YMMV / Equestria at War

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: All or nearly all of the Exotic Weapons Division projects Posada orders are based on real weapons development projects, such as the real Project SALVO, Ekranoplans, the Chrysler TV-8, the Genie missile, the XB-70 Valkyrie, and a wide variety of nuclear land mines, sea mines, and depth charges.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: For cross-continental invasions between Equus and Griffonia, the crossing point usually picked is the "Into The Unknown" strategic region located between Nova Griffonia and Vedina, as all it takes for your naval invasion force to get grounded is the lack of naval supremacy in one ocean zone in the invasion route.
• Complete Monster:
  • Lavender Berry was a police officer in Baltimare who was secretly in league with the stallionist IU party. Upon the breakout of the Lunar Civil War, Berry betrayed his fellow officers and took over the city, starting a brief rule that persecuted "enemies" of communism. Should he take control of the Baltimare Republic after the War in the South, he'll purge all of his enemies in the communist party and the government. He then creates a totalitarian government that eliminates the freedom of speech and sets up reactionary labor camps to have his enemies do hard labor until they die. To quell the native resistance, Lavender Berry initiates campaigns to burn the jungles, which kills over a million native ponies and thestrals, while cutting the entire population of the region by a sixth.
  • Edler von Wingenberg is the leader of the Sturmgreife, the paramilitary wing of the Reformisten movement in Hellquill. Upon Wingfried von Katerinburg's ascension to power, Wingenberg and his cohorts will push forward a plan for the industrialized mass murder of Ponies. If Wingfried approves of these plans, Wingenberg's faction, empowered by Wingfried, will overthrow him and take power for themselves. Wingenberg will then establish death camps where Ponies are all worked to death or experimented on in order to extract their magical energies, and launch a mass purge of anyone suspected of expressing any sympathies for the Ponies. In order to facilitate the destruction of the River Ponies, Wingenberg conscripts children into the army with the goal of explicitly teaching them to kill ponies as horrifically as possible, and then launches the purple plague onto the Riverlands by releasing imprisoned ponies and letting them run loose. This leads to the deaths of many of Ponies in the Riverlands and ensures that the Riverlands will never recover from any war that Wingenberg would wage on them even if he is defeated.
  • Count Pallas Dusktalon is the leader of Longsword, and the main perpetrator of the Longswordian Bloodbath, an attempt to wipe ponykind off his country. Once just another noble in the Dusktalon line, Pallas came into contact with the Reformisten, and took their brutal anti-pony ideology to heart, both executing the pony population and purging the military in an attempt to "purify" Longsword. When these backfire, Pallas takes no responsibility for their failure and blames the ponies, doubling down on his actions. If he manages to win the ensuing bloody civil war, Pallas succeeds in removing all the ponies, and either hands his ruined country over to the Reformisten or is betrayed and killed by his disgusted second-in-command Rosa Heidenreich. In the end, no matter who ends up in control of Longsword, Pallas sets his country back years in development and murders thousands of innocents, purely out of fanaticism and ego.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The biggest draw of the mod itself. Each nation has multiple ideological and/or leadership paths, creating a lot of replay value. And this is not counting the secret paths. Most players simply play for the sake of reading the various events that happen which forms solid narratives when put together. Of course, since this is Hearts of Iron we are talking about, novices have to up their game and read up guides online if they wish to be able to see things through to the end.
• Friendly Fandoms: With the other Hearts of Iron mod communities such as The New Order: Last Days of Europe and Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg, who have expressed their surprise that a mod involving My Little Pony as a setting of all things has been done really well. Those fandoms essentially make up the Periphery Demographic.
• Funny Moments:
  • When the Herzland vassals revolt against Ferdinand Dawnclaw after he kills Grover VI, Dawnclaw's first three focuses to deal with this are aptly named "Dear Boreas", "Everything Is On Fire" and "Please Send Help".
  • There is actually an event that deals with the appearance of parasprites. The punchline is that whether or not you make the right decision depends on you watching the show. Case in point.
  • After taking the Seeds of Truth, the Canterlot Commissariat receives visions of what they would be if they weren't friends. The visions of a Corrupt Corporate Executive, a Mad Scientist, a war criminal taking part in genocide, you would think that the final one from Jachs is some horrifying figure that surpasses the earlier trio. Instead, the next vision for him is... a propaganda film maker. Kind of underwhelming by comparison, don't you think?
