Meet the Modders

RedAlert

Love one another
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
2,093
Location
Cobourg, Ontario, Canada
The purpose of this thread is to provide an area where members of our creation community can share and discuss our lives outside the realm of Civilization III. This is a place to communicate who we are, what we do, and other similar topics. All members of the Civilization III creation community are welcome to participate.

Rules and Guidelines:

- This thread is not a miniature Off-Topic forum. In-depth discussion or debate of topics not relevant to the purpose of this thread as outlined above should take place elsewhere.

- This thread is subject to forum rules regarding spamming, trolling, flaming, and all other offenses. Please ensure that discussion is as courteous as possible.


Feel free to suggest ways in which this OP can be improved, and in particular any additional rules and guidelines that ought to be stated.

I look forward to getting to know you all a little better. :)
 
First. :p

Hi guys, I'll assume that most of you know me as I've been hanging around for most of 7 years now though I am not consistently active anymore. I have not had the available time to be involved must in the last couple of years because of college. I'm in an accelerated graduate program in software engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh Pennsylvania USA) that is consuming my life for 12 months. I don't know what I'll be doing with it when I finish, but I'm starting the job interview process. I'd love to work on a game at some point, but I don't think I want to make a career out of it. Maybe if Steph wins the lottery he can hire me onto his team full-time :deal:

General points of interest....

I'm originally from Ohio and was in Daytona Beach Florida for 4 years as an undergraduate. Like our old friend polyphemus I was appointed to the US Air Force Academy, but I did not stay there.

I'm a total nerd, in more than just gaming. I like websurfing, programming, building computers, and a bit of graphic design. I'm very interested in science and technology, particularly in the areas of aviation, space, engineering, and computers. Besides Civ, I play Rome: Total War, Mount & Blade, Oblivion, and Peggle. I was a die-hard Sim-* (Maxis) fan back in the day.

I have always loved reading but again I don't find much time anymore. Fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction are my favorites. Huge fan of Tolkien (LotM!) and CS Lewis, and loved the Redwall series as a kid.

I'm very interested in world history- of course- especially the ancient through medieval near east and Europe, as well as American history.

I am not at all interested in traditional sports but I love outdoor activities like hiking, camping, biking, swimming, paintball, and rock climbing. I'm trying (in vain at the moment) to get back into good running shape to prepare for my first half marathon in August.

I enjoy watching movies- action/war, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, and the occasional witty comedy- and listening to music, mostly hard rock. :rockon:

I've been all over the eastern and central US but little international travel. I'd like to set foot on all seven continents (maybe climb a few mountains in the process), and in particular visit Australia/NZ, Egypt, Israel, Alaska, and any remote Pacific island.

I have a blog, in which I post very sporadically on various topics. I'm also on Twitter. See sig for links.

And that's me :D
 
Last edited:
I was born in January 1974, in Rumilly, Haute-Savoie, France. The date is easy to remember, as the 21 of january is the date of the beheading of Louis XVI, and I'm sure you all know it by heart. Haute-Savoie is the French department that borders both Italy and Switzerland, and where you will find Mont Blanc, highest point in Europe (if you exclude Mount Elbruz in the Caucasus).
Rumilly is a small town in the west of the department, in a relatively low area.

My parents met in Paris, my maternal grandmother was born in Constantinople, from a Russian mother and a Romanian father, and she came in France when she was young.
My maternal grandfather was from Vendée (you know, the area of France with royalist revolts during the French revolution).
From my father side, the familly comes from Savoy for as long as we know, so it was natural for my father to come back home and settle, after some times spend in different parts of France.

I grew up in a small village called Vaulx (an old pural form of Val, meaning valley). It was quite small, with only 500 inhabitants, and quite spread out. I was a relatively lonely child, as my sister is 15 years older than me, my brother 10, and most of the children were from peasant famillies, while my father was a craftman (electrician and plumber).
Beside, I was the smartest at school, and I skipped one year (well, in fact I did two years in one), and that unfortunately make you a bit outside of the others' games.

When I was 10, I went to Rumilly for Collège (collège in France is for 11-15 years old), during 4 years, and then I went to Annecy for Lycée (3 years where you prepare your Baccalauréat, the main diploma everyone should have according to our government).
After that, I went to "classes préparatoires". This is a system specific to France I believe, I could explain it more in details if you are interested. Basically, it's a kind of "competitor" to university, but more difficult and with better opportunities if you succeed. Normally, it's two years of intensive maths and physics, and the only goal is to train the students to take the entry exam to "Grandes Ecoles". It was a difficult time for me due to recurrent headaches, and I had to double the second year.

