There was nothing more satisfying than a day of hard work. We worked until it was too dark to do so, and I made sure that nobody went for more than four hours of working without taking a break to rest, eat, and socialize. Those who really didn’t want to take a break were allowed to, but I encouraged them to take breaks as much as I could.

A labor force given appropriate breaks was an effective and rested labor force capable of working at their best. Not to mention that all workers deserved breaks in the first place.

One day, I would introduce the concept of unions to them. They didn’t need unions yet, but I was going to make sure they had the choice to join one once we reached that point. After all, there was nothing more American than a good workers’ union. Workers standing up to their employers demanding the treatment they deserved was the modern equivalent of standing up to royalty and demanding no taxation without representation.

A strong union was enough to bring a tear to my eye. Same with the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, and Chinese buffets.

There were few things more American than Chinese buffets.

That aside, it was a new day, and it was an important day. It was a day of increasing our influence gains.

And just like always, Enna was right there with me in my tent. She already looked comfortable sitting on the bed next to me as I opened up the system for the day. To start, I opened up the map to claim the spires tile to boost our daily influence and then checked on the new regions we discovered.

If I had to guess going by the colors for the region to the northeast, it would be some sort of grassy area. They all looked like light shades of green with a bit of yellow. A forest area would normally be a darker shade of green, and I couldn’t imagine what else light shades of green would be used for. And, surely enough, it was.

Starting from the bottom of the new region was the shrubland.

For once, we discovered a normal region. Biomes like grasslands and forests were usually abundant in 4X games. Those, and production-heavy zones usually revolving around rocky hills and mountains. Freezing and burning regions, like the only two we discovered before it not counting the ocean, were generally much rarer.

But that made me curious about something else.

“Enna, where are all the hills and mountains?” I asked. “We haven’t seen any rivers yet, either. Not counting the lava rivers.” At least, I assumed that those streaks of red on the map coming from the volcano were lava rivers.

“We just haven’t found any yet!” Enna answered. “To be honest, I am surprised myself. We have already discovered several rare and special biome variants that are close to us, but we haven’t come across any mountains nor rivers. Well… the volcano counts as a mountain, but not a mountain range.”

“I get you. It’s unfortunate since those are usually good spots to set up defenses and chokepoints at, but right now… we’re surrounded by flat land in almost every direction. Our coast is wide open, too. We might have some valuable biomes nearby, but I’d rather trade those in for defensive features we can take advantage of.”

Enna nodded, looking at the map with a bit of worry worn on her face.

Since I caused that worry, it was only right to get rid of it myself. I placed a hand on her head and said, “We’ll figure it out.”

That did the trick going by her new smile.

Now, moving on to the light-green area above the shrubland.

“That healroot sounds good,” I said. “Is it just flavor text, or is medicine actually a useful thing?”

Enna adjusted her glasses and said, “Medicine mostly comes from technology, and it’s useful for increasing population growth and increasing the recovery speed of military units.”

“Makes sense.”

“Oh! And it can add defense to settlements!”

“That’s a bit of a stretch, but I understand the logic behind it. Thanks.”

Enna smiled no matter how many times I thanked her for answering my questions.

Next biome.

“Well, at least there’s some water around the place. I’d feel bad for the wildlife if there was no water at all. Speaking of wildlife… where is all the wildlife? I haven’t seen any,” I said.

“That is because we need hunters!” Enna answered. “Once we unlock the hunting technology, we’ll be able to recruit hunter units who have an ability to uncover the wildlife of whatever region they are in.”

“Will that basically create new tile features in the form of wildlife?”

Another nod from Enna. “Then you can build hunting camps on them to exploit them! Every species of beast will have its own materials attached to it, too, that can be used in crafting weapons and armor to equip our military with.”

“Sounds pretty in-depth. I like it.”

“It can be! You will get to choose materials for every type of armor and weapon we make. A sword made of iron will have different stats than a sword made of a carved monster bone, for example! And you will even be able to choose materials for defensive structures and military vehicles later on.”

“Military vehicles?”

Enna nodded. “Mainly ships and siege weapons, but it will be some time before we get to those, and it will be even longer before we get to anything more advanced than that.”

“Makes sense. Now then, it looks like we could discover another two regions today. Our northern unit is only two tiles away from a new region and the southern unit is adjacent to one. I think I’ll discover those two, then bring one unit back for defense while leaving the other to continue scouting. We have no defenses right now, and I’d rather not be caught without a single unit left to defend us. Since the northern unit is farther from us… alright. I’ll bring the southern unit back after discovering the next region.”

I gave the units their orders to move on to the next regions and then opened up the city screen.

Over the next two days, we’d grab another basalt plain and then the hot springs to boost our science up to ten and to get more happiness. Then we’d resume going toward the volcano. As for tomorrow, we’d unlock our first technology, and then we’d only be two days away from the next. By the time the second one got unlocked, we’d be able to get the remaining two starter technologies in a day each.

“Not even a week in and we’ll be building and researching most things in a single day,” I said. “Either this ‘game’ has bad balance, or we got a really good start.”

“I would say it mostly has to do with the latter. It is possible to get regions that lack any features boosting science and influence, not to mention that we found quite a few rare biomes. Our start has been… incredible, if I may say so myself! Though, I will also say that technology and construction is probably faster than what you are used to because of just how much there is to research.”

4X games typically had between sixty and ninety researchable technologies spread throughout the eras. So, I opened up the research tree real quick to zoom out and scroll over it.

I immediately understood what Enna was talking about.

There were easily hundreds of greyed-out technologies. With that many technologies, there would surely be a vast number of buildings to construct, too.

Not to mention all sorts of different units to construct for the military.

Even though I knew how much was at stake with the game…

I couldn’t help but to get excited.