• Iron Woobie: Grover V. Born sickly, had his father die at a young age, was powerless to stop both the loss of the Idol of Boreas and the Republican Revolution, and is terminally ill with not much longer to live. Despite all this, he still tries his darnedest to keep the Empire intact for his last years, even doing a tour around the Empire as his health fails.
• Jerkass Woobie: Zarishat. She's a kleptocratic Jerkass who can co-opt Zeshmunash's revolution simply out of spite for his brother... but in her bio, it notes that she had worked hard to get close to the Zarcids, only for Zesh's revolution to ruin all that. Combine that with the fact that her alcoholism was because of the anger and stress over the whole situation, and it's not hard to feel a little pity for her.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people play the mod because of the Friendship is Magic setting rather than in spite of it, with them either having no prior interest to Hearts of Iron or at least its mods.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Genevieve Guildedwing is one of the councilors of Skyfall and the niece of Ghislain Guichard, the Iron Chancellor. Noticing the growth of both the oligarchs’ power and the social inequality in Skyfall, Genevieve warns her uncle of the threat while also imploring him to help the people. If Guichard listens, Genevieve will set up charity events and meetings for him to take part in, slowly but surely showing him the gift of kindness. When Guichard unexpectedly dies of old age and she is named her successor in his will, Genevieve outplays the now-rebellious oligarchs and crime lords through allying with the moderate opposition groups, spreading her informants across Skyfall, funding the police to crack down on crime hubs, and even secretly ordering the sabotage, robbing, and slander of the oligarchs and their industries. With all opposition to her dealt with, Genevieve builds a free democratic Skyfall enshrining welfare for the poor, proving herself a worthy successor to her late uncle.
  • Mayor Rokenhar is the elderly mayor of Las Pegasus. If the Lunar Civil War breaks out, Rokenhar will be forced by short-sighted business interests to declare Las Pegasus’ independence from Equestria at the cost of its stability as socialists, the PCA, and anti-independence factions arise. With his power almost gone, Rokenhar decides to play all the opposing factions by secretly funneling support to both the socialists and the PCA to weaken the anti-independence movement and each other while taking advantage of the political situation in Equestria to bolster his own support. If his gambit succeeds, Rokenhar will restore order to Las Pegasus, only to learn that the stress of the earlier situation has left him with only one year left to live. Even with this knowledge in hand, Rokenhar will spend the last of his days tending to the newborn Las Pegasus, ensuring its position for years to come.
  • Pea Shooter is an Equestrian-born arms dealer traveling the world to make money to bring home to his family. Landing in Tobuck with his associates intending to sell his guns to the now-dead Storm King, he instead uses said contacts to seize the weapons stockpile there. Working with his best ‘friend’ Vasile to establish the Republic of Tobuck from Zarantia with a puppet president, Pea Shooter makes a secret deal with the Zarantians to leave him alone for one more year, after which he’ll cede Tobuck back to them. In that time, Pea Shooter sells his guns to criminals, his associates, and whoever wants to buy them, while distracting said associates from the truth with a variety of tactics. Whether or not he’s found out, Pea Shooter sails back home with the money he’s filtered overseas, leaving no trace of his crimes for the Equestrian government to prosecute him for. Far away from the people he betrayed and safe within Equestria, Pea Shooter walks away from Zebrica a free pony.
  • Vasile cel Tradat is a Brodfieldian-born smuggler and Pea Shooter’s best ‘friend’. Working with Pea Shooter to establish the Republic of Tobuck, Vasile slowly builds connections with the local elite there, playing at greater ambitions than merely selling guns and escaping. If Pea Shooter is found out and no warlord has enough influence to establish dominance, Vasile will quickly pin the entire situation on him before becoming President through dubious means. Once in power, Vasile can either create a semi-legitimate republic with the Harmonists, doing a lot of good for the average Tobuckian while slowly taking over the economy behind the scenes, or a mafioso state that squeezes the country for all its worth, making himself fabulously rich and powerful. If Pea Shooter isn’t found out, Vasile will throw his lot in with the Zarantians, making himself useful as an advisor while slowly getting close to the Aguellid’s daughter and masterminding an assassination plot on the Aguellid herself. If the plot succeeds, Vasile will slowly manipulate and drug the newly-crowned Aguellid until she is little more than a mindless puppet. After the enraged Zarantian populus revolts against him, Vasile embezzles what is left of the country’s coffers before taking a boat out of Zarantia, gracefully admitting defeat to himself with his wealth intact. Ruthless and clever, Vasile seizes any opportunity he can find to enrich himself, be it at the benefit or expense of everyone else.
