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.

Improvation and Relaxification

I mentioned that I got myself a new laptop.

In the month since, I have spent some time improvating ^[1] it to a point where it is useful.  And by "useful" I mean:

• I got our financial information off the old computer and onto the new so I can pay bills, balance banking accounts, and keep track of college payments.  Bo-Ring.  But necessary.
• I installed drivers and configurated^[1] the silly Windows 7 interface to allow myself to print to our wireless printer.  Also pretty boring, except I had never done that to my work laptop, so it is nice to have a wireless printing capability from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy.
• I installed DM Genie, and transferred both campaigns to it.  Very, very cool.
• I installed my excellent electronic toy, the Bamboo Fun tablet I bought so I could draw more maps and such for Dungeons and Dragons.
• I installed enough games to give me something to do while winding down at the end of the day: Ticket to Ride: Online, mostly.

But, in that month, I had not yet taken the time to do the most important step in relaxifying^[1] my new laptop.  I did that this weekend:

• I installed Civilization IV: Gold Edition

And thus was a weekend enhancerated.^[1]  Sherry has way more work to do than she can get done during a school week, so she has been doing hours and hours of homework each weekend.  Quiet helps her.  Mom and Dad (currently staying with us for recuperative^[1] purposes) have their quiet things to do.

Ah yes.  It was excellent.  Having Civ IV on my laptop allowed me to enjoy hours of "America takes over the world" diversosity. ^[1]

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 ^[1] I have "Wicked" on the brain today, so many of my verbs, adverbs, nouns and adjectives are being influenced by the coinification^[1] which takes place in that musical. Plus, "The Lorax" is being released, and Dr. Seuss's birthday was this week. It's no wonder convergosity^[1] is taking place in my wordifying.^[1]  But one of the words I have labeled with this superscript is, in fact, not invented.  Do you know which one?

Just One More Turn --- or Back Off the Wagon - Reprint

[This post might happen, or it might not.  I initially planned to repost this while I was in Prague, but I posted photos of Prague instead.  So if you're seeing it, I pushed it back to another day when I thought I would be too busy to post.  Thus, you get a reprint from August 16, 2007.  And besides, I have started playing Civ IV again, so that's part of why I'm too busy.]

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Just One More Turn --- or Back Off the Wagon

I finished my most recent game of Civilization III Complete in April. Since then, I had not put the CD into a computer. I decided to take a break, because the game is so addictive! It's so easy to convince myself I can just take one more turn, or just play until the Pyramids are complete, or until I finally have access to horses, or whatever. And then, lo and behold, it's four hours later and I'm going to bed too late.

So, for four months, I went without Civ III. But last night, while everyone was watching Harry Potter 4, I decided I'd be better off playing Civ III than spending $20 to play Magic: Online.

And now, it's started again. I want to play Just One More Turn!

Yet, I know, it's not going anywhere. I could take a break for days or weeks (theoretically) and the game would still be there, in exactly the same spot, when I picked it up again.

Somehow, it still feels like the game is going on without me, and I'm missing something!

Definitely a great game. Definitely addictive.

Games - Yes, I'm Still Playing

In my planning for what to write about NaBloPoMo, [which I clearly wasn't doing ahead of November] I decided I should make an attempt to post at least once during the month on each of the topics that are typical in my blog. And what does my blog heading say?

My most frequent topics are family, TV, movies, games and writing. But since I post every weekday when I'm not on vacation, I delve into other things too: religion, words, news items, quotes.

And have I written about games yet? No! [Well, technically, yes, but the kinds of game I wrote about was a spectator sport, not a game I actually play.] And, since I am a game player, I cannot have you thinking I have not been playing games, or thinking about them.

Yes, we've been running through Pikmin 2 again. Thank goodness Nintendo made it possible to play Gamecube games on the Wii, so I don't have to have two game systems set up at once. For reasons neither of us will probably ever be able to pin down completely, I like playing this game again and again, and Sherry likes watching me [and giving me advice, and reminding me what the plan was, and expressing appropriate appreciation if I dispatch a frog without loss of {Pikmin} life.]

