I decided to check out the region to our northwest first. Considering that the area to the south featured darker shades of blue while the area to the northwest showed lighter shades of blue, I assumed that there was something like an ocean to the south and an arctic to the northwest.

I was right.

The first tile I checked on was the one in the light purple area with a special feature.

“I take it that this world doesn’t care about logically placing biomes or anything,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Enna asked.

“We’re in a hot, volcanic region right now. Bordering it is a region full of snow and ice. Feels like we’re going from extreme to the exact opposite rather than gradually working toward it.”

“Ah… then yes. These worlds are cultivated in ways that allow for greater freedom than how a world would normally develop its biomes.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

Moving on, I checked out a few more of the tiles to the northwest. Almost completely surrounding the crystal ice sheet biome was a regular ice sheet biome.

It looked like the base terrain in the arctic region wasn’t exactly anything good. Both the crystal ice sheet and regular ice sheet only offered decreased movement speed without any stats to make the tiles worth it. The terrain features at least offered science and influence, though.

So, it was possible for the terrain up there to offer something other than science and influence… as long as it came from a terrain feature. While that was good to know, I had to admit that I was disappointed with our neighboring region so far. I already knew I was going to focus on expanding toward the ocean over the arctic since ocean regions almost always offered nice bonuses to food and the like in other games. If I had to choose between a region with useful, default tiles and special features, or a region with useless, default tiles and special features, I was obviously going to choose the former.

“No,” I said.

Enna tilted her head. “What?”

“Lice. No.”

“Is… there a problem with them?”

“Do you have lice in Hell?”

“I—I don’t believe so? But I know that they are a type of insect… I think?”

“Then you don’t know the horrors of lice. I had lice as a kid once. One of the other kids brought it back to the orphanage and we all had it within a couple of days.”

“What’s so bad about them?”

“The lice from my world were small. Imagine having all of your hair full of tiny insects living in it and breeding in it.”

“O-oh. I—that… that does sound horrible.”

“Exactly. So, no.”

Moving on.

Only one biome type was left in the arctic region, and it was the one surrounding all the others that took up the most tiles.

So, there were potential sources of food and labor to the northwest, but I felt like heading in that direction would be overall bad for us unless I was missing something.

“Enna, I want to call the arctic region useless except for when we have nowhere else more important to expand to, but I’ll ask you this first. Is there anything that might make the arctic useful that I’m missing?” I asked.

Enna tapped her chin to think for a few moments before answering, “If I am remembering correctly, I believe there are technologies that will make the region more worthwhile?”

“If it’s locked behind technology, I almost feel bad for anybody who might have started there. Only almost.”

“Why only almost?”

“Because everybody else is our competition. I won’t feel bad for anybody who wants to see us lose.”

Enna nodded. “Makes sense!”

With that, I checked out enough tiles from the arctic region to get a good enough idea of it. Maybe there was a special feature on a tile or two that surpassed all other features I had seen thus far, but I didn’t care even if there was. We needed to expand in a direction that was worthwhile without having to rely on special features so that every new tile we claimed would benefit us.

Now to hope that the ocean-looking region would prove more valuable like I assumed it would.