  • Protectoress Lilac is the ruler of the Manehattan Protectorate, made to assist with the occupation of Equestria. As the Protectoress, Lilac slowly stabilizes the region bit by bit through various programs and orders, while reining in the more brutal and illogical ideas of the Changeling garrison there. If her efforts lead to a stalemate with the resistance, Lilac will bait out the resistance by plunging the country into chaos, greatly crippling them for Chrysalis to crush. If she manages to fully cement her authority, Lilac can subtly move Manehattan away from Chrysalis, building a native army to match hers, until eventually outright declaring independence from her. Along the way, Lilac grows to genuinely care for the pony citizens in her country, giving them equal rights with the Changelings. Although still ruling as a dictator and crushing dissent with force, by the end of her tree Lilac becomes the respected leader of Manehattan by pony and Changeling alike.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Yeet the child^Explanation This is the primary term used by players should they wind up killing Grover VI, with Ferdinand Dawnclaw as the prime example. Ironically, Grover VI wasn't thrown out the window to his death in any of the various routes that kill him, instead being shot/stabbed/executed depending on the route picked while Dawnclaw himself was the one who got thrown out the window to his death if Grover II retakes the throne.
  • Trans Grover^Explanation Due to the connection between LGBTQ+ activism and MLP, people on EAW's Discord server created headcanons of Grover VI being trans-female. The headcanon has become popular enough to spawn submods.
  • River Swirl hates communists^Explanation River Swirl In-Universe is meant to be the "straight paragon" of the River Republic leaders, with only a chip on her shoulder due to losing votes to Nova Whirl's communist party. However, an event spawned many reddit posts where she undergoes flanderization into a full-blown communist hater that will execute any of them on sight, despite that role being already taken In-Universe by Arclight and the OHS. This hasn't gone unnoticed by the developers and especially River Swirl's writer, who now plan on making her stance on communism much clearer and less hostile.
  • Nukefish^Explanation After the release of Shores of Zebrica, one of Hippogriffia's leaders, Posada, became a popular figure in the mod due to her similarities with Argentinian Trotskyist J. Posadas. Much like her counterpart, Posada possess a fascination for extraterrestrial life and nuclear weapons.
  • ONE SUFRIT ABOVE ALL^Explanation The meme references the starting autocratic leader of Colthage, Zalathel Zarca, and the name of his final focus; much like Posada, Zarca gained popularity within the mod after the release of Zebrica.

• Periphery Demographic: If the fandom's statements are to be believed, a good number of the players aren't bronies or have only seen bits of the show years before the mod's creation. It really helps that the dev team has made the lore accessible for those that have never seen a second of Friendship is Magic, and the OC characters are easy to figure out. In fact, this mod has encouraged some Hearts of Iron fans to watch the show.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The reaction of Bronzehill's population to Emperor Grover V's death.
    • If the coup succeeds, the news of Grover VI's death will trigger a massive mental breakdown in Count Ignatius, where the event states that he beat himself against the wall so badly that his guards had to restrain him.
  • The capitulation quotes are often this. Here is a compilation. Spoiler warning as it also contains the secret paths.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • When the Equestrian Liberation Front emerges, there are no events of interactions between them, Lilac and the Canterlot Commissariat. Not even a post-war trial focus after an ELF victory.
  • When Celestia becomes Daybreaker in peacetime, Luna decides to form a rebellion in order to bring harmony back to Equestria. Unfortunately, the faction is underdeveloped lacking a unique focus tree or even events pertaining to Daybreaker's rise. Many feel it would have been fascinating to get Luna's perspective on Celestia’s fall and become the sole ruler of Equestria. Fortunately, a future Equestria rework is in the works.
  • Chiropterra is a fascinating nation, being formed by exiled worshippers of Nightmare Moon after her defeat a thousand years ago. They remain determined to return Nightmare Moon to power, yet beyond referring to her as weak there's limited interaction between Princess Luna and Chiropterra. It's a wasted opportunity for an interesting series of events for the former, or a potential harmony path for the latter. Whilst a harmonist path does exist for Chiropterra, Luna is seldom mentioned outside of a flavor event.
• Toy Ship: Flurry Heart and Grover VI is a popular ship among the fans, given how their childhoods are filled with war while being only able to stay in the palace and not do anything, and that they both come of age and inherit their thrones late in the game.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Because most players have already conquered the world before 1021, the content that is only available from said year is barely played or even known about. Raise your hands if you actually played as Flurry Heart or Grover VI.

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