Leon sat down and threw his schoolbag down on the floor. He leaned back in his chair; it had been a tiring day, featuring the evil of algebra in a test that he was sure he'd failed.
If they want us to learn it, why don't they make it something more than inane gibberish?
Whatever. His interest was in history, and if the math lovers didn't like it, then too bad. And he had something to do that was much more important to him right now.
He signed onto his Steam account and hit the play button on Civilization V. The game opened to the theme of Brave New World; he'd purchased the Gods and Kings and Brave New World expansions, which significantly altered the original game. While he'd played Civilization Revolution on Xbox 360, he liked this game much better.
He put on his headset and waited. After receiving an invite to a game from Eddy's account, he accepted and turned the headset on. "Hey guys."
"Good afternoon, Leon," Luna answered. "Are we all ready for the game?"
"Oh yes."
"Leo, don't just sit there and do nothing like you always do."
"Ed, gaining culture and building stuff in my cities counts as doing something. Just because I don't conquer people and city-states left and right doesn't mean I'm not contributing."
"Well it sure looks like it."
"Knock it off, you two," the Princess demanded. "We have other participants, as you well know, and I would like it if you behaved yourselves for once."
"Fine," both humans answered. Leon asked, "Who's coming?"
"Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Shining Armor, with Fluttershy saying she might join."
"That's great!"
"Yes. I'm glad she's gaining friends. She's become more confident since we last met in person."
A sweet whistle came to their ears, followed by another right afterwards. "Hey, guys!" Rainbow said, her confident voice coming through the headset. "You ready for this? I'm going to rock this game!"
"Don't be so modest, Dash," Applejack said sarcastically. "Howdy y'all!"
"Degemer Mat," Leon said in greeting; Welcome was what the phrase meant. "Mat an trauo ganeoc'h?" How are you?
"Uh, gonna assume that there's a greetin'."
"Leo, stop speaking French," Ed demanded as another couple of whistles came up.
"Breton!"
"Whatever."
"Really, you guys?" Twilight said condescendingly. "Another fight over language and countries?"
"He started it," Leon and Eddy said at the same time.
"I don't care who started it, I'll finish it!" Luna warned.
"Good atmosphere already," Shining's voice came through. "Not even a couple minutes in and there's a fight."
"Okay, the both of you," Luna said to the two quarreling humans. "Stop it, right now." After a few seconds of silence, she continued, "Hopefully we can get this game started now."
` There was another whistle, and the usernames of Rarity and Pinkie (TheFashionista and Cakesaregreat!!!!!!!!!!!) came up on screen. "Sorry we're late everypony," the unicorn mare said. "I had to clean up after today's work in Carousel Boutique, and Pinkie, er..."
"I had to help make ten ginormous, humungous cakes for ten different birthday parties today, and that means ten parties to throw for ponies all over Ponyville! I ended up falling asleep on the table during the last party, and I had to take a bath afterwards because there was so much frosting all over myself! Granted, that was because I licked all the frosting off, but nopony should let even the least bit of cake go uneaten!"
"Rules?" Leon asked, trying not to laugh.
"There will be a timer for turns, so we don't wait forever for someone, and quick combat is enabled. The game will be set on standard, so it'll be decently long, but not, I think, too long. The game will be one we save, because we obviously won't get to complete it in one night. I was thinking of livestreaming this, but..."
"Nuts!" Leon said.
"That's what I was going to say to anyone who attacked me," Twilight said in an amused voice. "Especially if that someone likes playing an aggressive power."
"Hey, lay off," Rainbow said. "I'm going to conquer the world by storm, just like the pegasi of old!"
"China is all-round better," Twilight countered.
"Can we get to the part where we choose a country to control?" Leon asked.
"I'm playing China," Twilight confirmed.
"England," Eddy called.
"Russia," came Luna's reply.
"The Netherlands," said Applejack.
Another whistle came, then a small sound like a dove's coo.
"Fluttershy? Is that you?"
"Twilight?" the yellow pegasus said quietly. "Oh good, I thought I might be in the wrong room."
