F^4 What do you do for a living? Does that draw you to strategy gaming?

[JonathanValjean]

I am a foreign languages teacher,and, natuarally, I also have a tremendous interest in multi-cultural issues and in world history.
Also, I am highly analytical, so Civ feeds these traits/interests quite nicely.

 

[mabellino]

Originally posted by ainwood


Like my new avatar then?

That would be a caffeine molecule then? Sad chemist alert! (me)

 

[Qitai]

Impressive list of professions for a game forum.

I too had maths background, having a Masters of Science in Mathematics. Work in a consulting firm and managing IT project at the moment. Travel alot usually flying all over Asia. But the recent SARS got me grounded so had been a lot more active on GOTM recently.

 

[runifoc]

Originally posted by Txurce
... a love of strategy board games as a kid led me to work out the probabilities for dice rolls.

I also worked out the probabilities for dice rolls as a kid. This led me to wonder whether the same results could be achieved with a different set of pips on the dice. The answer is yes and the dice would be marked as follows:

1st die = 1,2,2,3,3,4
2nd die = 1,3,4,5,6,8

I remarked a pair of dice with these numbers. Unfortunately, I never met anyone who liked to play games who would also let me use the dice.

 

[runifoc]

I work as an IT/Network Support Technician with the Jefferson County Commission. My interest in strategy games derives from an early interest in history and politics. When I was five ('56) I was asking about the possible consequences of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union. Alas, no one took my comments or questions seriously.

I was a Navy brat and went to 12 grade schools and five high schools. I started school in Hawaii and spent most of my childhood in California.

I bought my first strategy wargame (Tactics II from Avalon Hill) in '61 but could not find any opponents until '69. My father played one game with me but quit after four turns. My brother could never get beyond the second or third turn; he often quit during the setup.

From '71 to '74 I was president of a nation-wide PBM strategy gamers club with 600 members. I was also a play-tester for the pre-release version of Dungeons & Dragons and a play-tester for Avalon Hill.

I served in the Army from '70 to '78 (learning Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA) and in the Army Reserve from '78 to '95 (going back to the DLI for Korean).

I have had two more birthdays than changes of address. I have worked in over 20 different fields ranging from day laborer to food service supervisor to massage therapist to project manager.

I started working with computers in '79 and have been working in the IT field since '98. I own over 200 board strategy games (most of them gathering dust in a closet) and about 20 computer strategy games. I have been playing CivIII since August and was referred to CivFanatics in December by a friend.

 

[Creepster]

That would be a caffeine molecule then? Sad chemist alert! (me)

Thanks for letting me know. Ainwood I did not recognize it. It is nice to see something that I enjoy so much !!

 

[civ_steve]

Add one more to the techie side. I earned a Bachelor's in Computer Science 2 decades ago, was hired by a major defense contractor to work on developing the analysis environment for certain engineering applications, became one of the experts for the company in that field, and now do more managing and consulting than actual SW development or analysis.

I've been into strategy gaming forever. Chess as a wee tyke, Risk at 10, Third Reich in High School, a subscription to S&T, lots of AH games in college (KingMaker was always fun, but not very strategic)(and don't forget D&D), etc. I have quite a collection of board games. Computer gaming came later, probably one of the Text based Star Trek type games was first. I've got Doom and DoomII (and played them alot), but the arcade-action games are only for casual fun; I much prefer the strategy games!! And I've played Civ from its first release.

Gaming came way before work.

 

[Sabre]

I have been a cook for most of my working life but that is about to end in a few months as I am going back to school to learn the ways of Telecommunications. Old man on campus!

My family was really into board games as a kid (Risk, Monopoly, Sorry, Life etc...) and then we got our first 386 computer. My brother brought home this funny game called Civilization. I've been playing Civ games off and on ever since!

 

[Phaedria]

Im a doctor. Worked for some years in general internal medicine and am now a family Dr (GP ) Nee Civ to de-stress me !

