by Simonjohn
In the base game rule book, it is very clear that you can visit a travel destination at any time during the work phase and take the food immediately." ... At any time during the Work Phase, you can load your Vehicles (even right after you got them). This is not considered an action – you can do this on top of your actions..."
" ... at any time during the Work Phase, you may visit a Travel Destination to get Food that you may use immediately (e.g. for a “Building” action)..."
I am not sure if the base game throws up any situations when the timing of visiting the travel destination before or after you pay the cost of an action would actually make a difference. However, playing the expansion I found a scenario which made me hesitate. I wanted to pay the cost of the action, then travel to generate food to build the building.
If you have two East Frisian Tea, 1 food already and 1 peat to use on a peat boat, can you can play Wood Trader (Pay 1 Food and build a Building) twice to build two consecutive Red buildings, requires 2 x 15 food for the buildings and 2 x 1 food for the action:
Pay 1 food for the action,
Travel to Bremen for 30 food,
Pay 15 food for building 1,
Pay 2 EFT
Convert 1 peat to food to pay for second action, using the remaining 15 food.
On the face of it, this seems fine, but at the time I was unsure and would be interested to hear others' views. Having been playing way too much Glass Road recently has made me over-sensitive to the timing issue, as in that game any time actions can only be carried out in-between, not during, other actions.