"No no, you're in the right place. In fact, we were just choosing our countries. Come join us!"
"Oh, okay. Well, I guess I'll play as the Celts. No, wait, the Iroquois."
"Hmm," Rarity hummed. "I'll play France."
"Oooooh, India likes being happy, so I'll play as them!"
"Uh, Pinkie, you realize that 'benefit' limits the number of cities you can build, right?" Twilight asked.
"What we lack in numbers, we make up for in happiness!"
"Okay, well," Rainbow murmured, "I guess I'll play Germany."
"Uh," Shining said, "I already chose them."
"Darn it! Fine, Aztecs then."
"You know what they say about Montezuma, Rainbow," Leon teased.
"Yeah, but at least he gets results. Speaking of which, it's your turn."
"It's a hard choice; I can't decide between India and Egypt."
"You always play as India, mate; choose someone else."
"Celts, then. But don't harass me."
"He won't be able to; you're going to be on different teams in order to keep the peace," Luna announced.
"Then who..."
"I think Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack will join you on a team; Eddy will join me, Pinkie Pie, Shining Armor, and Fluttershy on the other. It makes things even, as there is a human on each side. Please adjust the team options as necessary.
Leon, Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack all chose team 1; the others went on team 2.
"Uh what map are we playing on?" Leon asked.
"Continents."
"Okay, so land and sea for everyone."
"Yes. If you're all ready, please hit the ready button, and switch to a private channel for your team."
Leon did so, and after a moment, the screen changed to one explaining Celtic history (or, more precisely, that of Boudicca, the British warrior rebel queen).
"Y'all ready?" Applejack asked.
"Yeah," Leon answered. "Rainbow, try not to rush before you're ready - before we're all ready."
"Seriously, Leon? Who do you think I am?"
"Well, there was that game a couple weeks ago where you rushed straight in and got yourself clobbered by France because you rushed without any support," Twilight quipped.
"Hey, that was one time."
"And there was the game before that, where you got wiped out by Gandhi because you thought he was weak, and got all your cities blown up by nuclear missiles."
"And the time before that," Rarity added, "when barbarians destroyed all the tiles in your capital while your army was being wasted attacking city-states."
"Okay, okay! Get off my back, will ya? I won't go in until we're all ready. If we decide as a team to attack them."
"Pinkie Promise?"
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. Now can we please just play?"
The briefing shifted to the left, and under it a button saying "Begin your journey" appeared where a loading message had been. Leon clicked it.
Looks pretty decent. he'd started next to a source of wheat, some cows, a river, and, as was befitting the Celts, numerous forest tiles. A source of cotton and a source of spice were also nearby.
"Ah guess we can, Rainbow," Applejack said in reply to her cyan friend, "and... great iron horseshoes, ah got me three wheat off the bat!"
"Really?" Leon said, incredulous. If that was correct, Applejack would have no trouble growing her capital whatsoever.
'Yep. And there's a couple o' marshes fer polders later, a couple hills with gold... oh yeah, and ah'm on a coast."
"Kinda expected for the Dutch."
"Well, I'm sunk in jungle up to my neck," Rainbow said in a slightly negative tone, "with two cotton and a source of silver."
"On a river with some copper and incense," Twilight said. "Going to shoot for Writing first."
"Oh, I've got cotton and silk! If only this were a real city..."
Leon settled his city, which was instantly named Edinburgh. Remembering the special ability of the Celts, he typed in all chat, "Hands and hooves off Catholicism."
"Really?" came the English response. "You never use anything else."
"Says the guy who always names his religion something that exults himself."
"Touche. Well whatever lol."
"Do ya gotta get up in his face every time the two o' ya disagree?" Applejack asked him, with a hint of concern.
"The short answer is yes. The long answer is, yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssss."
He heard the farm pony and Rainbow Dash giggle. In any event, he started building a monument in his city; some would have gone for a worker or a scout, but he was less concerned with military problems that cultural. Of course, sometimes that proved to be a weakness, but when it worked...