At the end of that, I took several exams (you have to choose, because there are to many to take all of them), and at first I succeede in the "weapon" school in Brest. So I left my home for the first time, and went to Brest, all the way accross France.

I stayed two days there, before I got a phone call from my mom telling me I passed the entry exam at ENAC (I was on the waiting list). So I left Brest, and went to Toulouse, and finally reached ENAC, were I studied during 3 years to become a engineer in computer science and air traffic.

After this, I did my military time in the Air Force, during 10 months, working at ENAC in a team developping software for civil aviation.

This allow me to get in contact with CGx, a software company working with ENAC on this topic.

At the end of my military time, I was hired by this company, and I'm still working for them. I started as project manager, then when the company grew and decided to relocated to Castres, a small town 80 km east of Toulouse, I became head of the aeronautical department (a nice word for a 4 people team).

After sometimes, the company restructure in 2003, and since then I've been product / bid/ project manager.

To finish with the professinal history, let me explain a bit what my company is doing, and then what are my tasks.

We make and sell software for aeronautics, with several main fields: aeronautical database management, instrument procedure design, aeronautical charting, emergency services (firemen mostly), mountain (we equipe ski resorts, to monitor their vehicles). Beside software development, we also propose services, mostly training and procedure design studies, or counsel for airports. Our main partners are ESRI inc (world leader in geographical information system), Thales, and Airbus.

My own work now: I am in charge of the procedure design software program. I work on the project management, I program myself some of the most complex parts, and I'm involded in testing and documentation.
Then, I make demonstrations, answer international call for tenders, train future users, and I go abroad to install the software and help the users get started.
It means I travel relatively often, and I've been to roughly 35 countries so far (Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Kosovo, Morroco, Egypt, Senegal, Kenya, Tanzania, Qatar, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, China, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Argentina, for my job, and you can add Italy, Switzerland, Andorra and Monaco for personnal trips). These are usually short trips: go to the airport, visit the civil aviation (close to the airport), go to the hotel (close to the airport) and come back. Even when I stay a few days, I seldom have time to really visit the country.

Now, more personnal stuf.
I met my future wife in Toulouse, while I was at ENAC. We got married in 1998, the 4th of July, after my military time. And I now have two kids: a 15 years old son, and a 13 years old daugther).

When my company moved to Castres, we rented an appartment in Mazamet, a small town nearby. And 11 years ago, we had an house build, on the outskirt of Mazamet, and we have been living there for 10 years now.

The village where I live is called Pont de l'Arn and is roughly 2800 inhabitants. It's right on the Meridian that cut France in half, but I'm in the south west region.

For my hobbies, when I was younger I played wargames, mostly Advanced Squad Leader, and Role Playing Game. I even wrote my own set of rules (I can give a link to anyone interested). 800 HMTL pages of rules (but all in French...).

Now, I'm playing computer games, mostly strategy (still good old CivIII o Europa Universalis), or RPG (Skyrim). I enjoy reading, mostly heroic fantasy book (my favourite are the Wheel of Time from Jordan, or the Belgariad cycle from Eddings, and of course Tolkien)

As you probably all know, I've tried to program my own game, but it's not my trade so I was learning at the same time, and it took a lot of time, with little real results. I couldn't find enough free time to work seriously on it. Maybe I'll start again later.

I'm also collecting and painting figurines, 1/72 scale, mostly Napoleonic ones. I used to paint them, but since 5 years now, I've been working on major mod for Napoleonic Total War, and I'm making uniforms with my computer, which much more details than I could do with my brush!

Regarding sports, I was not really into it when I was younger. When I arrived at ENAC, I started Aikido, and practiced it for almost two years, and I stopped after my studies.

I wanted to start again when my company relocated in Castres, but it wasn't very convenient as I travelled a lot, more than now.

But I wasn't in a good shape practising no sport... So I started again, and after almost three years of Aikido, with two 90 minutes training a week, I felt much better. However, I did not get along very well with the teacher, so when a new club opened in Mazamet, I changed club. I'm very happy with this: the two teachers are great, the spirit in the club is very nice, and I really feel I belong there. Thanks to that, I managed to get my black belt in April 2016, and I'm now preparing for the 2nd Dan (hopefully around June 2018). And this year, I'll try to get a diploma to be an official teacher assistant.
Last year, my wife decided to come back to Aikido (she used to practice when we met), after 15 interruption, and this year, my daughter decided to join us. So my son is the only one not practising it, but that's because he started Judo before there was an Aikido club in Mazamet, and is almost black belt, and doesn't want to switch until he finishes it.

