man plays single game of civ2 for 10 years

[holy king]

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/18/tech/gaming-gadgets/civilization-ii-ten-years/index.html



or more importantly: what caused news channels and papers all over the world to report about a man who plays civ2 a lot????

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Not another place to talk about this
But I think your second question is more interesting - and revealing.
The true story of the game is a guy who does not know how to play Civ hence prevented an utopic united world.. in a hopelessly simplified game.
The story he insinuated - with his dramatic choice of words as typical for civ gamers - was that prolonged simulation of the world ends in absolute catastrophe. And media was like "Wouuu! Catastrophe! That's sooo ... so deep man. And he invested 10 years to find this out in extensive ... simulation. Never done before. But we all secretly knew it, didn't we?" Plus, playing a game for 10 years sounds like a weirdo - which makes it all the more relevant!

So
Doomsday prediction + really weird dude + neatly packaged = NEWS

Don't get me wrong, I also initially found this story to be kind of cool, but I don't want actual news to do the same.

 

[holy king]

But I think your second question is more interesting - and revealing.

wait, what was the first?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

What do you think about this amazing game?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

His Celts are locked in a 1,700-year war with the Vikings and the Americans. All other nations have been destroyed or absorbed.

I demand turn-by-turn AAR's!

 

[Flying Pig]

How has he not won yet? Suggest this man directs himself towards the War Academy

 

[attackfighter]

you're a bit late

I saw this several weeks ago

 

[Terxpahseyton]

In a nutshell: He totally neglected production and did build the wrong units.

I can't believe I am talking about civ! *excitement!*

 

[Murky]

Saw this on reddit last week. There's going to be a Civ II Gotm for it. I took a look at the save but didn't play it.

 

[warpus]

or more importantly: what caused news channels and papers all over the world to report about a man who plays civ2 a lot????

A lot of "news" outlets these days report what is popular. This story was making its rounds around the internet, it interested enough people, so cnn picked it up.

Have you seen the sort of stuff that they post on their front page? They are driven not by "Is this newsworthy?" but rather "Will this make us more money?"

 

[Save_Ferris]

I get all my news from CFC.

 

[attackfighter]

How is it GotM? He's one of the worst players I've ever seen. What's sad is that he's at least 10 years old, considering he's allegedly been playing the game for 10 years. What kind of 10 year old can't learn to play and then beat a game of Civ on easiest difficulty? And this is Civ 2 even, so AI is even worse than what most people here are used to.

Oh yeah and CNN fails for reporting on this. They might as well just turn their homepage into a bunch of embedded youtube cat videos.

 

[Murky]

How is it GotM? He's one of the worst players I've ever seen. What's sad is that he's at least 10 years old, considering he's allegedly been playing the game for 10 years. What kind of 10 year old can't learn to play and then beat a game of Civ on easiest difficulty? And this is Civ 2 even, so AI is even worse than what most people here are used to.

Oh yeah and CNN fails for reporting on this. They might as well just turn their homepage into a bunch of embedded youtube cat videos.

I think most people, without the help of strategy forums or something, would find the game challenging enough. That is at least on the first few tries. This game sounds to me like a new player just starting to get how to play and not wanting to give up and start over after having invested so much time into it. What makes it a popular story is the bleakness of the future it shows could happen depending on the choices we make. If everything was peachy, it wouldn't get so much attention.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm actually envious he can have that much fun for so long. I know we're all super intelligent for figuring out how to exploit, I mean, play the game in such a way we squeeze every single drop of win out of civ but the most enjoyable moments in any strategy game are the blundering exploration weeks.

 

[attackfighter]

I think most people, without the help of strategy forums or something, would find the game challenging enough. That is at least on the first few tries. This game sounds to me like a new player just starting to get how to play and not wanting to give up and start over after having invested so much time into it. What makes it a popular story is the bleakness of the future it shows could happen depending on the choices we make. If everything was peachy, it wouldn't get so much attention.

Bleakness of the future...huh? So everything is marshland... yeah truly a dystopian look into what awaits us. I can imagine far more horrific fates. Look at Fallout 3 as an example - they might release a sequel!

 

[Ergo Sum]

I'm actually envious he can have that much fun for so long. I know we're all super intelligent for figuring out how to exploit, I mean, play the game in such a way we squeeze every single drop of win out of civ but the most enjoyable moments in any strategy game are the blundering exploration weeks.

+1 Many of the comments I've heard on Civ sites have been insulting this guy for playing so poorly and on low difficulties (Cf. attackfighter). I think the flip side is that, as a proportion of Civilization player-base our Civfanatics-surfing min-maxing population is probably pretty small. Sure most forum regulars could finish this game in a few hours max but they're not so common in the grand scheme. I know I've spent far too long with Civ 4 trying to learn the ropes but my favorite memories from it were my first games that sort of stoke the imagination. Every move a grandiose drama, not just one step closer or further back to finishing the game. Personally I wish I would still get that rush from playing.

 

[Mise]

I can understand someone who's only played a couple games plus the tutorial playing their 4th or 5th game until 3100 AD or whatever on an easy difficulty setting and still struggling to survive, but the whole point of this story is that he's been playing for 10 years. It's hard to understand how you can do anything for so long and still be so terrible at it. To be sure, I am indeed a superintelligent min-maxer, but you don't have to be one to be incredulous about this.

 

[kronic]

In a nutshell: He totally neglected production and did build the wrong units.

I can't believe I am talking about civ! *excitement!*

More importantly, he neglected trade. Arguably the single most important concept in Civ2. Unbelievable that someone can't beat the Civ2 AI on Warlord.

 

[Save_Ferris]

I can understand someone who's only played a couple games plus the tutorial playing their 4th or 5th game until 3100 AD or whatever on an easy difficulty setting and still struggling to survive, but the whole point of this story is that he's been playing for 10 years. It's hard to understand how you can do anything for so long and still be so terrible at it. To be sure, I am indeed a superintelligent min-maxer, but you don't have to be one to be incredulous about this.

He said he did it on and off. He probably forgot a lot of the strategy.

 

[History_Buff]

How has he not won yet? Suggest this man directs himself towards the War Academy

Because he's terrible at it. Someone in the Civ 2 forum claims to have wiped out the other Civs in 58 turns from the save game upload. He's basically failed to manage his economy at all (take note you small government types! ), is completely under utilizing existing rail networks, and is probably somehow unfamiliar with the concept of manoeuvre warfare.