* Ziegfried steps into the room, rights his shades, and takes a breath of that video-game-exhaust-filled air. It's... a cyber cafe. But hey, there's puters there. No DDR, unfortunately. (d'oh) There's also a huge crowd around a few of them, which have people from all walks of life playing intensely. * Ziegfried trucks over to the nearest crowd, and takes a look at what's going down. OrcCraft in Space 3! Seriously. They're playing with incredible intensity, and for the most part, the crowd's disturbingly quiet, occassionally letting out a gasp or a murmur of approval at various things that happen. * Ziegfried is taller than 90% the crowd, so he's content to stand toward the back. * Ziegfried watches closely, and takes pointers. Maybe this guy knows something Eui doesn't... There's eight players, all sitting at this hub. Before long, yellow gets absolutely murdered by green and purple. The yellow player starts cursing vividly, probably in Korean. * Ziegfried walks over to where he can see green and purple's screens. Perhaps a bit more aggressive than what he's used to seeing in Civ XI, but it works... * Ziegfried nods. Yeah, I've heard of that unit... hey, I should pick this up when I get a chance... Blue intercepts Green, and Red joins in. Purple gets held up by White's flying units. You hear some murmurs in the crowd, and a lot of attention is being turned towards White. Looks like she's building up massively. * Ziegfried has heard rumors of the 10-year-old asian girl... he goes to look * Ziegfried does all but take notes on the game. Eui will never know what hit him, soon as... what kind of troop is THAT? Though she isn't ten years old, she's close, and she's grinning madly as she's pumping out tons of odd dragon troops. Brown frowns and starts typing. A couple of the other players respond. * Ziegfried is amazed that a tech tree can be climed fully in less than 142 turns. Wait, there are no turns. Without turns... hrmm.... interesting. The crowd murmurs again, as Brown, Blue, and Red's troops all start heading straight for White. White's player eeps, the first sound you've heard from the players aside from the cursing from Yellow, and starts issuing commands faster than you thought possible. * Ziegfried nods. That's what not having diplomacy gets you. If there's one thing Civ XI gamers know, it's that... * Ziegfried decides to hang behind white. It's not impossible to hold off a 3 vs 1, just hard... And White does it. She shoves the whole mass of troops straight at them, sending her workers to build turrets and the like. What finally manages to get in after the mess is all but vaporized, though she sacrifices a number of workers in the process. Some of the crowd groans, and it looks like Purple took advantage of this, and Red gets knocked out while his troops were away. * Ziegfried nods. Once again, careless diplomacy. Now purple will fall, as the other two avenge their fallen ally. * Ziegfried is more interested in seeing white's force rebuild than watching an outnumbered beatdown. Brown starts rebuilding, but is rudely cut off by Green. White flips to another section of the map - seems there was a part nobody was paying attention to, and starts churning stuff out from there. * Ziegfried nods. Knowing the map seems pretty important. And this combination looks... well, complicated. But variety is always a good thing... There's a five-player massacre in the middle of the map. White joins in, too, but she's holding a good portion of her army back. What she sends gets slaughtered. * Ziegfried smiles. There was a line once... 'make them think you are weak when you are strong.' He's almost tempted to say it alloud, but no one else is talking, and it wouldn't be fair anyway. A number of people in the crowd seem to agree, since they're nodding approvingly at White's strategy. And it works wonderfully, as she sends the rest of the troops within the next ten minutes, taking care of the whole map without a hitch. * Ziegfried pays attention to a few in-combat strategies as the game closes out, and commits the whole scenario to memory. * Ziegfried grins, takes one last look as players begin to be crushed, and heads back out to the cruiser.