One last thing: my wife and my children are involved in the Scouts movement (my son has been a Scout for 8 years, my daugter 6, and my wife is working in a group at the national level to define the pedagogy for the 6-7 years old). I'm not a Scout myself, but I support them.

I think I've covered many topics. I hope you'll find it interesting and it can spark some interest, and you'll want to ask questions or start new threads to cover some of the topics I quickly brushed here.
 
Last edited:
Some info on me:

I have lived in the town of Weymouth on the southern coast of England for pretty much all my life, although currently I'm in Aberystwyth in Wales studying International Politics at the uni there.

One of my hobbies is writing a TV show of mine (some excerpts can be found in the link in my sig), which is an idea me and a friend of mine had been bouncing around for some years, although I only started writing it in 2008, and I write it very slowly.

I like watching alternative comedies on TV, with The Young Ones being my all-time favourite show. I've got a good number of alternative comedies on DVD.

I listen to a fairly wide range of music, but I'm not going to pretend I like a bit of everything. My two favourite genres are punk and ska, with a Yugoslavian punk band called Paraf being my favourite band.
 
Thanks for making this thread RedAlert. Don't forget to post about yourself.

Well I'm not a veteran modder like those who have already posted, but I've been around for a wee while now. I'm working (very, very slowly) on half a dosen mods. It will be many years I suspect before any of them get close to any kind of release. Civ 3 modding is definitely my biggest hobbie and I like the community atmosphere (the one Oz is always talking about) here very much so I'd like to share a bit about myself too.

I'm a New Zealander. I'm in my mid 20's. Spent most of my life in NZ. Got a BA in History from the local University. Also studied Religious Studies, Political Science, Sociology etc

Been teaching English in South Korea for a year and I just got married to a Korean woman who I meet in NZ and followed back to Korea.

My main interests are history, politics, computer games and reading/writing. I love any history but for some reason I find most history after the Renaissance and before the first world war a bit borring. My favourite historical periods would have to be the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages in Europe with the Crusades being my number one favourite.

In terms of politics I'm a Socialist/Marxist.

I'm an Athiest but I've always found religion interesting, especially Christianity. At times I've been very interested, not just in the history of Christianity, but also in Christian theology. However, lately I've become somewhat less interested in religion and rather angry about many of the horrific crimes (both historical and modern) committed in the name of religion.

The computer games I usually play are Civ 3, and Rome and Medieval 2 Total war.

Oh, I shouldn't forget my other two nerdiness outlets. Magic: the Gathering and Warhammer 40k. I don't play either of them all that often but every now and then when I have plenty of spare time I like to play those two games.

I read mostly historical novels and fantasy fiction, with the occassional non-fiction history or politics book thrown in. I worked in a library for 3 years before coming to Korea and I'll probably end up back in library work in the future at some point.

Cheers

Nick
 
Okay...
Well, my name is George (suprise, suprise), and I live in England. I'm not telling you where, but it's about an hours drive from London.
I'm currently 14, and in my first year of studying for my GCSEs. My best/favourite subjects would have to be Maths, Art and Classical Civilization.
I go to a grammar school, so only clever people get in, which pretty much means even if your in the bottonm set of something, you're still bound to get at least an A in the countrywide exams.
Most of my time is spent watching TV(The Simpsons, Scrubs, Family Guy, Two and a Half Men, etc.) and playing on my laptop(CivIII, internetting.).
I play the drums (reasonably well) and am a Christian. As in a proper one, not just someone who got baptised and figured that'd buy them their way into heaven.
I have two younger brothers and one older (but shorter) step-sister. My parents got divorced when my youngest brother was 0 or 1 or somewhere around there, and my dad pretty soon married my step-mum. A few years later, my mum married my step-dad. No grudges.
I listen to a lot of music, my favourite bands being Aerosmith and Guns N Roses.
That's about it. :D
 
My name is Kyriakos, as i suppose many people here already know. I have a degree in Philosophy, which i got from studying in a university in England, since when i was 17 still there were few positions in greek universities and the fiercest competition to get in, and also it was a time of great turmoil for myself. So i decided to study in that foreign country, and four years later i graduated.
During my studies i stayed in London, although again it was a difficult era for me and i did not get to fully exploit the possibilities of life in that metropolis.
I was born in Thessalonike, the second largest city in Greece, home to around 1,5 million people.
I am a writer, it is my profession, and around two months ago i was published for the first time. I am thirty years old.
I started writing stories when i was 17, one night i was reading a book of tales by H.P. Lovecraft that someone from school had lent me, and i felt horror, which impressed me tremendously and immediately i decided that i want to produce work that causes strong emotions on others. However it took me almost 10 years to manage to form my own distinct style, and get rid of influences by other authors, also to arrive at a set thematology for my work, which is dark fantasy, mixed with horror, with heavy psychological tones.
I keep a diary, in its present form since 2005, and it has reached around 5000 pages, something which helped me a lot to realise who i am, and come to terms with my past, since i had been suffering from depression since the late elementary school years. Now i am a lot better, almost happy, which is my goal.
I think that this will do for a brief history of my life :)
 
My name is Tim, and I was born on april 27th 1990 in a city near Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It's a date easy to remember because the crown-prince of my country has the same date of birth. I've lived all my 19 years in the city I was born in. I'm an Atheist.

at the moment I study computer science in the university of Utrecht, I'm currently in my first year.

