Civilization V (Walther)

[Judah Linn]

Judah was seated in the lounge, his feet kicked up on the sofa, his old Dell laptop in his lap. A bag of barbecue chips and an empty Starbucks coffee cup were on the floor at his side. He could spend all day in this room. His roommates are like ghosts, so it isn't incredibly entertaining in dorm room 215. He refused to swim or run on the track or go get extra help at classes - as much as he needed the one-on-one in mathematics. Judah has Civilization V, a game that could occupy him for hours on end.

Judah was working on getting his deity military victory, but was honestly far too tired to focus on the strategies of it. He decided to kill anybody he saw which wasn't getting him anywhere. He wasn't having as much fun as he would have if he was strategizing. Strategy was his strength in video games. It was a reason he played chess and checkers, which evolved into things like Tetris and, of course, Civilization V. He paused the game and closed his dark eyes, exhausted from the long day. He had also become bored due to not being able to focus. Damn.

Judah eventually reopened the game and sat up, stuffing the chips in his face before continuing to play, allowing the game to consume his thoughts, but he lost again and again. It was beginning to annoy him, how challenging this was. He swore under his breath. Why was it getting to him? He was hardly trying at the moment. Typical Judah, quick to anger and very competitive.

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Walther didn't have any such luck. He never had a personal computer, but he had a family computer. On which, he played strategy games quite often. They failed to lose their appeal, since each game could take a whole week, if one was dedicated enough. Civilization had to be one of his favorites. Five, too. He liked to play that online from time to time, and see how other people played it. The political intrigue that people could create when they get in to it interested him most of all! A lot of people never really expected him to be good at it, but he was actually a pretty impressive player.

He'd watched the teen from the other end of the lounge. Watch him get worked up. He had to sneak around, to get a better view of the scene. It looked like he was save scumming. Constantly reloading, again and again, to get a better result from attacking what looked to be the Persians. Ohh.. It was on deity, too. He recognized the difficulty's symbol in the loading screen. Domination and deity usually didn't go hand-in-hand, especially this early.

He slowly moved forward, and forward some more. In a matter of minutes, he was watching him continually fail. Poor guy. To be fair, though, it seemed the AI had a more rounded out force. He saw more ranged than melee, with a couple of immortals holding the defensive line in a natural chokepoint, nestled between two mountains.

He moved around, and sat on the couch, when he felt brave enough, pointing at the screen. "If you go for military victory, you have to have spies in city, first. You see a few tiles, see their soldiers." It was a little rude to butt in, he was well aware. But maybe he wouldn't be so angry if he had a few tips under his belt.

But for all he knew, this guy was good, and just subject to bad luck. Oh well, it was all in good faith!

[Judah Linn]

Judah, startled, slapped his laptop shut and stood abruptly, the expensive technology almost crashing to the hardwood floor. Thankfully it didn't. It had flipped upside-down on the edge of the sofa cushion. He breathed a sigh of relief towards his not-broken computer and the fact that it was nobody his age. Just a kid that had sat beside him. This was fine. The disgusting slobs of his age group were all his bullies. He hated each and every one of them. This one, probably between ten and thirteen years old, was harmless. Seemingly harmless. You never knew. 

"Scared the shit out of me..." He mumbled, slowly sitting back down. He reopened his computer. Civilization V returned to his vision. He restarted his game, knowing that he would lose anyways. This was something he hated. Losing. This kid knew what he was talking about, though. He did need to use spies, especially playing deity. The AIs were a whole lot harder than he'd first anticipated. That was the bullshit sham of deity difficulties. "True, spies would be helpful. Occasionally, i'll just play this game for the heck of it," Now, he was careful with his language, being in the presence of a younger age group where cursing was unacceptable. "This happens to be one of those times. It's been a long day."

Judah hadn't even gone to training today. He'd gone to classes, flunked a math test, was sat out of gym for being, quote on quote, "too aggressive", and hadn't eaten lunch due to the fact he had to finish an assignment during his break period. Damn. Then, he'd managed to get to Starbucks for caffeine, for the soul reason of keeping his eyes open. Now he was here, practically passing out, with some kid he didn't know, a kid that was probably not of a high school age yet. He's harmless, Judah. And he seems to know what he's doing. He can play. "-Do you want to play? Civilization five is one of my favorites, but I don't mind. ...What's your name?" He was trying to be more confident with himself. He was the quiet type. This was a step. 