 

[ipris]

So many smart peoples
I work for a small telecom consulting company for General Electric. We deal with voice and data circuit billing / provisioning and maintenance all day.... on slower days i manage to squeeze in a few games of bubble hockey in the "conference room".

 

[Detritus]

University professor - chemistry - chemist alert indeed.
Do NOT like numbers and I am computer-semiliterate - civ appeals to me due to the fantasy component [I guess most of you number crunchers forgot that there is one ]. And if anybody objects to me playing civ and tells me to "get a life" I'd say that I already got one with all the components of the American dream (job, family, car and dog) but I take a few bottles of good beer and an evening to play civ anytime. Unfortunately, beer plays havoc with my game.

 

[Mark Young]

I feel like an illtierate with so many of you techies about.

I've been a Veterinary nurse for the last 6 years,
Before that I was a bike Courier in Sydney for 4 years which was the best fun job I of could ever had and before that I had various jobs in factories as a S*** kicker.
Civ3 is a great game to wind down the day after having a had day with all the animals.
My job doesn't pay very well, I clean up foul smelling odours and fluids every day, sometimes off me,get biten and scratched it can be a real emotional rollercoaste of a job sometimes but I would'nt do anything else.
(actually I would but I just haven't figured out what yet).

 

[Offa]

Originally posted by Phaedria
Im a doctor. Worked for some years in general internal medicine and am now a family Dr (GP ) Nee Civ to de-stress me !

Fantastic. I'm not the only doctor playing civ. I am a radiologist, which is admittedly a bit of a geek specialty.

 

[ltccone]

Right now I'm an environmental consultant.

I've had some interesting careers. I was a furniture buyer in a department store, then a shipfitter at a shipyard, and then a database administrator.

I spent 22 years in the army reserve where I learned computers. I served in the first Gulf War.

As a kid I owned all of the Avalon Hill games that I mostly played solitare, because no one would play with me

Most of the games I play are turn-based strategy, wargames, or RPGs.

 

[Svar]

Originally posted by runifoc

I bought my first strategy wargame (Tactics II from Avalon Hill) in '61 but could not find any opponents until '69.

That was my first wargame as well. Mine was so old that the counters didn't use NATO symbols for the units they were marked as 1st Inf Div or 6th Ar Div. When I wore that one out and got a new one it had the NATO symbols on the counters.

I'm an Aerospace engineer working for the Naval Air Warfare Center at China Lake, California. For those not familiar with China Lake it was the Navy Lab where the Sidewinder Missile was invented in the 1950s. Our latest claim to fame was when Secretry of Defense Rumsfeld bragged about a crash program to put a new Hellfire missile into the field in about 1 year. The warheads were made here on a crash program.

 

[Naboo]

I work as a systems programmer, which basically means I figure out what's wrong when there's not enough information and nobody has a clue

Strangely enough, it probably hurts my Civ3 play. After a day of detail work the last thing I have an interest in is micromanaging every citizen's daily itinerary in all my cities. I like the macro stuff and thinking about the game from the perspective of "leader", not middle-manager. Probably why I'm usually fighting to claw my way back up in the higher levels

 

[Mark Young]

Can someone tell me what f^4 means in the title?

 

[MadScot]

Freaky free fire friday, I think

(since all these threads started on Fri 13th, and it was a free for all on subjects - normally the GOTM forum is pretty focused on the games)

 

[Mark Young]

ok thanks. I could'nt work out if it was the "F" word or not.

 

[Phillip_martin]

After a degree in which I obtained a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy of Science, I fell into a traineeship into computing (couldn't get into foreign affairs ) which after a stint in programming and design has lead me to being a.........

IT Consultant (basically a Business Analyst with an IT bent)

This coupled with a passion for the old Avlon Hill, Jedko, etc strategy board games I played when I was a kid led straight into the PC versions of strategy gaming.