My hobbies are gaming (duh), just hanging with friends, and playing football (actual football, not that abomination americans call football...). I also like watching tv and listening to music, though not as actively as other people might do :p. Some of my favorite shows are Avatar: the last airbender (as seen in some of my units :p), Scrubs, South Park, American dad/family guy, Mythbusters. I don't have a specific taste in music, I listen to pretty much everything except country and metal, with no specific band or name as favorite.

I love playing strategy games alot, my favorite ones being civ 3 and 4, warcraft 3 TFT, battle for middle earth 2 and battleforge. I also play lineage 2 quite often, and every now and then an online shooter or single player console RPG.

well thats about it for now, maybe I'll think of more if I see other things discussed by other people, looking forward to meeting more modders :)
 
Well then, I was born in 1976 and come from east Kent. My BA and master's were in philosophy and theology, and I initially hoped to do a PhD in patristic theology but although I got the place I didn't get the funding. So I spent several years doing all sorts of things - I worked as a proof-reader and copy-editor, helped run a ski lodge in New Zealand, and did various things in broadcasting, including help make a couple of films and work for a time devising new programme ideas. The main thing I did was work as a subtitler, which involved a lot of brutal shift work and (even more brutal) watching of 24-hour news channels. During this period I also started writing, having concluded from my work as a proof-reader that I could probably do just as well as many of the authors whose books I worked on. So I wrote my first book, on the history of Christian theology, while in New Zealand and went on from there. Right now my sixth and seventh books are about to be published. Most of my books are aimed at general readers and are on historical theology or church history, which is a bit odd as I am not really a church historian. I've said a little about the writing process here.

After three years as a subtitler I changed gear somewhat and went to Singapore to do a PhD in philosophy, with a thesis on Leibniz. I still did a bit of film-related stuff while there and carried on writing things entirely unconnected to my studies, so it was a busy time. After returning to Britain I worked on a year-long project in philosophy of religion at Oxford, which finished last autumn. And now I'm trying to find the next job. Academia is a staggeringly difficult field to find work in at the best of times, with low pay and terrible job security even if you do get something, and it has become much worse in this respect over the past ten or fifteen years. In the past two years it has become worse still thanks to the prevailing economic conditions. Not only is there now an almost complete hiring freeze in both the UK and the US, but the recent cutting of funds for education by the government here means that many universities are cutting academic staff. So it is almost impossible to find work, especially if you have a somewhat unusual background, as I do.

Still, even if it doesn't work out I'm proud of what I've achieved in only a few years as a returnee academic - I've published quite a few papers in journals, on a range of topics including patristics, early modern philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of religion, which have advanced those fields even if only a little bit. This harder, really, than writing books for a general audience, as they represent original research; I've said a bit about the process of writing them here. So I have made my contribution to the mound of learning. I am currently co-editing a book of papers based on a conference I helped organise, on the subject of the metaphysics of the doctrine of the incarnation, which should become a standard work on the subject, and that too is something to be proud of.

All of this aside, it should be obvious to most lurkers here what I do with much of my spare time (or time that isn't really spare - I made a lot of my most elaborate and time-consuming units when I should have been writing my thesis). I have loved computer games since I had a ZX81 - well, all right, since I had a C64, since the ZX81 didn't really have games, and the ones it did have you had to type in. In fact we didn't have a tape recorder so I had to type them in every time I wanted to play them. I played the original Civilization extensively on my Amiga back in the day and thought it amazing; I then spent some years not playing such things for quite a while until the days of Civ III, which I thought equally amazing although overly fancy from a graphics point of view. (This must have been a long time ago...) From a games point of view I am really most interested in sandbox or simulation games that aim to simulate a world and give the player freedom to act within that world as they see fit, something I've found wonderful since playing Frontier (Elite II - I never played the original although everyone seems to think it superior) many years ago. Today I love games like Oblivion but feel there is still a long way to go in developing convincing worlds of this kind and removing the almost universal obsession with fighting. I like text games too, and have done ever since encountering Zork on our school computers in the late 1980s - how amazing it seemed to have what appeared to be an entire world hidden in the computer, which you could interact with in whatever way you could think of just by typing it in. Of course no such game has really lived up to that promise, but there are some amazing games of that genre freely available these days which have pushed the envelope. I have even been known to do some programming in that direction myself. I have been an enthusiastic but rubbish programmer since the C64 days and wasted a lot of time programming in AMOS on the Amiga when I should have been writing my master's thesis. I do think that my experiences of attempting programming as a teenager, even in Basic, were not entirely wasted as it encouraged me to think logically, something which proved handy later on when I became a philosopher.

