Part 3: The Earth Drinker
Chapter 3: The Earth Drinker
We are happy to welcome you to Freeland, new friends!
Thank you. Our scientists will share what knowledge and equipment we have brought with us, and all of us will prosper.
Performing the expedition at the Augmented crash site also found this. Apparently their augmentation was not solely mechanical.
We also finished researching Chemistry around the same time. There are some other branch techs it unlocked that would currently take us about a hundred turns to research, but it did give us access to the leaf tech Biochemistry. This would allow the building of Water Refineries, which improve the yield of water tiles, and Petrochemical Plants, which improve the yield of oil wells. Neither of which are immediately useful, but it's something to keep in mind.
So... shall we discuss business? Trade between our people should be quite lucrative.
That would be optimal.
Great, great! Just sign here on the dotted line, and we can get started...
What does this small text toward the bottom say?
Don't worry about that, buddy. It's all standard stuff.
And so joint work on a centralized commercial structure began, which would facilitate trade throughout Freeland and beyond. Feelers were sent to Kavitha Thakur, who proved very amenable to the idea of inter-colonial trade. She did, however, express worries about the extreme dangers such a trip would present. The diplomats dismissed her fears. Armed escorts were more than enough to ward off the mostly harmless insect-like animals that inhabited the region.
Only one member of the delegation returned.
Transmissions from the Franco-Iberian, Brasilian, and African expeditions were nearly lost in the scramble to react to the creature's sudden appearance. It was moving along the city's northern border, burrowing through the ground at a phenomenal rate and creating seismic events that could be felt all the way in Freeland. But so far, it has not moved toward the city itself.
Hutama sent the new arrivals a polite but brief message, then set about overseeing the assembly of a satellite found in one of the nearby resource pods. Hopefully it would allow tracking of the worm's movements.
Wines and sweets sound wonderful. Another time perhaps.
This is the orbital layer. Blue tiles are our orbital coverage, how far out we can launch satellites. The bright green area is the radius the currently selected satellite will cover. Some, like the solar collector, also improve yields in a city if it's within the radius.
All the areas marked in blue now receive +1 Energy, and Freeland itself gets +20% Energy. It doesn't actually help us keep an eye on the Siege Worm at all, but I figured that was a good way to introduce it.
Meanwhile, far to the south...
"What is that...? The doorways on these buildings are at least fifteen meters high. Let's get out the survey equipment."
The main reason I stopped here is that we are one turn away from another Virtue. (These will get less frequent as time goes on, so I'll be able to play further without having to ask.) Our build queue is spoken for for a while, with Freeland building a Trade Convoy, then a Colonist, unless anyone objects. You can also vote on research priorities, if you like. The options are the same as before, with the addition of Biochemistry. Also, the Virtue options are the same as well, except for one new one in Industry:
