I do find it kinda silly.  Wish you could, if not snake, at least be able to build the terrain-specific buildings such as logging camps for forests and harbors for rivers the way you build the special resource improvements.  Seems silly that you can build to a forest, but if you don't start your city immediately next to one, you can't build a logging camp ... how is it really even a camp, then?  A camp is a base of operations, like a temporary nomadic village, but since you can only build it attached directly to your starting city square, its more like a lumberyard. :/

@Heavenfall: What mechanic did SD introduce to eliminate the need for snaking? I was not aware of any...

@Chibiabos: I whole heartedly argree with you. Snaking is a very necesarry part of how the city development operates.

1. When building your city, you are now restricted from some of the more unique buildings that are offered in the game all because you happened to not build in a location EXACTLY beside a forest or river.
2. There are several other aspects about city building that have a simple and an advanced design type, toggled by the building placement option (which was the reason why snaking was eliminated -- they didn't want to confuse players who chose simple). Some examples showing that 'snaking' still exists are:
1. Reaching out towards a resource just outside of your ZoC.
2. Reaching out towards a bottleneck or pass, cutting off AI from crossing.
3. Building on adjacent forests. Without manual placement, the autoplace can 'bury' your forest...and there is NO undo. It's lost.
4. Reaching out to tie city ZofC together with your capital.
3. The AI operate as if snaking WAS possible. Very frustrating. So many times I see AI build a city in a LESS optimal location, just out of reach from a forest or river tile, thinking that it will expand to it in the future....except they NEVER can build those vital improvements. I pretty much have to do scorched earth policy now, destroying all AI cities to REBUILD them in their proper spots.

Anyways, as you can see, there is a pretty strong case for snaking to be a viable option. At the VERY least, tie the mechanic in with the Manual Placement option or have its own option to activate.

It's going to be one of the first things I try to mod in. I'm just trying to patiently wait to see if SD has any plans to correct this feature in 1.1.

That you can only build river/forest buildings on tiles directly next to your cityhub (the settled central city tile).

I think this part is hard coded... I can't seem to find any switch to change the effect.

Yeah, I'm stumped. Hoping one of our master modders figures this out.