My favourite games over the years would have to include: the Zork trilogy, Rainbow Islands, Populous (I and II), Lemmings (I and II, II being probably the greatest game of its kind ever made), Dungeon Keeper II, World of Warcraft, Super Mario Galaxy (easily the best platform game I have ever seen), Oblivion, and Dwarf Fortress. But I still think the greatest game ever made is Moria (although if Dwarf Fortress is ever finished, it will surpass it).

I also like the blues (about which I actually know a lot more than I do about theology or philosophy). My favourite artist is Blind Willie McTell. I am not religious but I am sympathetic to religion in general, having many close friends in both the Christian and neo-pagan worlds (I have given occasional talks on Christian esoterica to largely pagan audiences in London). I have tried to encourage greater objective understanding of religion among both its adherents and its detractors in my books, and of course I also have a thread of questions, answers, and discussions on the subject, with a convenient index, where my views on these matters can be found. I am not interested in sport and I do not like living in Britain, especially London, which I hate; ideally I would like to move to a nicer city overseas, preferably with a nice cold climate, but this is easier said than done. My perfect dinner party guests would be Socrates, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter Abelard, Leibniz, William Gladstone, Dietrich Bonheoffer, Blind Willie McTell, Gerald Durrell, and Raistlin Majere. They probably wouldn't agree on much, but it would be an interesting gathering, if distressingly masculine.
 
Hullo, this is Takhisis of the CFC forums.

Anyway, there's a lot that I won't say as it's personal, and this is NOT a democratic country.

I live in Argentina. I was born here to sons of immigrants in 1990, we went to Europe, then back here as my parents thought they could make it . Well, now we're stuck here. I've already made it past high school and am now dredging my way through an interpreter's degree. I already speak English (obviously) and Spanish, and I want to learn some more languages.

I want to move back to Europe. But I need my degree first. One day I'll be back to Scotland, yay! I hope the country will be a free Republic by then. If not, well... let's give a hand...

I'm also a Roman Catholic, and a resolute pacifist. I don't condone any war (c'mon, civ is a game), under any excuses. I want world peace .
I have a somewhat antisocial personality IRL, which sometimes becomes noticeable on the forums.
I'm good at making models on Blender 3D but not at animating them. have a rquest? It can be put on my to-do list -if I like it.

Hobbies: playing Magic: the Gathering (I quit tournaments some years ago because it's too expensive in Argentina :wallbash:); Dragonlance; fantasy crap including dragons and other stuff; board games; Forumwarz; vidjamagames, I'm a heavy gamer (DOSbox rulez!!!); 3D modelling in general and Blender 3D in particular; well, I could go on and on... but I'll bring it to a close for now.
_______________________________________
I do not like your inviting Raistlin Majere, Plotinus...
 
My first name is Emil and I am Polish. My last name is extremely rare, even for back home. I was born in the poorest province in Poland in a small town 30km from Lublin. I was raised in a tiny Stalinist era flat with my mother, sister and grandfather. My dad, brother and grandmother had left prior to my birth and the time of Martial Law. 4 years later the rest of my family finally got a VISA to leave for the US and we settled in Fort Worth Texas. That's the large city NEXT to Dallas, but not Dallas. I did not have any friends in my neighborhood to play with, and I changed schools often enough that it was hard to keep any friends from previous years. My dad did not believe in spending money on anything, so things like Scouts, little league sports or any sort of social activities were absent from my childhood. So this lack of social training was distinctly lacking in my life and in later years it has severely affected my personality. So instead I filled my time with reading novels, encyclopedias, watching ungodly amounts of PBS and other television, and drawing. I got started drawing pretty early, maybe 7-8. At the time I was pretty good at it too but didn't practice enough.


