In answer to your first question, yes, you can always claim a previously unclaimed city even if the tile you are placing finishes the city. It's now yours to score and you take the follower right back off. The same is true for a road or cloister (shrine, forest, river, lake, etc., but those are fan-made expansions).
Second question. I believe this is also correct. Sometimes there are several things accomplished by placing a tile, especially with multiple expansions. I'm 99% sure of this one, but I'd say you can use the follower somewhere else (or on a different tile if using a magic portal from Princess & the Dragon). This is how we play anyway. I'm sure it is answered in the FAQ of the rules if not the body of them itself. If you have no luck finding it, look for the Completely Annotated Rules here on this site. They are compiled by Matthew Harper.
Thank you. I saw the Annotated Rules post but none of the links worked for me?
The rules that came with my game (Rio Grande Games, purchased this year with river expansion included) states the following, the
bold in the quote is their doing:
Players take turns in clockwise order beginning with the starting player. On a player's turn, he executes the following actions
in the order shown:- The player must draw and place a new land tile.
- The player may deploy one of his followers from his supply to the land tile he just placed.
- If, by placing the land tile, cloisters, roads, and/or cities are completed, they are now scored.
The player's turn is over and the next player, in clockwise order, takes his turn in the same manner.
1) I agree with you on this one. I think you can place a follower and immediately score.
2) This tells me that if you do not have a follower on the beginning of your turn, then you will not be able to place a follower that turn. The scoring of the completed object doesn't take place until the last step. You cannot go back to the previous step and place your newly freed follower. This is how it reads to me, but from doing some searching around and reading, it doesn't seem to be played this way? Again, I'm not positive on this, that's why I asked...
Sorry if I'm being picky, I come from playing a lot of Magic: the Gathering so I'm use to following very specific rules where turn order etc are important...
Thanks again for the help!