James watched the final truck tear down the road before turning to walk into the town hall, he followed the 5 remaining people into the town hall. James walked through the door and saw 1 of the 5 people sitting at a small front desk in the foyer.
James looked around the entry area, nothing would look out of place in a wealthy farmer’s home built in the early 1900s in Canada. Behind the front desk, there was a wide staircase with an intricately carved hand railing with lion’s head pommels at both ends. Directly behind the receptionist was a door, there were also doors on the left and right side of the foyer. Through an open door on the right, James could see two people sat in desks, typing away on computers. “This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, I have no idea what they could possibly be working on considering so far all we have is this building, 1 road and 2 quarries.”
The receptionist looked up and said, “Good morning, Governor, how can I help you?”
“Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met before, what’s your name?” James replied
“Sherry, Governor.” Sherry replied.
James extended his hand. “Nice to meet you Sherry, do I have an office somewhere in this building, if I do, could you show me where it is?”
Sherry shook James’ hand, “follow me, it’s right upstairs.”
James followed Sherry up the stairs and to the only door that would be facing towards the back of the house, Sherry opened the door and gestured for James to precede her into the room.
“I hope this is all to your liking Governor.”
“Thank you Sherry, I’ll come down and ask if there is anything I need.”
James walked around the room, a small comfortable seating area with 2 chairs, a coffee table and a couch sat as part of a little nook on the left side of the door. A large desk took up most of the back of the room, with a gaming chair behind the desk and two chairs which could’ve been bought at any office supply store were placed at slight angles in front of the desk. All three sides of the room had large windows bringing in a massive amount of natural light. James moved over to the gaming chair behind the desk and sat down.
Atal appeared suddenly, standing on one of the chairs in front of the desk. James jumped backwards, leading the chair to balance precariously on only 2 wheels before settling back down normally.
“I’m going to guess that I’ll need to get used to you suddenly appearing next to me whenever people are not around.” James said.
“To be honest, there is no reason for me to hide as nobody but you will be able to see me. People could walk right through me and wouldn’t notice a thing.” Atal said with a smirk.
James nodded, “I have so many questions but let’s start with the easiest to deal with and work our way down the list. Is there a way for me to change the title people refer to me as, I find Governor very uncomfortable.”
“Interesting place to start but I suppose the kind of thing a person may want to deal with immediately. Just think Personal Title and it will give you the ability to change it to whatever title you want. Please remember that your title will be viewed by your entire species as well as mine and will be noticed by any other species representative within the game.” Atal replied with his creepily large grin.
James grimaced slightly. “I’m guessing you’re referring to the login I created when I was 13, THAT will definitely not be my choice.”
Personal Title
A floating textbox appeared in front of James’ vision, he tried to delete it with a thought but that did nothing at all. “I guess fixing the input system is question number 2.”. James tapped on his leg to delete the title and typed out ‘Administrator’ on his leg.
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James saw the notification bell in the top right of his vision gain a red (1), quickly dismissing it without even reading it. He focused his attention back on Atal. “Seriously, a perk for changing my title? What happens if I don’t explore every facet of the game, does humanity not gain certain perks?”
Atal rolled his shoulders, “Rewards for civilizations in the real world are unlocked in an order determined by my people as the best options for species uplift. It generally starts with medications that will deal with common diseases, followed by therapies that will extend life. After that it can branch off in many directions. Taking an action later than normal would not prevent a technology being gained as it is not tied to a specific result, that being said, you do miss out on the opportunity to provide more gains and receive more perks by not exploring all areas. As you noticed earlier, there is a special rewards tier as well which will generally provide technologies about 500 years faster than would be reached by a median tier player within the game. For example, in your case, you unlocked it on day 1, the median timeframe to rename the first town is 2 weeks, 4 days. Therefore; the technology that would be unlocked would be the median expected technology 500 years, 2 week and 4 days from now. You’ll make people on Earth very happy with you when they find out why they suddenly received such an advanced piece of technology. Those perks are also encouraged by strong rewards for yourself within the game.”
James nodded. “Next two questions then, is there a way to change my control inputs for my HUD. It’s very awkward to have to type into my side to accomplish basic tasks. I’ve got this computer on the desk if I need something more complicated but I’d rather just think about what I want to do, like move the view of the map north. Also, is there a way for me to view the map without trying to build a building.”
“To view the map of the world, just think map. I’ve also changed your input controls for your HUD to thought.” Atal replied.
Map
James’ vision shifted and he was seeing the town hall in the centre of the map with the road stretching eastward off into the distance to the two quarries. He thought about going higher, which expanded the view of the map and the quarries slowly edged into his vision as he progressively zoomed out, all the while the town hall in the centre of the screen became proportionally smaller. He zoomed out farther and farther until even the mountain that dwarfed his fledging town was nothing but a small bump.
James could see two continents on this half of the planet. The one he was located on was primarily in the northern hemisphere with a rounded bottom that extended across the equator. Winnipeg was located approximately half way between the equator and the north pole, on the eastern half of the continent, at least 300 kms away from the ocean. The southern continent was a crescent moon on a 45-degree angle with a wide middle well below the equator and thin land stretching outward in both directions, the northern spike crossed over the equator and came quite close to Winnipeg’s continent. The southern spike ended in a massive chain of islands that must’ve been at least 1000 kms long.
On both continents, there was a randomly scattered array of sparkling stars, on the northern continent, they were scattered all over, including at least 10 along the coasts. The southern continent had fewer stars and all but a few were on the ocean, the inland territory had only 3 stars which was very sparse compared to the inland density on the northern continent. “Each star must be a town location, I’d guess that if I span the planet around and counted all the stars, I’d reach 157.”
James pulled his focus away from the map and back to Atal. “Are the stars I see on the map, town locations?”
“Yes”, Atal said.
“You mentioned that in this game, logistics are real, does that mean I have to build roads to each of the star points to start a new town, or in the case of the southern continent, build dockyards and boats to be able to transport material over to them.” James said.
“The first planet is a special exemption as we needed to find the right balance between interesting gameplay and realism. Having everyone follow the same steps of expanding a road network outwards is not enjoyable to viewers. They want to see what decisions and choices you make for building your civilization from the very beginning as it will give them an insight into your personality and style, dictating early viewership numbers.” Atal replied.
James turned and stared out the window behind the desk, “Can I build templates and use them in all locations to place down buildings and roads with a single action rather than having to work through each star individually?”
Atal nodded, “You can but each town has a different number of quarry and mining slots available, and the landmass may make some building placement not an option without extra care.”
“Okay, that’s good to know and easy enough to deal with given that I have unlimited time and I can tweak everything from right here. First step though is building the rest of this town.” James said.
Resources
19465 stone, 19500 iron, 19500 copper, 19500 food, 19980 fuel