[Walther Ebersbacher]

"Walther." He replied, looking over at his screen, and smiling. He had to look over his situation before he reset. All of his men that weren't battered by archer fire were siege units, ones that were about to be torn to pieces by the Persian's immortals, the immortals right in front of the musketmen. Ugh, that AI was so odd sometimes, even on the higher difficulties. It would spam all of the units across many eras, it wasn't odd to see a caveman waddling amongst mechanized infantry when the time came!

"I don't have a computer here." He replied, with a sigh. Though he wished he did. The one they had at home was fit to play games, with two monitors, a nice mouse with the extra buttons on the side... Oh, he missed that. He wished he could have packed it up and brought it to New York, and then here in Vermont. But alas, that computer belonged to his parents. He would have loved to make new friends over the video games that he'd play after a hard day of bullying and homework. His favorite strategy was always that of deliberate planning. One where he'd get a whole load of money, a lot of beakers, an incredibly happy empire, and every wonder that he could gobble up.

"My favorite is Venice." He decided to let him know, noticing that purple-and-white logo above each unit. Maybe he did, too. "They have gold, a lot." Well, they played out just like their real life counterpart did, anyhow. Minus all of the political turmoil and in-fighting that they had all of the time. Sea domination with those great ships of theirs. A web of trade routes that could advantageously spread their religion and sphere of influence, they were the best ones to play.

"But with military, you have to be Attila." He added. "Ashurbanipal is no good enough. But the rams come at bronze, and you can take cities in one or two turns!" They were his second choice for a surprisingly tall empire. Free animal husbandry was a blessing, and their unique units were great.

"Maybe you play, and I can watch?"

[Judah Linn]

"I play with Venice. Venice is mad awesome, but I like Wu Ze Tian," He replied, snickering. He also used Rome and Wu Ze Tian of China, it being the best for domination in his mind. So the kid's name is Walther. Not a common name, but neither was Judah. Whatever. Did it truly matter of their title? They spoke of gameplay! Judah exited his battles, knowing that on deity, he needed a better action route. A better strategy. That was his favorite part of the game. So many different outcomes due to strategy. He knew strategies of this game all too well, even the deity ones. Might as well use them. He wanted this achievement far too bad. 

Currently, he was playing as Wu Ze Tian. He couldn't help it. It was one of his best Leaders in deity, even if he lost a shit ton. Besides, Chu-Ko-Nu is such a fun force to direct. "Do you use Wu Ze Tian? -I swear to God, i'm the only person in the world who can pronounce it correctly." On this Leader, he would check three important bonuses that he already has. The Chinese crossbowmen, this bonus being the Chu-Ko-Nu. Then the Papermaker, which would give him 4+ gold per turn, which was so useful in the end. Lastly, the Great Generals. He needed those so badly. Why? They gave him an extra 25% combat strength; he found this very useful as well because it gave a total of 45% combat strength to all units within the two squares. What a blessing. 

He has the Germans and he has Berlin. It was bullshit that he couldn't raise Berlin, but it was a capital at one point so he couldn't do a thing with it. He'd liberate Genoa eventually.

He focused on honor as a social policy as it gave him access to a fantastic general immediately, then later, it doubles his experience points after battle. It also included a 15% combat strength increase and - most importantly - reduced the cost of upgrading by 50%. He used it well. He used it to upgrade warriors to swordsmen and horsemen to knights. 

He quickly prepared for D-Day. Again. He could use Wonders for an increase of combat strength, so why the Hell not? Instead of striking up against the Persians, he considered the Greeks. The Greeks had so much placement, though. "Damn it. ...Allies, allies, allies.." He saw Geneva. Geneva could work. Depends on how much he was willing to bribe them with. Between 800-1000 gold. That's where he was looking at. It ended up being 750, 500 and 250 gold, for more than one turn of alliances. "Bye, Greece." Judah muttered under his breath and took his army to invade. In six game turns after D-Day, he had successfully invaded Greece. Why hadn't his troops discovered Athens though? God damn it. He needed to take Athens. He would win if he grabbed Athens.

"Would you like to take over? I tend to use a lot of strats. Takes a while in some cases. I don't mean to bore you," Judah offered the computer to him. Walther said he didn't have a computer where he stayed. Wait... where did he stay? No way did the Hammel staff put him in a dormitory with the... insane freaks that reside there. "How old are you Walther? And where do you have quarters?"

[Walther Ebersbacher]

"Oh, I'm twelve." He replied, passively watching the game. The moment he chose Honor, he had to really doubt his strategic integrity. "I do have a dorm now... Five-oh-two, I think." It was a nice little nook, with the three beds and all. To be honest, with almost every bully here that he knew of being a female, the very idea of a Co-Ed room was scary as all hell.

