How to deal with the burnouts

[konigstiger]

I've seen people posted that they can play this crazy game all day long without sleep or anything , but really sometimes I got too burned out after a couple hours especially if it's during 1500 - 2050 AD where you have a lot of units moving around and cities to manage. At first it's just my eyes feeling sore after dilating too much, but lately I've been feeling some kind of "brain fatigue" that really had the effect to refrain me from playing. Is there any trick to deal with this or it's just that my stamina is inferior from those super addicts ?

 

[akinkhoo]

we became machines
we don't have to eat nor sleep
we have a socket at the back of our neck that run the the power socket!

 

[damunzy]

Only do it if you find it fun. With Civ2 I would play hard core for a few weeks and then wouldn't touch the game for a month. Civ3 has been a more steady even playing but since lately I haven't played much....damn UN victory is so unrewarding.

 

[Zouave]

After about five hours I start getting that queasy feeling so I stop.

That happens only two or three times a week at most. I can't imagine anyone being able to stare at this screen for longer than that and not get nauseous.

 

[Trabpukcip]

Ok there's the deal...

Close your eyes between turns, that could help a lot. And a good book is a good alternative. That's for the eyes problem.

A good solution for the brain fatigue is to listen to a calm music while playing. And another one is well...

 

[Tassadar]

1.- Stop going to school
2.- Stop working
3.- Dont listen your mother/wife
4.- When you are no more able to play, then go to sleep.

 

[Daaraa]

Back in the days of long AI turns (1.16 path for sure) you could go cook dinner, eat it, clean up and then go to the bathroom long before the AI was done moving. This helped deal with this.

Now, just enough time for the bathroom. I'd say just stop for an hour or so and then come back.
Maybe, just maybe, your body is trying to tell you something

 

[SirJava]

I feel sad admitting to this but I have played from 11:00 pm until 8am and still not want to stop. (I have to force myself to go sleep to break the cycle). Thats 9 hours.

I dont know how long I could go?

how long has anyone els played??

 

[God]

The most I've played is about 4 hours. I don't know how people can look at a PC that long. Even with 4 hours I took breaks. Go off to get a snack, read a few chapters from a book, and then come back, play more, go do something else.

 

[Arioch]

Brain fatigue? What brain fatigue? I'm purfeckly norml after spending 6 hours staring at civ 3. gleebl fleepl

I find that making lots of coffee helps. It wakes you up when you drink it, you have to get up to make it and unless you have a 'special' chair you have to get up to get rid of it

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by SirJava
I feel sad admitting to this but I have played from 11:00 pm until 8am and still not want to stop. (I have to force myself to go sleep to break the cycle). Thats 9 hours.

I dont know how long I could go?

how long has anyone els played??

I've been known to go for 18 hours. But that's also working on a mod, not just straight play. With Civ II, I sometimes put in 18 hours every day until the game was finished. I'd even start up another right after that if it was a particularly good one, and I had the time. But then I wouldn't even think about the game for a month or so.

 

[Masquerouge]

Originally posted by SirJava
[Bhow long has anyone els played?? [/B]

Well yes I've sometime started to play in daylight and ended the game in daylight. Let's say 12 hours. I guess it's like everything, you need practice.
A friend of mine who was NOT a game addict spent an entire quarter playing Civ2 from 11 PM till 9 AM the following day, and then took a quick nap before going to class. Late. I was the one to introduce to him CIV2 He doesn't have his diploma yet
And to be true my reading-time records are far higher than that
Long live our visual civilisation !

 

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by konigstiger
Is there any trick to deal with this or it's just that my stamina is inferior from those super addicts ?

After 2000 A.D., I normally set all my worker to auto-clean up pollution and hit the space bar all the way to 2050 A.D.

 

[CeasarSalad]

Turn off the animations! It might help. It'll increase the speed at which stuff happens during the game, anyways.

I think that tiny maps are more entertaining than larger maps. Because it takes just a couple of hours to complete the game. Then I can go back and play again, as a different civ, on a new map. Instead of playing as the same civ, on the same map, for hours and hours.

 

[Trinity]

Then there is personal war weariness.

 

[Becka]

Originally posted by Trinity
Then there is personal war weariness.

Very true.



I usually only play for a few hours at a time. If I have the time to do it, I don't feel like playin CivIII. However, if it was during the school year and I had things to do, ALL I would want to do is play CivIII.

If I feel like my civ is in major decline and I'll never win, I just stop. No need to waste copius amounts of time with it. If I feel good about the game, then I'll just pick it up again when I don't have the time to play.

 

[Trinity]

Especially when your advisors do the underpromise and overdeliver thing. Your civ is having major war weariness and is in fact shut down under democracy, so you go to anarchy. Your advisor tells you 6 turns. You count. You check. Your advisor tells you 2 more turns. You figure you'll go one more and save. Then you find a choice of governments immediately. You wanted to choose either Communism or Republic and test out to see how things look under both. You pick Republic. You immediately are shut down with war weariness again. Oh well, back 20 years to an earlier save.

 

[explodin dog]

i played for seventeen hours once. i'm damn proud of myself for it too. i only slept for five hours after that. then i got up and played some more (three hours). went to bed, there was a test the next morning, biology. got one of the highest scores i bet. i do have a life. otherwise i would be dead. make fun of me if you want, but what i like doing is what i like doing.

 

[damunzy]

Fatigue has hit again...maybe it is just the Egyptian civ...I have never enjoyed playing the Egyptians. Or maybe it reading all of Zouave's posts.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
Or maybe it reading all of Zouave's posts.

Yes, pondering those will certainly suck the enthusiasm out of you!