My Lands: Black Gem Hunting

I would like to know if its possible to found a 4th city, during the promo period. The question is prompted by the fact, that my settler managed to find ruins and returned back, instead of being able to found cities.

It seems that the game does it intentionally and I would like that an administrator confirms if it is so.

You should send an explorer first to get a report on what is on your target square for settling.
It could be a ruin, pit, mine, lake: all are generated randomly. You may also find that the square is not fit for habitation.

The explorer doesn't help if you are an esquire and there is a level 5 ruin on the cell. The explorer reports there is nothing there and then the settler fails.

It is just bad luck, I think. There is no intention behind it.

I sent the settler, and it found a ruin. I was annoyed, but next time I made sure my explorer goes first. He doesn't find anything, but then my settler arrives(a few mins later) and there is a lvl5 ruin.

Pretty big Coincidence? Anyone who has managed to do it in the past?

Of course this is not intentional.
Why should it be? It is not, that a 4th city will give you a longer promo period.
You had just bad luck.
Besides you should always scout before building a city, the available cells limit the size of your city.
You should always try to get ~39 cells for a level 5 capital.
You can always research the missing cells(25k research), but the capital size can not be increased.

BobHuman_se wrote:Of course this is not intentional.
Why should it be? It is not, that a 4th city will give you a longer promo period.
You had just bad luck.
Besides you should always scout before building a city, the available cells limit the size of your city.
You should always try to get ~39 cells for a level 5 capital.
You can always research the missing cells(25k research), but the capital size can not be increased.

I thought I would have got a subscription if I completed the quest within promo period?

As I said, my explorer could not find anything despite it landing only minutes before the settler.

Sorry, you are right, 4th city does indeed give you a 7 day premium.

But as Smile64 said:
As esquire you can not see level5 ruins with your scouts, until you are a higher level yourself(or have killed at least one).