To make large buildings in distant places you would build roads, then work crew related buildings, then whatever you wanted, including the needed housing for the new city area you ended creating in the process.

Another interesting game is knights and merchants, armies are under your direct control but require supplies, that need to be physically carted off to them, so you needed to either use hit and run tactics, or build infrastructure near the frontlines. Also traffic in that game can literally kill you, as your badly designed city becomes so inefficient that people die of starvation.