Forging Civilization Wiped Out Zombie Lane

A while back, I talked about a Silly "game" I was playing on Facebook.  Its name: Zombie Lane.

It was what I classify a "time waster."  There is very, very little strategy to it, but it draws a player in by having many tiny little goals and allowing the player to "level up" pretty regularly.  It's the kind of game, like Farmville, that encourages people to go back, often, and just click, click, click.  It was silly.  I acknowledged it as such.  But I "played" it to kill time.

Thankfully, Zombie Lane has been wiped from my list of desired activities.

How?

It's Mike's fault, of course.

OK, that's not quite fair.  But sorta fair.

Mike told me about this on-line game called "Forge of Empires."  It has a few things in common with the Civilization games, which I love, but it also has an attractive component of player interaction.  And, yes, it too has mechanics which encourage a player to come back every so often.  But at least there is some planning to do, and some trading, and some minor social aspects.  And, very importantly, it is not a Facebook game, so it does not try to get me to make "friends" with people simply to improve my position in the game.

Anyway, Forge of Empires is intriguing, but it cannot be played for hours at a time.  Like so many of these internet games, after a few minutes, you run out of things you can do before you have to wait for your resources to regenerate.

So, on its own, it wasn't going to stop me from thinking about Silly Zombie Lane.

The key here is that Forge of Empires is similar to Civilization.  Which meant, as it turns out, it whet my appetite for Civ again.  I had gone almost nine months without playing Civ IV.  This is a pattern in my game-playing life.  I obsess on Civ for a while, then I have to go cold turkey.

I am now in the 1800s (the game starts at 4000 BC) and my American civilization is twice as big as my closest rival.  I'm king of the world!  (Or I will be, once I get to that elusive Diplomatic victory.)

Have I mentioned I really, really like Civilization?

Anyway, Silly Zombie Lane didn't stand a chance.  It's gone. 

Now how will I stop playing Civilization?

Oh well, that's a worry for another day.  Because now, it's time for Just One More Turn.