The way he saw this game going though, man. He knew it wouldn't look good. "I always do tradition." He felt the need to remark. "Honor is bad." Well, inherently, the bonuses weren't. But they didn't pan out. They sounded good on paper, but by the time adjacency bonuses meant anything, the opponent could pummel you in to the ground with howitzers anyhow. Single combat was also woefully lacking. All that combat involved was surrounding a city, and rocking it with barrages until it went ahead and submitted.

"I do not do domination early. So no Wu Zetian... maybe I start a new game?" Hell, the Chu-Ko-Nu came and went like dust in the wind. As soon as they were in, they were out. Nothingness, didn't even matter if they could fire twice. And they were one of those things where your opponents had to either be on-par, or below you for them to have effect. Crossbowmen lasted a while, but just not long enough. Artillery would replace them in due time, once it turned in to balls of metal being fired out of a tube.

He did eagerly accept the computer, despite his current lack of a response, going to where he remembered the save button was. He just saved it as the standard "Wu Zetian" followed by a date-tag.

The menu navigation was obviously a bit slow for him, he had to read the buttons, and figure out which one roughly translated to which word. He'd settled upon it, though. Play, and then he'd picked out Enrico Dandolo - Venice. The Serenissima bonus was simply too good to pass up for him. Serenissima won games. Serenissima encouraged a fourty-sized city that had twenty trade routes running out of it.

The game loaded up, and his spot was, well, decent. Next to a mountain, a few wheat resources nearby. It'd do.

"What's /your/ name..?"

[Judah Linn]

"Honor isn't the best, some people would say Liberty or Tradition are a better bet. For Wu Te Zian, I choose Honor for the 50%... that's the best of it, to be quite frank," For Venice, he might use Liberty for the Collective Rule option of the 50% training speed increase and the Merchant of Venice. It was useful. He had to admit, he did better in Venice. He didn't have to use as much to get a lead. 

Judah crinkled his nose. He's twelve. He shouldn't be in the high school at all, unless his powers manifested and he had no other place to go. And in a co-ed dorm. With high schoolers. Who's idea was this? Poor kid. "You should just request to be put in my co-ed. 215. The others are like ghosts, and it's kind of lonely, but y'know. I'm not exactly the loud type," He had far more enemies than he had friends in this shit place. Was he allowed to hate it? Yes. There are thieves, liars, and bullies that don't mind allotting physical assault. Some of these people belonged in a mental hospital, not Hammel. Besides, he was failing his normal classes more than ever. Probably the reason he couldn't play this game so often, but often enough he was playing for at least an hour every other day. No wonder his strats were shit. 

He noticed that the boy hadn't been using proper grammar. The way he took his time seemed to sum it up. His first language wasn't English. "What do you speak?" Judah couldn't speak anything well except English. He had attempted to take Spanish and French in his earlier years. All he got from his ex-Spanish teacher, Señora Romano, was the phrase: ¿Por qué no estudias? Eventually, it became the only phrase he could translate besides the words deciphered by Dora The Explorer when he was little. 

"My name is Judah. Judah Linn. Call me whatever you want. I don't have a nickname."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

"Deutsch..." He replied. "Learning English now, though." And oh, was he getting a lot better at it. As he played the game passively, he was actually hitting the various technologies, and producing the different things off of picture memory. He would have done awful if everything didn't have the accompanying icon. He rushed straight through pottery, in to writing. Venice did, as a result, get the Great Library. By the time that was all done, he used it to push in to iron working. It was safe to say that, for the unmet neighbors, Venice still beat them.

"I have only been in America for few weeks, before coming here." He shrugged. He knew, in a sense, that he didn't belong. He saw only a couple other people his age so far. One of them, an evil little girl, one that put mayonnaise in donuts. The other was nice, he supposed. But he didn't know her too well yet. Really, out of everyone he liked so far, he was liking the boys the most. Judah was really nice, and they already had something to sort of connect about. And then there was Iggy. Iggy was awesome.

He had a few moments of silence, when the game was getting pushed on to the medieval era. He was seeing notices that unmet players were either just next to him, or well ahead. He didn't like that about deity. They had to cheat to win. Starting with free techs, free units, and extra science, production... Ugh, that was annoying. When India met him, they met him with the escort of a longswordsman and caravel! Ridiculous! Even at his best, he was only at knights, at this point.

"I don't like deity, Judah." He chuckled.

