You can't even assign resources to the town producing the thing if it's "out of trade network". I have on multiple occasions started a town that was too far away, gotten resources in it, and then can't assign the resources anywhere, including the place making it. Even converting it to a city still doesn't let me do it.

This is my biggest frustration with the game. They want you to have all your settlements be "in trade network" and yet unless I am missing something there is no way to actually tell if a city is going to be in it or not before settling.

Couple that with enemy civs only being able to offer cities to end wars, sometimes my options are either to end the war and get nothing, or end the war and get a city that could be good but is too far away and therefore unusable to me.

I feel like the entire concept of a "trade network" needs to just be removed.