Simple Advice: Take a Break

[cabert]

one of these days i'd like to find one that i don't think i'd lose for the whole team. i learn a lot from reading them, and imagine i'd learn more from playing one, if i ever did get brave enough. but somehow i doubt that i'll ever be brave enough.

You're welcome in the fix the trash game series
here are some links
fix the trash game
fix another trash game
yet another trash game

It's not a real SG, in the sense that you have to play every round.
But we choose each week a game for everyone to continue next week :
- First week, we play 40 turns, and we choose the least successful game
- Second week, we all play 40 turns from this least successful game and we choose the most successful game
- Third week, trash round
- 4th week, fixing round
…
What’s different from a SG :
- No agreement on the next moves is necessary. Even if we try to give our opinions on the next moves or the big plan, every player can play (= try out) his own moves
- You play every round.
- There is a little competition each round (avoiding being the trash game, then trying being the fixing game) between the players, although we managed to keep it down to minimum.

What’s similar to a SG :
- you need to do write ups for your rounds
- we give ourselves a variant game (up to now, it was just a victory condition)
- you have to adapt to the game you’re given, since most of the times someone else played the previous round you take over.

It’s a lot of fun, to be pulled out of your own games, and it’s educational, mostly for the lower level players, but trying to fix an economic hole or a power gap is giving everyone something to think about.

What level are you comfortable with? (we try to have some kind of balance between monarch/emperor and noble/prince level players)

 

[Harbourboy]

one of these days i'd like to find one that i don't think i'd lose for the whole team. i learn a lot from reading them, and imagine i'd learn more from playing one, if i ever did get brave enough. but somehow i doubt that i'll ever be brave enough.

You don't really need to be brave. If you're faced with some difficult decisions, you just post some screenshots to your team and ask for some advice. You can even try and get consensus from them as to what to do before playing your next turn. And in the end, what's the worst that can happen? A bunch of nerds on the internet, that you'll never meet, might get a bit grumpy about something that's only a game. Hardly the end of the world. SGOTM is loads of fun. I recommend it.

 

[Xersex]

taking a break is good advice, not only should you take a break every couple hours or so, it also pays off to just leave the game somewhere sitting around and not touching it for a while.
You will will try new, sometimes better strategies, just because you forgot your old ones.

 

[Syndrome Zed]

one of these days i'd like to find one that i don't think i'd lose for the whole team. i learn a lot from reading them, and imagine i'd learn more from playing one, if i ever did get brave enough. but somehow i doubt that i'll ever be brave enough.

Madame, I've read your advice and other "ramblings" in the Challenge games, and I have to say I don't think you'll have to worry about losing one for the team.

Personally, I've discovered that four of these - and four of these - work pretty well for me. That leaves the "after everyone else is in bed" time for me to play.

 

[slowrider]

I find a good time to take a long break (sometimes over night) is after exploring the immediate vicinity and after reveling horses and copper (iron sometimes). The idea is to really think thoroughly and creatively about where your early cities should go. I like to play the GOTMs and am sometimes surprised in the first spoiler that players have city sites I didn’t see and/or sequenced them differently. I’ve gotten a lot better at seeing the good sites but am still apt to resequence after a snooze.

 

[Aneurism]

I am still in my Civ addiction stage from CivI straight to CivIV, this game never gets old while I dont have as much free time as I used to especially when I was in college during CivII, but if I have free time for computer gaming its pretty much 70% Civ... 30% any other PC game.

 

[Cornstalk]

Being the kind of person that dives head first in to a game and doesn't come up for air until I've played it to death... I'm pleased to say that this Civ hasn't sucked me in as badly as other games. I play maybe 1 game a week (about 3-5 hours worth)... generally in one sitting, but then I don't touch it again for a while.

In come cases a few aspects of the game need to be relearned, but for the most part I find each time I play I have a fresh attitude and open mind to experiment with a new way of going about the same old game.

Unlike most home consol games, I'd say I've gotten my money's worth out of Civ4 10 fold... and being able to play it sparingly and still get a good game in is a big part of that.

 

[Harbourboy]

Yes, this is definitely a game that you get your money's worth from in terms of hours vs dollars spent.