My next baffler is this: How the heck does culture work? I cannot understand the Culture overlay. It is showing costs to grab each tile I think. Basically, how can I tell the next tile that will be claimed by a growing city and also, when it will happen?

[PuszekSE]

There's some more precise explanation on the wiki regarding this issue.

TL;DR is - travel cost from the city (including rough terrain, roads etc.)

Regarding the tiles themselves, the priority is to 'lowest travel distance, then resources as the second-tier factor' - after that it's mostly random? (I do believe there's some specific algorithm that iterates over those conditions, but it's still mostly random from players' perspective)

- it's really big difference especially for resource mines or deer forests due to rough terrain penalty - in those case you might consider settling another city or straight up sending some military unit to claim it - another option is to actually make a road which would significantly reduce claim-cost