Try to quit?
I mean, we all kid around and Firaxis uses it as an ad campaign, but do you ever feel genuinely addicted to this? Have you ever tried to quit and been unable to?
I'm doing the math here and I figure that sometime this spring I have marked or will mark nineteen years of playing Civ.
Steam says I've played almost 1,300 hours of Civ 5. Let's just say that was average for each of the five games--and frankly, it's not by a long shot, I can remember playing Civ 2 until past midnight, finishing a game and then starting up a brand new game. Even with that gross under-estimate, that comes out to something like 270 days.
If I estimate it a different way, figuring that Civ V has been out for 18 months and in those 18 months I've played 1,300 hours. Now, figure that same rate of play for nineteen years and it could be something more like 686 days.
One or two years of my life...spent playing this game.
When I first discovered Civ on my roommate's computer my freshman year of college, I remember spending countless hours squinting at the stupid old VGA screen, clicking through the cracked cheat protection questions. I can't remember anything else I did the last part of that semester, but I can remember that image of me at the screen.
When I got my first 486, which I bought just to play Civ, I remember getting so into a game that I forgot to meet my girlfriend for her lunchbreak at the mall. Profuse apologies and 24 hours later, I frickin' did it to her again. Why she was foolish enough to marry me, I have no idea, but God bless her.
I can't tell you how many nights I've found myself sitting up like this with a yawn caught in my throat, but still too fixated mentally to go to bed. My back is going to hurt in the morning from hunching just a little bit toward the screen as I clicked through the first few turns of my latest Deity attempt.
This is sick, isn't it?
A year...maybe two. How many books could I have read in that time? How many could I have written with those hours? My midsection looks like hell because instead of hitting the pool in the morning for laps, I'm rubbing my eyes after late nights trying to beat some poorly scripted AI to the Great Library--night after night.
Endless replay is a curse. For years, I've been chasing some elusive perfect game, with just the right number of wonders for a just-so utopia, as if it would actually mean something if I reached it.
As if I might finally wipe my hands and say, "there, that's done."
Alright, alright. Enough, right? It's almost midnight my time. I should hit the hay.
Or maybe, just maybe...I could try out one more start, just to see if I get enough marble and stone in my capital radius...
I mean, we all kid around and Firaxis uses it as an ad campaign, but do you ever feel genuinely addicted to this? Have you ever tried to quit and been unable to?
I'm doing the math here and I figure that sometime this spring I have marked or will mark nineteen years of playing Civ.
Steam says I've played almost 1,300 hours of Civ 5. Let's just say that was average for each of the five games--and frankly, it's not by a long shot, I can remember playing Civ 2 until past midnight, finishing a game and then starting up a brand new game. Even with that gross under-estimate, that comes out to something like 270 days.
If I estimate it a different way, figuring that Civ V has been out for 18 months and in those 18 months I've played 1,300 hours. Now, figure that same rate of play for nineteen years and it could be something more like 686 days.
One or two years of my life...spent playing this game.
When I first discovered Civ on my roommate's computer my freshman year of college, I remember spending countless hours squinting at the stupid old VGA screen, clicking through the cracked cheat protection questions. I can't remember anything else I did the last part of that semester, but I can remember that image of me at the screen.
When I got my first 486, which I bought just to play Civ, I remember getting so into a game that I forgot to meet my girlfriend for her lunchbreak at the mall. Profuse apologies and 24 hours later, I frickin' did it to her again. Why she was foolish enough to marry me, I have no idea, but God bless her.
I can't tell you how many nights I've found myself sitting up like this with a yawn caught in my throat, but still too fixated mentally to go to bed. My back is going to hurt in the morning from hunching just a little bit toward the screen as I clicked through the first few turns of my latest Deity attempt.
This is sick, isn't it?
A year...maybe two. How many books could I have read in that time? How many could I have written with those hours? My midsection looks like hell because instead of hitting the pool in the morning for laps, I'm rubbing my eyes after late nights trying to beat some poorly scripted AI to the Great Library--night after night.
Endless replay is a curse. For years, I've been chasing some elusive perfect game, with just the right number of wonders for a just-so utopia, as if it would actually mean something if I reached it.
As if I might finally wipe my hands and say, "there, that's done."
Alright, alright. Enough, right? It's almost midnight my time. I should hit the hay.
Or maybe, just maybe...I could try out one more start, just to see if I get enough marble and stone in my capital radius...
