When it came to looking south, there was one stretch of terrain that grabbed my attention first. It was a line of dark purple separating the lava lake from the ocean beyond it. It was also only a single tile away from our current territory, meaning that I could claim it if I wanted to.

Rather than check the plain tile that one of our military units was on, though, I checked the tile to the southwest which had the same base terrain but a feature to go with it.

“Alright. I know where we’re expanding to next,” I said. “And it’s clear that there’s no attempt at balance here. There’s the arctic region where the base terrain gives us nothing but slow movement speed. Then there’s this obsidian terrain that gives us five labor and two science per tile, and I haven’t seen science on anything except special features before now.”

“I think it makes sense,” Enna said. “The obsidian barrier terrain requires getting lucky with a lava lake and ocean placement. If any other region was to our south, we wouldn’t get the obsidian barrier. We can assume that there are multiple regions of every type spread throughout the world, but this might be the only obsidian barrier on the map.”

“Well, I won’t complain about getting lucky. Something like this will give us a good boost, especially here in the start. Claiming the whole stretch of it would give us thirty labor, thirteen science, six food, and one influence per day. And it will boost our happiness by five. Expanding north through the basalt plains would almost give us that much labor, but there wouldn’t be any science to go with it. Though… alright. What sort of bonus are we going to get from having over a hundred percent happiness?”

“Every percent over a hundred increases all of our stats by that same percentage! So, if we get up to a hundred and ten percent happiness, that would give us a ten percent increase to all of our daily stats. If we ever drop below fifty percent, we will start losing two percent per point under fifty.”

“Then we’re generally producing at our full output as long as we’re between fifty and a hundred, and then over a hundred gives us bonus income?”

“Right!”

“Makes sense. Thanks. In that case, I think what we’re going to do is claim the hot springs tile like originally planned, and then we’re going to get all of the obsidian barrier. That should take us up to a hundred and fifteen percent happiness by the end of it, so that’ll be a fifteen percent boost to all of our income.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea to me!”

I rubbed her head some more before moving on.

“It says not that great for anything else on its own, but it puts the arctic to shame,” I said. “And that’s some more nearby happiness. Getting up to a hundred and twenty should be easy. By the way, how does happiness go down?”

“Happiness goes down based off of how many settlements you have and how large the population is,” Enna answered. “I don’t remember the exact number, but I believe it goes down by ten per settlement and one for every two population?”

“So, we probably won’t get up to a hundred and twenty yet due to our population growing, but that means we’ll be able to support a settlement of forty and still sit at a hundred percent happiness.”

“Assuming you claim no other settlements, yes!”

“I won’t be.”

“You—you won’t be?”

“That’s not how I play. I specialize in one city challenges.”

“But… there is only one member of the Divine Pantheon who has ever won in that way as far as I know, and it is not exactly fair as it is a single entity that turns the land itself into its body.”

“Even though I know the stakes are beyond high this time around, I have never made it into the finals of any tournament trying to play with multiple cities or planets regardless of the game. The one city challenge is how I do my best. Besides, I figure that I wouldn’t have been chosen for this if that wasn’t a legitimate approach to winning. Somebody who actually wins tournaments playing in the more meta ways would have been chosen in that case.”

“Perhaps...”

“Don’t worry. I’m going to do what I have to in order to win. My entire planet is on the line here.”

“I believe in you. I just… don’t want to see you fail.”

“Then all I have to do is not fail.”

Making Enna smile was getting easier and easier. So, while she had a smile on her face, I checked out the rest of the beach tiles with special features.

“Yeah. We’re in luck,” I said. “As long as we focus on building up New Liberty as much as possible, we should be able to stack happiness to… an almost broken level if this is the kind of luck we’ve got with happiness-boosting features. And I’m assuming there are going to be buildings and technologies to buff happiness even further.”

Enna nodded. “There are. But… I’m kind of worried. You already make me smile to the point of it hurting, so just how much will it hurt once you increase our… a-ah.”

“Go on.”

“I—I don’t know what I was saying! Ignore that! Please!”

“I believe you were saying something about me making you smile so much that your cheeks hurt?”

Enna covered her face up with her hands as she squealed into them out of embarrassment.

She was too cute.

Moving on, I decided to check out what looked like the darkest part of the ocean first. Something about it just caught my attention, and I figured all the water around it was just generic ocean anyways.

I grabbed my chin to think through what I was reading. “Leviathan hunting grounds… tons of food, but extreme danger and in the ocean. I figure there are enough context clues there to tell us that it’s going to be home to some giant beasts, and that the food comes from hunting them.”

Looking at Enna for a response, all she could do was nod as she was still too embarrassed to remove her hands from her face.

I was already thinking about how I could embarrass her again as soon as she managed to recover.

The shallow ocean tiles, which bordered the beach and obsidian barrier tiles, provided good amounts of food but nothing else. I also figured those tiles would be important for eventual harbors and shipyards. That was also the first time I saw a duplicate terrain feature. I was surprised it took that long to see one.

Then there was the section of shallow water bordering the beach that looked like it had some sort of fog over it. Surely enough, that meant it was a different type of terrain, and one that sounded a lot more dangerous.

That section of ocean sounded like it was obviously going to be haunted by ghosts or other undead beings. Though, what I was really curious about was where they came from. The flavor text for the wailing fog mentioned sailors from the past. Were there actual sailors, or was that just flavor text and they had no actual history to them?

Even though I knew there were important matters at stake, part of me was curious about just how exactly the world worked and whether everything was new or if there was actual history to it. I knew that the world was “cultivated” specifically for our “game,” but that didn’t mean there were potentially other civilizations or peoples who lived on it during the process of its creation.

I didn’t know what to expect, but there was a part of me excited to discover more.

Most of the ocean consisted of deep ocean tiles, understandably. The nearest tile was also home to colossal fish. Considering that “the biggest fish you’ll find” offered less food than whatever was in the leviathan hunting ground by nearly half, I was curious about just how huge said leviathans were.

And finally, there were a few tiles of sea ice, one of which was home to a great iceberg. Nothing impressive.

With that, I checked out both of the new regions, all of the new biomes, and came up with a strategy for our expansion.

First, hot springs. Then, obsidian barrier. After that, we’d expand along the beach to gather more happiness and food, and then probably give more attention to the basalt plains for more labor and to get some more terrain features.

I was worried when we started off in the volcanic region, but having that ocean right next to us more than made our starting position worth it.

Also.

If we claimed some beach tiles, that meant I might get to see Enna in a bikini someday.

That sounded nice.