Anyway, he sent his lone warrior off to the north. It uncovered an ancient ruin, though it was going to take another turn to actually get it. His strategy was to scout in a circular manner, so that all the territory around his position was revealed, rather than sending it off in a single direction.
"Thinkin' maybe we should combine our research," Applejack suggested. "Ah reckon it'll be a lot faster than going off on our own."
"I guess it can't hurt," Leon said.
"Oh come on," Rainbow protested. "We need iron and horses more than some silly beakers."
"Never underestimate the value of science," Twilight admonished. "We should go with Pottery first, with Writing, after which Animal Husbandry and Mining would be good to pick up."
"Come on, I want better units!"
"And you'll get them faster if you can research technologies faster!"
"Ohhhhhhhhhh, fine..."
Leon switched his research to Pottery, and saw the time for it's completion decrease as everyone else on the team chose it as well. As the timer for the turn wore down, he took a look at his allies' starting positions. Applejack had indeed started with three wheat, and a number of fishing spots and a source of whales were just offshore. Rainbow was surrounded by jungle, though a couple sources of bananas and the cotton and silver she had specified made up for it.
The game was off to a good start. The ruins turned out to provide 20 free culture, which he intended to use either on Tradition policies; piety would be good to pick up later, considering the fact that he hoped to play a religious game, but Tradition was better for people who were staying small, as he planned to. Not that he was going to be weak by any means, but it was easier to deal with fewer cities and fewer population.
Leon had more than three forest tiles, allowing him to gather two faith per turn. It was only five turns in that he was able to choose a pantheon. He chose Oral Traditions, which gave him 1 culture for every worked plantation.
"Go ahead and play the religious game if you want, Leon," Rainbow said. "It's not going to matter much to me."
"It will if I pick the belief where you gain a 20% increase in combat strength against cities with my religion, then I spread it to you and any cities you end up targeting."
"Ooooh," she said, interested. "That would be awesome!"
"Just don't get carried away with war," Twilight said. "There are more ways to win than taking everyone's capital."
"If by more ways you mean easy ways, then yeah."
"Hey!"
While the two mares stared at their screens, muttering things under their breaths, Leon adopted Tradition, which gave him +3 culture in his capital and boosted the rate of border expansion. It also unlocked building the Hanging Gardens, which provided +6 food and a free Garden, as well as +1 culture. Not the most powerful wonder ever, but for those who loved to grow their cities, it was good enough. Stonehenge would be nice for the faith boost, but honestly he'd liked it better when it simply provided +6 culture in the vanilla game. Oh well.
"By the way, what policies are you guys taking?"
"Gonna be goin' fer Tradition," said Applejack. "Best fer growin' big cities. Think it'll be the path yer goin' down, too."
"Liberty for me," Twilight confirmed. "I need cities, and the people in them."
"Honor. Nuff said. Going to beat those barbarians into the ground, and then it'll be the other team's turn."
"I'll be doing Tradition as well," Rarity noted. "It fits my cultural designs.
Leon watched as territory was discovered by each nation. A particular whistling sound, different from that of someone joining the game, rang out as Twilight discovered Cerro de Potosi, a natural wonder that provided +10 gold to anyone who worked it. Of course, that meant someone would have to settle a city near it - Rainbow would probably want it to fund her armies and buy units, while Twilight would probably want to use it to simply boost gold production for whatever she saw fit.
Leon rarely started building settlers before he reached a population of six in his capital, and preferably longer. It was easier to manage one city, and it was difficult for one city to be unhappy - just as it was all too easy for multiple cities to lose any shred of happiness they once had. In this case, the gold the mountain would provide seemed juicy... for a moment or so. But it was very far from his starting point, and unless he wanted to pay an indemnity for roads, he wasn't going to settle there. The best settling policy was to settle decently far away from your starting city, but close enough that the city could be defended and that the road cost would be minimal.
"Be careful, AJ; Eddy's going to go for the ocean as well."
"Thanks fer the heads up, but ah think ah can handle it. He's got a whole ocean to cross before he can hit anything."
"Nopony knows what Pinkie will do," Rainbow observed. "In fact, I get the feeling she doesn't even know what she's gonna do."
