All over but the waiting

Whenever I played strategy games before this life, I always tended towards safe, incredibly grindy strategies. Creeper World sessions taking hours as I slowly build up resources and inch my way forward. Set my Kingdom's Crusader or Stellaris tasks to long-term improvement that will take years to build up, not making any moves until everything is stacked in my favor. They way I was setting things up here reflected that-gradually increasing in numbers while self sufficiently taking care of our own. Sure-I might have gone faster if I was willing to ask for resources, or to run a bit leaner, but something inside me said to try to rely on outside sources to the minimum possible.

However, unlike in those types of games, real life, even in the unusual fantasy world that I found myself occupying-did not come with a fast-forward button. There wasn't a times four times multiplier for the dull times when it was just waiting for that shipment to arrive from the merchants, or for the dig to progress. Even my efforts at grinding out skills didn't seem to be working-I just couldn't feel it. Felt like I was in a bit of a funk. Even when my army swelled up enough to unlock the broodmother monstrous ability, it felt a bit underwhelming. Yeah, a new set of tentacles acted as an ovipositor-and granting more potent monstrous spawn as a side effect. Not the most riveting change-was basically just an improvement to what I was already doing.

My mood in this time period was not helped when we hit an obstacle in the digging that I should have seen ahead of time. Namely, that cities typically had utilities underground. In this case, the main concern was a crude sewer network-with the tunnels having to be hastily filled with rubble at times to try and minimize the flood of...effluence. I guess I could have just stopped the dig-hitting those meant we'd already gotten under the wall, but I was badly hoping to be able to get deep in. Make more confusion from multiple entry points. Plus, more I kept my minions busy, the less time they had to get in trouble. Time spent excavating was time they weren't fighting among each other-or among the other soldiers.

To help distract myself and pass the time better, I'd taken to distributing Seeds of Corruption through the ranks, as well as expanding the pool of breeders to now include the set of cowgirl concubines, in addition to the original goblins. While they were already milky enough-their production being a minor magical ability akin to my own Fruiting Body-they only become more so when kept constantly bred. Sadly, the Seeds, like anything I might do with them, are limited in my ability to pass them around by my mana.