My first computer was a Tandy1000 TL/2 that we got in 1988. The first thing I learned to do on it was use the Draw program in Deskmate. (a poor Windows clone for DoS) The first picture I did was a portrait of a general. For 16 color, it was pretty good. I was always interested in space, design, architecture and engineering.. but none of those really worked out for me. Growing up I was generally the smartest kid in class, even correcting some history textbooks at times. I was also usually the smallest kid as well. What happens when you can't defend yourself physically when you get bullied? Well you either become a comedian, or snarky wit. Many of you have been on the recieving end of said wit. Since I always scored high on various standardized tests, my parents decided to have me follow my equally smart older brother to our cities advanced students program. MAGNET was an idea to take smart kids from the suburbs and bus them to the inner city to underachieving schools to balance things out. So I spent grades 6-12 in mostly black schools. It's an interesting experience being one of the few white guys in a class.

After art/design, my childhood dream was to be a military officer, an Air Force pilot to be exact. I've been an avid consumer of anything military related since I could read, and even before. When I'd to go the library as a kid, I'd sit for hours reading about tanks and WW2 related subjects in the reference ailes. Also in high school, I had the opportunity to join the JROTC program. I liked it. I liked the uniform, the discipline, the attitude, social nature, and physical aspects of it. I was good at it too. My graduating year I was chosen by a panel of military instructors as the top cadet in the city. Mostly a figurehead, but a good thing to put on a college application. Unfortunately my normal school subjects werent as good. When I was younger, I was a big fish in a small pond, but when I got to these advanced schools, my grades were somewhat average, especially compared to some of the other students. Try as I might, I couldn't compete on even footing with some of them, so I stopped trying, especially in Math. I did fine in Trigonometry but CalculusII kicked my but. Differential Equations was offered at my school but due to a scheduling snafu by my councelor, I was a year behind in math. But I still graduated in the top 10% of my very very small class. Unfortunately, my social life was completely lacking. I hated High School and about 90% of the poeple I went to class with, I wouldn't give them the time of day if I met them on the street. Only a small handful I still keep in touch with. The rest can go hang.

During this time I had been trying to get admitted to the US Air Force Academy, but it was a lost cause because I was not yet a US Citizen. So instead my dad suggested I follow my older sister to Texas A&M University because of it's Reserve Officer Training program. There I could go to a military school within a 40 thousand student major university. As crazy as it sounds, these were the best years in my life. Even crazier, I found it easier at times than staying at home with my overly strict parents. During my 4 years there, I was preparing myself to become a USAF officer and things were looking good. My grades were average at times, absolutely nothing to write home about. What I did excel at was my Air Force Officer Qualifying Test... The officers at the Military Sciences Building were rather vocal at how jealous they were at my scores, nothing lower than 92nd percentile. 95th Pilot and 94th Navigator.. on a test where 60th would be competetive. But unfortunately I had 2 drawbacks. One was my poor vision, the other my refusal to kiss butt. So in my senior year I paid $3400 to have laser eye surgury because the officer's said that they'd recategorize me from Missles/Space to Pilot with my scores. I did, they didn't.

That didn't matter too much because soon after that, there was an incident that caused me to have a major nervous breakdown. Infact in a few days I'm coming up on the 7th anniversary of it. No need for details, but I learned that no matter what I plan, there is always some jackass, or group of buffoons that will joyfully ruin your plans/life. That nervouse breakdown was just the prelude to nearly 2 years of deep clinical depression. I became sick, stopped going to class, and saw my dreams die before my eyes. I lost my USAF contract, dropped out of school and never got my degree. So I had to move back home to parents I couldn't stand. With no degree, and no money to go back to school, I had a hard time finding a job. After a year I managed to find some menial work but I hate it still. I did not come out of my depression until I moved out from my parents house. That was 5 years ago and I haven't had a good time since.

I do not get along with my family. We seem to have a genetic nack for not communicating with each other even the most basic of ideas. What love and strong relationships most poeple have for their blood relatives, I have for my friends. And I have a very small number of poeple I can trust and truly call friends, and I'd do anything for them. My parents, especially my father, was overly strict. I was the baby and they didn't even let me drive until I was 21. I didn't even have my first gf until later that same year. As I said, military school was less strict and more fun than living at home.

But now, I live alone, no children or ex's to support. My politics is 95% Republican, only a few things on their platform I dissagree with. Most of you would call me a neocon... don't care.

The only game I'm currently playing is Borderlands.

As for my computer skillz: I have been using Bryce since 1997 and Photoshop since 1995. When I was depressed, these things were the only thing that kept my mind occupied. I can use Bryce in my sleep and I prefer it over all other programs. I've always wanted to create, just MAKE things. And when I first visited CFC back in 2001, then 2003, my propensity for creating art now had an outlet. When I figured out the procedure on how to make units, I became obsessed with it.. hence the 2000 units I've done. I work a crappy job in the evenings. I'm awake all night and sleep during the day. I have nothing else to do in the meantime. Because of my awful schedule I don't even have a social life as my normal days off are in the middle of the week. Last year I had to stop my only hobby (making units) because of a series of money problems (car) that left me nearly broke and even had a minor (relatively) nervous breakdown.