"What do you think Fluttershy is going to do?" Leon asked.
"Well, knowing her, she's probably going to play very conservatively," Twilight said.
"Good. She can vote with us next election."
"Ha ha... not funny. As I was going to say, she's probably going to focus on building stuff in her cities; I wouldn't say she's the real threat on their team. As for the other three... You know my brother, he loves playing a military game, not surprising as he's Captain of the Royal Guard. Luna... she's playing Russia, do you think she has any other plan?"
"I won't disagree with you there."
"As for Ed, he chose England. They don't have a special building, and their special units are both designed for aggressive play. I think we can both see what will happen there."
"I guess. AJ, that means you have to be ready with a lot of Sea Beggars when he starts hopping around."
"Not as good with a navy as ah am with an army, but ah'll try, and ah'll have cannons to help out."
"Alright then. In the meantime, what's our plan?"
"I think you all know what direction I'm going in," the purple unicorn said confidently.
"Yeah... Egghead Lane," Rainbow giggled.
"Just for that, you're not getting an embassy."
"Whatever. Egghead," the pegasus added in a not-quite-whisper. "Going to war big time."
"Not unless we all all agree."
As the others began to argue, Leon discovered his first barbarian encampment. "If you want a job, Rainbow, I just uncovered some barbarians."
"Sounds good."
In the meantime, the game progressed. He finished the monument, and went to work on a scout. They were armed only with staffs, but if they captured an ancient ruin, they might turn into archers, making them a ranged super-scout. He was hoping that was what happened. Units like that were more than useful.
"Hey, Rarity!" Rainbow exclaimed, as a French city came into existence by Cerro de Potosi.
"It's mine! I settled it first!"
"I needed that money for my armies!"
"Hardly; I need it to fund mine, in case anyone thinks of messing up French beauty! And I need that gold to win over cultural city-states. Go after a different Natural wonder. Not to mention that you can't you could declare war on me to get this."
"One of the times when I would actually support teamkilling."
"I thought you'd learned your lesson concerning hat when you got kicked from three World at War matches in a row," Leon said. "Come on; We couldn't play for a few seconds before you killed someone and got kicked."
"Lighten up; it was funny hearing their reactions."
"Focus, Dash," came a southern drawl. "Rarity ain't the enemy."
Rainbow sighed. "Yeah. I just..."
"Be quicker next time, maybe you'll get it."
Leon's scout managed to find an ancient ruin. When he popped it, it gave him 20 culture. Not exactly an upgraded archer, but it was good for social policies. He'd already chosen the Tradition branch. He went for Legalism this time around. Although not immediately useful, it was necessary to gain access to Monarchy and Landed Elite, both of which were very useful. Aristocracy would have given him a boost to wonder building, but all things considered, he could get that soon enough. By now, the group had researched enough technology to reach Bronze Working and start towards the other Classical-era techs.
"We need Iron Working," Rainbow argued. "I want to upgrade my Jaguars."
"I disagree; Philosophy should be the way to go," Leon objected.
"Drama and Poetry is what we need," Rarity spoke up.
"No! I need better armies!"
"I say we go down the Philosophy route!"
"Drama for amphitheaters!"
"Now calm down, y'all," Applejack interrupted. "Ah'm sure we can find a solution..."
"Well, I'm going for Iron Working no mater what the rest of you say!"
"I'm researching Drama, and there's nothing any of you can do to make me change my mind!"
Leon found himself facepalming, and from the clopping noises coming from Twilight and Applejack, both them had facehoofed.
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Princess Luna didn't know how to pull together the loose alliance that was supposed to be a team. The biggest problem was Edward, naturally. His combative attitude often hurt his own side as much as the enemy. Shining Armor was cooperative, as Fluttershy. However, Pinkie was another matter entirely. She was as much a random element in a game as she was in real life. She could be playing sanely one moment, then do something absolutely crazy the next. Occasionally, this had the effect of losing games. The last time Pinkie had played Civilization 5, she'd panicked when someone was about to steal a cultural victory from her. She launched a nuclear blitzkrieg in response, but this failed to have the effect she'd wanted; the enemy team, militarily superior, leveled almost all her cities to population level 1. Luna's team might have won that one if it wasn't for that.
