Common Experiences

It's always fun for me to post about something not related to knitting -- inevitably I discover that some of my not-so-crafty hobbies are equally well enjoyed by others. The Civillization games look to be no exception. What is it about them that makes you glue your eyes to your monitor and your hands to the keyboard whispering "just one more turn" to the person trying to convince you that it is time to go to bed?

Clearly Firaxis has something figured out.

I actually only played one game today. Believe it or not, I spent most of the day actually reading the manual while working on my new sock project. I'm not sure if this will surprise anyone, but I am one of those people who loves to pour through game manuals. To me, reading the manual somehow heightens the anticipation of playing the game, helps me "get into character" so to speak. For a game like Civ, there's something magical about digging through all the information and trying to figure out what basic strategies are going to interest me.

I was hoping to take a picture to provide some proof that I actually did work on that sock, but the last of my camera batteries just gave out and I don't have another set charged. So you'll just have to trust me -- 7 inches of stripey sock top as I go into the weekend.

And my first impressions of Civ IV? Well, my first foray was just on the extremely wimpy level so that I could see how the game play mechanics have changed. From a "just one more turn" perspecitve, the additiction factor is clearly still there. It runs mostly okay on my machine (a Gateway M505 with an ATI Radeon 95-something). Graphics are fine but periodically it just crashes to desktop -- not often or predictably, but there's some little buggy critter in there somewhere, which is not so surprising for a brand new game as complicated as this one. Music is wonderful, and the 3D-perspective adds a new dimension to the game (no pun intended). It's going to take me a while to get the hang of dealing with the new religious element of the game, and I love what they've done with diplomacy -- much better than it used to be in Civ III.

Heh. And now I need to squeeze in a few more turns before I got to bed...