In the past I've tried to help others become unit makers and but the results have been less than satisfying. I can count on 1 hand (and not even use all my fingers) on the number of successes I've had. Why? because they seem to take my gifts and dissapear. I tell them and teach them about all the programs that are needed and they get discouraged. OR, they make a few nice things, I offer my 3d models.. they take them and are NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN! Getting others to work with me is just as hard. Even when I provide all the tools needed for poeple to express their wants, 99.999999% are either too lazy or talentless to even try. Sofar, only Ares and 19Delta have put forth the effort to work with me. So very dissapointing, which is why I stopped trying to help. I also don't like taking requests because of just the crazy amounts I used to get, and most of them were inane. Some of you might remember my Noob dictionary where I voiced my frustration.

Yes I am I high strung, overly obsessive and demand the impossible out of poeple, like the ability to read . That is how I have been my entire life and I'm not going to change any time soon. No I will not chill out and smoke a doobie.
Think of me as a TV program. You don't like it, don't watch it.
I guess I've written enough for now. It's descriptive enough for this, but still vague that you still don't know who I am, which is how I prefer it.
updated with pix.
 
All began in 1978 when I was born in a city in the northern part of the Ruhr Industrial area. Shortly after my birth, we moved further north, and that's where I live now, in the rural countryside of Westphalia. Lots of forests, fields and pretty villages, and not far away from the metropolitan behemoth of the Ruhr. I spend my early youth either reading, what I teached to myself at the age of 4 to my parents' surprise, or on the outside, in the fields or in the woods. Even today, when I open a book or enter a forest, I feel a deep ease of mind, a feeling being home. School was easy, and after doing the homework, I went outside, roaming around, climbing trees, making spears, all that boy stuff. I guess this was the time before parents became overly protective.
When puberty came, problems came. I was a rather silent and insecure person, and had several encounters with bullies at school. Girls? No chance. My grades dropped, classical story.
When I became 16, I decided that I would no longer want to please, no longer want to be someone else. My hair grew, my clothes changed, my choice of music as well. I started to bite back when attacked, found real friends, good people. First girlfriends, many parties, Metal festivals.
After school and 13 months of duty, I went to university for Anglophone Studies and Medieval & Modern History. Nearly at the same time, I started my journalistic career at a local newspaper. And I bought my first sword.
Today, this sword hangs from a wall over this very pc I'm writing on. It's now battle-scarred and retired, but there are several others next to it. Yes, I'm still a re-enactor, I work as a journalist in another newspaper, and I will finish my exams as a Historian soon. From time to time, I'm giving history lessons at schools and enjoy travelling, museums, nature - and the gain of knowledge.
My 1st computer was a 8086 (yes, before the 286) with a crappy monitor and the game "Lemmings". I still have Civ 1 somewhere.
I'm a pretty open person, but I hate injustice and totalitarism, including overly religious matters. I believe in laicism and democracy. I choose my friends carefully and I usually have a good sense when it comes to take the measure of somebody.
If you ever happen to come to Germany, give me a call. We have beer and BBQ here. ;)
 
Here's a brief bit about me...

My real name is Alastair. 'Grandraem' was actually the name of a city I created for my character's dominion, when I played D&D a number of years back. I joined Civfanatics while creating my Mystara mod, and just decided to use that name as my username.

My dad was English, and came to Canada alone, by boat, in his early 20s. Here he met my mom, who came with her family to Canada from Malta, when she was young. They met in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, got married, and had my brother and I. I was born in March, 1976. We moved to Australia for 3 years when I was younger, then came back to Canada.

I'm a bit of a lost soul in many aspects of my life, but manage to stay grounded. I love reading: fantasy books (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, etc.), poetry (Poe, Tennyson, etc.), books about history and/or religion, as well as fanciful tales (1000 and One Nights, Illiad, etc.), and, well, just about anything except romance novels. My greatest passions in life are art (all types), history, mythology, and religion. I'm hoping to one day (yes, I know I'm 33 and should already have had this sorted :blush: ) be a great painter. My favourite artists are J.W. Waterhouse and Michelangelo. Currently however, I'm on a little fascination with Icon Painting, which I really like.