On the other hoof, she had sometimes won a game from her wild antics. So maybe if she got lucky...
So far, Eddy hadn't stuck to the proposed science route at all. He'd gone directly for Mining without consulting - or listening to - anyone. Pinkie jumped directly into throwing out workers; her excuse was that she was going to throw them all a party.
Too bad I decided to go on with the livestream in secret, she thought. If things were a little different, this might be funny.
"What do you think we should do, Princess?" Shining Armor asked.
"Be careful, in case Rainbow Dash decides to come knocking with an army at her back. I'm not all too sure what your sister will do, but she loves to gain new technologies, so I doubt she'll be much of a military threat, at least for now. Applejack will have an army ready, and she's more cautious than, if just as aggressive as, Rainbow. Rarity will be trying to build a civilization with high production and profit, so her weakness will be her trade network. I think militarily she's less of a threat than Rainbow and Applejack. Leon... will be playing culturally and religiously, so he'll be less of a threat initially, but his units will have some upgrades, and he knows how to use a small force to maximum benefit."
"What do you want me to do?" Fluttershy asked quietly.
"We need you to expand into forest regions; it will make it easier for you to defend yourself, and it will give you a bonus when you start building longhouses. Shining Armor, we need an army, a big one. Use it to crush as many barbarian encampments as you can. Pinkie, use your excess happiness to boost your culture. Edward, build an enormous navy."
"Oh I'm sorry, did you say something?" Ed asked.
"I wasn't listening," Pinkie added, "I was looking at that chocolate bar across the room."
Luna facehoofed. "At least pretend you're paying attention and are interested in the game."
"Not to worry, Princess," Shining said. "I'll get on it right away."
"Me too," Fluttershy agreed.
Luna continued playing. After settling Moscow, she'd set about to building another warrior. She had queued up a scout after that, then a worker, then a monument; culture was a secondary priority compared to getting an army into the field for her. She had landed by only a couple cotton tiles, but it was likely that she would have large amounts of iron and horses to use or trade. To exploit that, she had researched Animal Husbandry, and was rewarded by three horse tiles appearing once that technology had completed. Now she had two big iron sources near her capital, and she would be rolling in resources, more than enough to supply her team.
I love playing Russia. You always have too much of everything.
Except, unfortunately, gold. In time, Moscow would be a rich city, but they were still in the early Classical era, so money was scarce. She was able to settle a second city, Kiev, so now she would have two centers of production. She sighed. It wasn't going to be easy to win with an ocean between the two continents; most transports were likely to face attack on their way to the other side. Unless the navy of one side managed to beat down the defenses of the other, it would be a slaughter for the attacking force.
And her team had to accomplish this with two of their five members off doing their own thing. Likely Eddy was going to go navy, but would go right when someone else said to go left just for the fun of it, while Pinkie... well, nopony ever knew what Pinkie was going to do. Luna suspected that even she didn't always know what she would do. Holding a team together wasn't always easy, even among friends.
For that matter, holding Equestria together was a full time job. Not that Equestria was on the brink of tearing off into half a dozen separate countries, but the demands of one city and another sometimes clashed, as did the interests of different provinces. Every other week she had some dignitary from some offended party calling out for justice. And, unlike this game, the consequences of a bad decision were lasting, and sometimes dangerous.
Now that I think about it, compared to keeping Equestria from falling apart every other day, this isn't so bad. She smirked, glad none of the others could see her. And it'll be quite funny to hear their reactions when I reveal they've been recorded the entire time.
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"Bonk!" Rainbow said as she exterminated another barbarian encampment. "Another camp of scumbags off the map, thanks to your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash!"
"Yeah," Leon said. "There were no contradictions at all in what you just said."
"Huh?"