By the time this entry hits the blog, it's likely I will have completed the game again, and it's looking like I might even beat my old record for the fewest "days" that Captain Olimar, Louie, and The Boss required to complete their treasure hunting and return to planet Hocotate. [Yep, it happened. We completed the game in 16 "days" on 11/18/09 - setting many personal records. What fun!]


I bought Civilization IV in March, and it's been a near-constant source of joy [and temptation] ever since. The Civilization series of games, along with the Heroes of Might and Magic games, are the kings of JOMT -- Just One More Turn. Once I start playing a game, it is hard to do anything else with my TV time than advance my civilization and [usually] conquer the misguided civilizations who share the world with me.

Well, in September, I started a game, but the barbarians were just too much, and I gave up. I decided I would put the game away for a while. I did. For a month. Then, in early October, I started a new game. It was a source of some good diversion on my trip to Japan and China, but I have not finished the game. Thus, it has been sneaking into my TV time again.

Once upon a time, Mike bought me Marvel Ultimate Alliance. [What a guy! What a friend!] I had such fun with that! I played through it on my own, but the most fun was playing it in groups. The boys and I played through it twice, and I'm pretty sure "The Dudes" and I played through twice as well. We certainly played through it once.

So, when Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 came out, I had to have it. I've recently played with the boys [all three, now that Troy is among that group] and with "The Dudes" as well. None of us have finished it yet, but we are enjoying it just as much as we did the first game. For cooperative game play, it even beats Diablo II, in my book. It's very similar, in fact, to Diablo II in format, but we're superheroes, not fantasy characters. And the advancement, though similar, is more flexible. [You can choose to remove advances from one power to shift it to a new power, if you want.] Plus, there are special powers that are only available as combinations of powers from two heroes. Quite cool! [At the moment, Lucas is playing as Gambit, Adam is Spiderman, I have moved from Captain America to Iceman to Jean Grey and now to The Thing, and Troy joined in as The Human Torch. The screen is awash with mayhem and the flash of super-powers!]


Though I haven't played it much recently, I did play some Magic: Online last month. And more importantly, I gave Troy some real Magic: the Gathering cards so that he will be able to build decks of his own for playing this holiday season [which begins very soon, since he and Sarah will be with us over Thanksgiving.]

I doubt that's even a complete list, but certainly those are the four games that have been most on the forefront of my mind lately.

Civilization - the Game

Those silly Chinese.

For hundreds of years, we got along swimmingly, sharing a continent, trading with one another. I even granted them a gift of gold when they had none, just to help them out and engender some good will.

And how do they repay me? Declare war and attack!

Yet, silly as they are, they attacked over the narrow mountainous region which joined our two halves of the continent.

Do they not know how adept Carthaginians are at defending such an attack? We learned the value of such defense from the Spartans!

I had been building a small armada in preparation for launching an offensive against the Celts, who had bullied my two small towns off of the gods-forsaken continent on which they are minority territory-holders. So, naturally, when Mao attacked, the vessels were redirected.

Soon, I will have all of the old Chinese cities paying homage to Carthage. As a bonus, I will take control of the saltpeter near Beijing. I would have gladly traded for it, but, no, Mao decided that expansion was worth the risk.

It was a bad time to bluff, Mao. Now, I will be "doubling through" and then the world will recognize that Hannibal is, indeed, the World Conqueror.

Just One More Turn --- or Back Off the Wagon

I finished my most recent game of Civilization III Complete in April. Since then, I had not put the CD into a computer. I decided to take a break, because the game is so addictive! It's so easy to convince myself I can just take one more turn, or just play until the Pyramids are complete, or until I finally have access to horses, or whatever. And then, lo and behold, it's four hours later and I'm going to bed too late.

So, for four months, I went without Civ III. But last night, while everyone was watching Harry Potter 4, I decided I'd be better off playing Civ III than spending $20 to play Magic: Online.

And now, it's started again. I want to play Just One More Turn!

Yet, I know, it's not going anywhere. I could take a break for days or weeks (theoretically) and the game would still be there, in exactly the same spot, when I picked it up again.

Somehow, it still feels like the game is going on without me, and I'm missing something!

Definitely a great game. Definitely addictive.