I wasn’t able to sleep on the fifteenth night. Not since I knew that we would be declaring war once I woke up.

There was so much that could go wrong. While we were almost definitely going to win our first battle, there was no telling what might happen afterward.

That was why I spent the night thinking about every single possible way that they might retaliate against us and how we might be able to counter them. It was the only thing that could calm me down. I wanted to be prepared for whatever the future might have in store for us. Otherwise, we were going to get screwed by the unpredicted, and I didn’t want a repeat of what happened with the crabs. We needed to get on top and stay on top. That was the only way we were ever going to win the “game.”

And when it came to Ull’s Chosen, we needed to deprive them of either the science or the Living Wood. Letting them get ahead of us in technology and letting them keep their best possible material was going to be our downfall if we allowed it to happen. There would be no competing with that unless we could pull something insane out of our asses, and I doubted that the world was going to provide us with a convenient deus ex machina.

We only had ourselves to depend on. Nobody else.

And we were going to prove that we were willing to do whatever needed to be done in order to win—in order to protect our people and secure a better future for all of the worlds up for grabs in a game between higher powers.

Being a warmonger wasn’t my style, but winning was.

And I planned on winning.

That was why, as soon as our unit was in position the next day, I opened up the map and prepared myself to declare war.

I ended up being right about suspecting a minor faction being tucked up in that northwest corner. Stopping by them to just open communications with them would be a good idea for the day after the battle.

As for the settlement we were about to attack, there were no nearby units from what I could see that belonged to their faction. Not only that, but clicking on their settlement showed us what they had now that we were directly adjacent to it. The settlement only had a single unit to defend against us with, and it was a basic unit named “Camp Guards.” I assumed that we would have one ourselves if anybody attacked either of our settlements.

There would be no better time to attack the settlement than now. It was brand new with no defenders aside from a generic unit to keep it from being outright conquered with a single action. The settlement did display that it had five out of five defense, similar to how our own settlements displayed that, but I recognized what it meant by that.

A settlement’s “defense” was the buff it gave to defending units. In other games, if a settlement had fifty defense, then it might boost its garrisoned units’ health by fifty points. It basically acted as an extra health bar for defending units. The more defenses built in a city, the higher that extra health bar would be. It was usually implemented to try and encourage siege warfare. Sieging a city over a few turns would drop that defense turn by turn until it hit zero, and then it would start damaging their actual health. The defenders would be forced to either strike out and assault their attackers or sit back and watch as their health dwindled away to nothing. Though, it was typically good enough to just siege a city until its defense was low enough for friendly units to easily wipe out the enemy.

I didn’t care about that in this case. The settlement only had a single defending unit and five defense. From the looks of it, it wasn’t even a ranged unit that they had, so our Volcanic Predators would be able to close in and tear them to shreds.

Even though I was confident in our victory, I still wished that I could save the game to reload if need be.

People often looked down on reloading saves in the more hardcore communities, but I never did. Reloading saves was a good way to experiment and always look for a route to victory. Those who simply started over every time they lost improved at a much slower rate.

That aside, I went out to the Council Pavilion and gathered everybody up to watch the battle.

All I had to do then was select our unit next to the settlement and drag them over it.

“We’re actually doing this, aren’t we?” Thad asked. “We are seriously attacking Ull’s Chosen.”

I placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “If a bunch of farmers could kick the redcoats’ asses, then we can kick some Viking Elf ass. We’re already in a way better position than the original patriots were. Then again, we don’t have the French to help us.” I sighed. “I wish we had the French.”

“What’s this French thing you’re talking about?”

“France. The French. They’re the best allies America ever had. They also have great bread and wine. I hope we find our own French allies in this world.”

Zira tilted her head. “Aren’t you always making fun of them by talking about French pastries?”

“Because that’s what friends do. They tease each other. I make fun of them for having silly names, and they make fun of me for living in a country that drowns people in a mountain of medical debt for needing an ambulance. It’s all in good fun.”

Zira shrugged and let me return my attention to the diplomacy menu.

All I had left to do was to click [Yes], so I went ahead and selected it.

A battle menu opened up immediately after.

There was no point in waiting, so I began the battle.

The first battle in our war against Ull’s Chosen was going to be our victory.