"Never mind," he said as sniggers of laughter came from the other players. In the meantime, he had the settler he'd made a few turns back settle next to Uluru, a natural wonder that provided 6 Faith and 2 Food to it's owner. Next to the new city of Dublin was a tile of horses and some iron, with a source of gold nearby that could be incorporated into his empire with border expansion. Since he'd already gotten the Legalism policy, he automatically started with a monument, so he didn't have to worry about wasting time building one.
He growled when he saw how poor his current production was. Although the population would rise to size 2 pretty quickly, it was going to take forever to build the worker he wanted, or the even the granary hat was his second choice, which he settled on.
At least his proto-military wasn't too bad. He had a couple Pictish Warriors, the special unit for the Celts. They were similar to the spearmen they replaced, except for the fact that they had no movement cost to pillage, had a 20% combat bonus in foreign lands, and took 50% of an enemy unit's strength as Faith every time they killed a unit. That, and they were armed with broadswords and cool-looking shields.
So far, the three-way deadlock for technology hadn't been resolved. He'd gotten what he'd wanted, and so had Rarity and Rainbow, but they'd lost some time over that impasse. If the other team was cooperating better, they'd be hard pressed to catch up.
"I wish it wasn't Flutters we were beating on," he said at last, and it was the truth; he found the idea of beating down the sweet, shy yellow pony in any manner to be hard to take, even in a game.
"Yeah," Rainbow said, which half surprised him. "We went to Cloudsdale the other day, a kind of gals' day out." Her voice rose, sounded excited.
"I'm guessing you had fun there."
"Yep. Got to see a big pegasi race, watched some pegasi sports... oh yeah, and we met the Wonderbolts! Boo-yah!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah; even the word 'awesome' doesn't cut it for them."
"To say she was 'geeked out' after meeting them is appropriate," Twilight commented. "She was pretty light-headed for the next few days."
"Just because I rained on you that one time...!"
"Yes, and 'that one time' ruined a report I had written for the Princess!"
"Hey, you rewrote it, right?"
"That's not the point!" Twilight said angrily. "It took an hour to re-write the whole thing!"
"Girls, can we refocus on the game?" Rarity asked. "As much as I would love to hear the two of you catch up on your misadventures, perhaps we could discuss it later?"
"You guys ever hear the phrase, 'We must hang together, or we must all hang separately?'" Leon asked dryly.
"I did!" Twilight answered excitedly. "It was said by..."
"Okay, history lesson over," Rainbow interrupted. "Back to the game." Twilight huffed in anger, but kept quiet.
Leon, meanwhile, continued his efforts. It wouldn't be long now before the first real religion triggered. Religion spread slowly at first, and it spread even slower when you weren't basing your game on religious efforts. Later in the game, it would speed up, but at the start, the main followers of a faith were those in the capital.
In the meantime, he got another policy; this time he chose Monarchy, which gave +1 gold and -1 unhappiness for every two citizens in the capital. It was tempting to chose Landed Elite, which would have given him +2 food and +10% growth in the capital, but he needed the money, and his happiness level was getting lower than he was comfortable with.
Working through the next several turns, he was able to build a plantation for the spices, adding a useful +4 happiness to his empire, as well as finish the library and barracks for the capital.
A loud, tribal whistle met his ears when another turn rolled around. "Yay! Great Prophet!"
"Oooh, already?" Twilight asked eagerly.
"Yeah. I think we should be making plans for this."
"Don't really care one way or the other," Rainbow said.
"I agree," Rarity added.
"You will when you find it easier to spread your culture to me when we're the same religion."
"Hmm," she said, reconsidering. "Very well, I see your point."
"Anyway..." Leon popped the Prophet, selecting Catholicism as the formal name. He chose Church Property as the founder belief (+2 gold for every city following the faith) and Religious Art (+5 Culture and +5 Tourism from the Hermitage), after which he hit the button confirming his choices.
"Well, not much to do now in that field but wait," he said.
A few seconds later, a specific tone sounded, and a image of a bishop's hat appeared above his own.
"Oooh, let see what this one is," Twilight said. "Edward made it, and it's the..." she stopped.
"What?" Leon asked.
"...It's the Church of Tea and Guinness."
Leon sat there, appalled, but at the same time trying not to laugh.