I might get the city maps out tonight so we can get started, but the goal is tomorrow night.
I'll need another day to figure out what to do about balancing people who decided a desert was a nice place to live. Unless a better idea comes up, I might do hills and a big oasis, or I might make a special desert animal to build pastures of.
Bit of a silly question, but since Gruggi are photosynthetic too, is there any chance I could ever acquire a Solar Condenser or similar?
I consider it a fairly poor tech, since it gives at best 1.65 food/labor, while an improved non-river tile generally makes 3 resources, and famines will be more common in era 1, but yes.
At the end of each era, you'll get the chance to do an RP write-up about how your civilization is changing, and where they're heading. I'll base the new techs and leader partially on what you've done in the era, partially on that write-up, and partially on ??.
You can also use this to branch into entirely new magical areas if wanted, which might surpass or overwrite the magical field decided on at the start.
So if you spend an era building a lot of walls, and then have flavor text about the walls creating a cultural obsession with building boats, I'd probably give you an engineer or admiral leader, a new Advanced Fortification tech, and both tier I and tier II naval tech.
I'll generally be wary of letting people crib unique techs outright, and might want to wait two eras and/or have an clear tech path towards it. Since you're already photosynthetic and it's a basic tech with no pre-reqs other than photosynthesis and Solar Magic, I think I'll allow it next era if you can come up with a good explanation for why it fits Muscle Magic or a field of magic you're branching into.
I will also generally have a limited spread of what a player can declare into their tech tree like this. Things you can already reach will be easy, like going from Canoe Making to Sailing, or giving a few ideas on what sorts of magic your magic people are working on for me to pick from. Suddenly changing focus and getting both Canoe Making AND Sailing will be harder, as will trying to learn Toaster's Mushroom Farming or re-inventing Enchantment. It's not an exact system, so feel free to ask "will this work?" when it's time for the era to change.