[Judah Linn]

"Oh! German? ...Um.. it's bonjour, right? -No, wait, that's French-" Judah snapped his fingers multiple times to jog his memory. He knew how to say "hello" in several languages, including German. What was it? "Guten-tag!" That "aha!" moment was hilarious in Judah's face. His eyes lit up and he smiled, baring his bright white teeth. He wasn't very impressive - it is the only word in German he knows. Hey, at least English is a widely spoken language. 

Judah noticed the way that Deity was beginning to bother Walther as well. Judah hates deity. It would so quickly frustrate him that he would actually need to walk away from it for a few hours to simply cool off. That was the joy of being a pyrokinetic with poor levels of control. Judah dug his hand into the chip bag, watching as Walther's game began to crumble. The neighbors were growing rapidly because of their increased and automatic.. well.. most everything. The AIs in deity are ridiculous. So cheap.

"I hate it too. Do you want to do something else?" Judah offered. He also grabbed the bag of chips and offered some to him. There are loads of things they could do. They could watch TV, pull out a board game, do something else on the computer, or they could just... talk. Talking is nice. He was curious of this boy. He'd showed up out of nowhere and he's twelve years old - too young for high school. So what was he doing here and why? Perhaps he was an early bloomer. No big deal. "I'm sure we can find something to do, other than play deity. Deity is bullshit and cheap as Hell." Judah was prepared to even leave the lounge. Whatever this kid wanted to do. Judah wanted to learn a bit about him before he had to leave. 

[Walther Ebersbacher]

Well, it didn't bother him that much, but the moment that Gandhi was able to push him around diplomatically... It got a little frustrating. Demand here, demand there. Eventually, he just decided it wasn't worth it. He gave it a quick save, shook his head, and turned off the game, closing the laptop and passing it back over to Judah. As for things to do, he was really lost for ideas. He didn't know if this place had a big array of board games. Even if it did, well, no guarantee it was one that he'd played.

"Maybe sitting here and talking is nice..." He figured. He didn't know too much about his new friend beyond his name, or the fact that he knew a couple of words in German. Maybe the powers. Everyone in Hammel had them. Some more useful than others. His sonic manipulation and 'Ventriloquism', as it had been called, were rather useful. Maybe Judah had something cool like shapeshifting. He would have loved to see that! He imagined Judah as the sort to turn in to a big white wolf, or maybe even a bear. He'd only heard of shapeshifters, so far. He hadn't yet seen them.

Maybe if he just introduced what he did, Judah would feel comfortable returning the favor? "I'm here since I make sounds. And control the sound energy." He wondered if that sounded right. As if it needed an example, just in front of them, piano keys were stroked, from the sound of it. From the lowest tone, all the way up to the highest. And then, he thumped the cushions on the couch with a raw bit of bass.

"What about you? Why are you at Hammel?"

[Judah Linn]

"Sounds?" His question was answered when the piano began to sound in glissando, from the lowest key of C76 to the highest of G92. Judah was startled by the sofa's vibrations and barely willed himself to stay seated. It was only Walther's doing, not some poltergeist. Not that Hammel was at all haunted.

Judah grinned widely. Walther had lots of control over his power. ...How easy would it be to prank with that power? It could easily scare the living daylights out of a person! The look on his face only a moment ago could have been priceless! "Dude... this isn't fair. I wish we could trade." Judah was willing to share his power too. He obviously didn't have as much control as Walther, so it could end up being a disaster. 

He walked over to the shelves and located a piece of paper. He returned to the sofa and sat, holding the paper to his eyes. Judah stared at it with such an intense focus and then flicked his wrist. The entire paper engulfed in flames, fast enough to burn him. He hissed in pain and immediately turned down the heat by taking his eyes off of it. "Damn it," Judah muttered, the red hot ashes fluttering into his lap where they quickly turned to a grey dust. "Pyrokinesis is no joke when you haven't perfected it. I just burned myself." He was used to being burned, though. He always carried neosporin and bandages. It had become a habit. Judah reached behind him and grabbed his black Swiss Army backpack, drawing the two items from the second pocket. While he was at it, he tucked his laptop into the largest pocket. Judah applied the neosporin and wrapped his hand. He may be used to being burned, but he doubted any pyrokinetic could deal with the stinging. It bothered him. "I'm at Hammel because I need to learn to control this power, number one, and number two, I have no place else to go. Know what I mean?"