Other hobbies/loves include D&D (which should be obvious, although I don't play anymore), Final Fantasy games (loved them ever since the first one on NES), other RPGs (mostly SquareSoft - Vagrant Story was awesome! and Chrono Trigger/Cross were great! Xenogears was one of the best game I ever played!), martial arts (I briefly took Taekwondo and Kendo), Anime (Ah/Oh My Goddess! series and others), most types of music, Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones movies, as well as many current movies (my favourite recent movie was Zombieland). I'm sure there are other things I'll think of later, but right now I'm drawing a blank.

Anyone interested in learning any more about me or socializing can PM me, or I recently joined Facebook (you can PM me for my full name) if you wish to get in contact.
 
I not much of a modder, aside from a few M-Units, and Betatesting. I'm dabbling a bit in creating a scenario, but so as to not to raise and then potentially dash your hopes I won't name the subject of it. So I'm hoping that being a hang-around will suffice :p

My name is Justin and I was born in central Wisconsin back in 1987. Up until 1st grade, I tended to be the "alphamale", taking crap from nobody. Second grade was a complete 180, and I was diagnosed with depression. This is also the timespan when I decided that I wanted to be: an Air Force pilot after hearing that an F-117 flew over our school, and I became addicted to all things military (the uniforms, firearms, etc). Things were pretty much the same until I started 7th grade in a different school district. I got into quite a few fights during this time, hitting one bully so hard I bruised my knuckles. This is also the time when I gained a great interest in World War II, and I could always be found in the high school library reading books about it or looking at battlemaps.

Around 9th or 10th grade is when I first bought Civ3 vanilla, and it's also around the time I found CFC. Late my senior year I discussed (in those ******ed interviews with the high school counselors) my plans on joining the Air Force, and I was dismayed to find out that my chances were next to nil. The chances were removed completely when a friend of mine, that was a Marine Corps recruiter, said there's really no chance in hell I'd be allowed to serve with my depression.

Having my military dreams disappear before my eyes I frantically sent out applications to many different colleges, and got accepted to a local technical college where I graduated with an Associate Degree in Information Technology. I also realized that if I couldn't be a soldier, I could still play one, and I joined a WW2 German re-enacting unit based in Milwaukee. The majority of the members are former members of the military, and they run the unit as such (to my delight).

I was unable to find a local IT job, so as of January 20th I'm a student University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. I haven't declared a major yet, but I'm really leaning towards History and perhaps minoring in foreign language (preferably German).

I'm still a firearm enthusiast (10 firearms and I'm 22) and dog lover (3 dogs) with strong conservative views, though I generally try to avoid discussing them as they tend to start arguments. I enjoy the "zombie apocalypse" type movies, classic rock, and did I mention guns?
 
Last edited:
Hi,
My name is Kevin, I was born in Montreal Qc. Canada in 1970, but have lived in a small town south of Montreal on the United States border all my life. Contrary to many people here I have very little background education in computers. After high school I completed one semester of college in Kingston Ontario and decided it wasn't for me.
Having always had an interest (and experience as a student) in landscaping I worked for a golf course for a couple years and then opened a landscaping company, at which I still work at this very day. Although I started as just a self-employed worker, I now have four trucks on the road and seven employees in the high season. I am currently also in the process of opening a nursery.
I was always a great student especially in history and geography, and started playing civ 3 around 2005 and have been hopelessly addicted ever since. Though I am by no means anything of an artist, I have started to dabble a little with graphics. My modding comes more in the form of dling some of the great creations the rest of u have made and building scenarios with them. I only posted one online (Ancient America), however I was new at modding at the time and it wasn't very good. I have spent the last couple years drastically improving it, and it will be ready soon. I'm also working on another called (Rise of the Iroquois Nation) which also should be ready in the coming months.
I'm married but have no kids with two legs. I have many with four legs however. 4 dogs, 4 cats, 3 horses, 1 donkey and a raccoon. Yea that's right I have a domestic raccoon. (cool eh?);)
I'm also a musician, I play the guitar and sing and have been in various local rock bands and folk duos over the years. I don't drink (gave that up years ago) but go out socially with my wife to cafes or bars to dance or play guitar and sing. I'm religiously neutral but very spiritual just the same.
Most of all I love to visit Civ-fanatics and have met some great people here in these forums:goodjob:
 
I'm starting to see a pattern here. How many former-future USAF pilots do we have in this forum? :lol:
I think Padma is one as well. But Steph was in the French Air Force, not USAF.

I'd never join in any armed force, anyway, so you're not gonna have me as well. :)
 
I think Padma is one as well. But Steph was in the French Air Force, not USAF.

I'd never join in any armed force, anyway, so you're not gonna have me as well. :)

Padma was/is a software engineer in the USAF. To be more clear, I wanted to be a pilot until I heard I couldn't join the service, then I basically said "Screw it! If they'll take me I'll join!"
 
Top Bottom