[Walther Ebersbacher]

He couldn't help but smile when Judah expressed his envy. No one else really seemed to think it was a big deal. When there were people teleporting, shifting in to birds and other various animals... When there were mind-readers and telepaths... Man, it just felt good to be recognized. He was never recognized. Now that he was... Well, his smile told-all.

He watched Judah's demonstration. The fact that he could just ignite that paper out of nowhere was amazing. Even if he didn't have control, there was plenty of potential with it. It was a bit of a silly idea, but if he was burning himself, there /was/ something that could have been done about it. At least, in his still-somewhat-innocent and naive mind. "You know..." he began, trying to think of what exactly they were called. "Maybe buy furnace gloves if you practice? So that stops happens?"

And it wasn't like his power was all roses, anyhow. Walther possessed a pretty large degree of control, but he was limited in duration. And it simply hurt him to create too much sometimes. Just that glissando and thump produced some tingles in his head. He had plenty of training to go through, too. "I think I understand, yes." He replied. "Hammel is for that. They couldn't force us here without having place to stay." Ugh, he hated his delivery. It sounded wrong, but it felt right, the way he enunciated and said things. "I think I'll get classes soon. I'm really quickly learning English."

[Judah Linn]

"I learn from my mistakes. Besides, I use my hands to do that too," Judah could easily settle things with his mind, but sometimes he couldn't focus for that long. It explained his grades, except in English. He has a B+ in that. Judah can't write essays for his life, but he is good with grammar and the rules of the language. And spelling. Spelling has always been easy for Judah because he learned to sound it out first. 

On this subject, Judah lit up. Another "aha!" moment! The kid was learning English. Perhaps Judah could assist so he could progress right away. Right away. He didn't want Walther to fall behind like him! Judah had fallen behind for the lack of effort and his inability to concentrate on certain subjects and his training. Walther seemed like somebody who didn't need to fall behind. 

"Could I help you? English is the only subject I practically ace," Judah grinned. He noticed little things with Walther's English. Minor things. A few rules were being broken but could be resolved easily. His speech was a bit choppy and un-american sounding, which was fine. He could make his diction better. Judah hates using slang terms, but occasionally they flew past his lips. He could help Walther choose the better term (Like gay and gay. "Gay" can be a homosexual slur, but it also means "happy". Being bisexual, he found the need to correct people on this all the time). "I noticed the way you pronounce words in English doesn't sound quite right. It's probably because Deutsch has somewhat similar vowel shapes."

[Walther Ebersbacher]

"I think that is a good idea." German was indeed quite different from American English. They were both Latin-based languages, so, at least his 'nose into the dictionary and thesaurus' method of study really served him well so far. He'd already learned a lot of words, how to spell them, and what they mean. Even some really big ones or conversationally situational words.

"Maybe one day you can come to my dorm. Five-zero-two. If I'm there, you could help." He was getting plenty in to the language already, so Judah was really coming in at the tail-end of it. But any advice he could get would be beyond handy. And to think, he was meeting this guy through a little bit of Civilization 5 advice. That was kind of funny, how it worked. Hell, here they were, sitting in the same spot for a good hour, now.

Not even doing anything but chatting. They didn't need to have a TV show between them, and mute the commercials. Judah seemed like the kind of person he could play a game of chess with, a full game, without any distractions, with just how nice he was. "I think I'm going to unpack all rest of my things in the dorm. So I'll see you soon?"

[Judah Linn]

Judah could not agree more. He and Walther could have a beautiful friendship just judging by the way they conversed. They spoke freely and confidently. They didn't need an inanimate force to continue their conversation. This was important for Judah. Without friends at the moment, this might as well be his first step out of this dreaded place. Not that he wouldn't bring his friends out of Hammel with him.

"Yeah," Judah replied, slightly confused at the abrupt take to leaving to unpack. He checked the black watch on his wrist and cringed. He had to go too! He had arranged a time for himself to study for a trig assignment. He hates trig. The alphabet in math was already hard enough. "Shit. I have to get out of here. We'll arrange something soon! I promise."

Judah jumped to his feet and grabbed his backpack, putting it over one shoulder. He collected his trash and relayed the information back: "Room 502. 502. I'll remember. Maybe on Tuesday. I don't think I have any study time to account for on Tuesday. We'll see, though." Judah stuffed the garbage in the rubbish bin and slid halfway through the door. "If you need me, I'm in room 215. Co-ed dorm. Don't get confused. See you, Walther!" He pushed off the door and bolted down the halls, skidding around the corner. That trigonometry wasn't going to study itself. And no distractions. No more Civilization V tonight.