Waves of Addiction

[Zaimejs]

I was just wondering if anyone plays this game like I do. I'll forget about it and not play it for a month. Then I'll fire up a game and completely lose myself for a few hours creating an empire.

I don't finish very many games because if I quit, I rarely reload because I have forgotten what I was doing and what was going on. It's also so fun to start from nothing.

I am a teacher looking forward to break to just spend 24 hours on a giant map on my desktop. I play on my laptop, but it is underpowered, so I only play small or tiny maps.

Waves of addiction.

 

[redwings1340]

I've been mostly forcing myself away from this game during this semester, but when I get in to Civ, I get really in to civ. I am looking forward to the break in part because I plan on getting really in to this game again, but I also have months at a time where I don't play it.

 

[Inawordyes]

I'm basically the same way, except it's been a few months since I've played. If I get myself back into it, however, I won't be doing anything else for a couple days/weeks, so I'd rather focus on other stuff for the moment. I'll probably mess around with it more once the new DLC hits, assuming it's a Civ.

 

[CaptainPatch]

It's also so fun to start from nothing.

This is, to me, the best part of the game. Building, expanding, exploring the world, taming the countryside, creating a functional, efficient civilization from scratch. I regularly succumb to Just-one-more-turn-itis and my early games turn into all-nighters. But by the time the Industrial Era rolls around, the game feels like a repetitious grind. By the Information Era, I have to force myself to keep playing, the fact that the Finish Line is in sight being the only thing keeping me playing.

 

[sendos]

I am making a transition from emperor to multiplayer games because when I play immortal games, I don't seem to hold that much interest. It is indeed a massive jump, from emperor to immortal.

 

[civ54lyfe]

i have stumbled upon Europa Universalis 4, and have been hooked on watching like 40 hours of youtube of it alone.

sadly, my 2008 comp can barely play civ5 smoothly (and still instead of clouds.. i have black tiles for unexplored territory). so i have to dream of buying a modern computer in order to start playing either EU4, or CK2. both of these are superior to civ5.

in the meantime, i do very much like the OP, every other month or so i end up playing a 24hr c5 game.

 

[Ritzy Cat]

I was just wondering if anyone plays this game like I do. I'll forget about it and not play it for a month. Then I'll fire up a game and completely lose myself for a few hours creating an empire.

I don't finish very many games because if I quit, I rarely reload because I have forgotten what I was doing and what was going on. It's also so fun to start from nothing.

I am a teacher looking forward to break to just spend 24 hours on a giant map on my desktop. I play on my laptop, but it is underpowered, so I only play small or tiny maps.

Waves of addiction.

You sound just like me. I go on month-long bursts ish where I end up playing 100 hours in a month or something, then forget the game for a few months. And when I do, I constantly create new games. I rarely finish any games.

 

[Zaimejs]

the tedium of the end. I realize this has been covered on other threads, but how can you make the ending as fun as the beginning? That's the Holy Grail of Civ.

One big problem is unit movement. At the beginning... you have a worker a scout and maybe two units to move around. But in the end, especially if you are in a war, each turn takes a million years to complete. There needs to be some unit grouping script... and I can't believe the haven't eliminated the unit stopping when there is someone in its way ten tiles ahead. Still the most annoying feature of Civ.

But what else? What else makes the end game tedious? I think it comes down to a lack of AI fundamentals. I thought I was going to have a good war with Russia, but she was dumb.

anyway...

 

[seanflokstra7]

I haven't played the game for a long time, because my laptop broke. I'm getting a new one(Christmas), but I can't wait to play it again

 

[Bad Wolf]

A single game for me tends to last a total of 24 hours, over the course of 3-4 days, so after I finish I really have no desire to play any more Civ for a while. But then I get the itch to build an empire. It's often after I read about some historic people and I want to play as them.

 

[Zaimejs]

A single game for me tends to last a total of 24 hours, over the course of 3-4 days, so after I finish I really have no desire to play any more Civ for a while. But then I get the itch to build an empire. It's often after I read about some historic people and I want to play as them.

YES! some trigger on the History Channel or something will make me want to play again!

 

[CaptainPatch]

What got me reinvigorated was the release of BNW. My previous go around was G&K. Once I did just a few playthroughs with G&K, I noted that hadn't been any earth-shaking fundamental game changes, it proved to be about as lethargic as vanilla Civ5 was. But BNW was... intriguing. It had me wanting to explore some alternate strategies. But what REALLY got me reinvigorated was discovering just how many mods were now available. Using a mix of those makes it possible to create a game environment that kept me intrigued at least into the Modern Era.. (The intrigue diminishing slowly with each Era advance after the Renaissance.)

Hmm. Hmm. All these comments about the Shoshone is making me want to start a new game to see what all the excitement is about.

 

[kingofsealand]

I definitely play in cycles although after BNW came out the cycle lasted from release day until like a month ago when i got EU IV. Hooked on that for about 1 1/2 games but then I got GTAV. now of course im obligated to play that for way too long.

I need a secretary to help me play video games. Would i still enjoy them that way? Maybe i could set up a camera/screenshare to watch them play whilst playing something else. Im honestly not sure that ill be able to play all the games in my steam/GOG library before I die and its all civilization V's fault. I dont even want to think about CIV 6. The time required does not exist.

 

[ahawk]

Civ V is a game that I think lends itself highly to spree-playing, where you play a bunch of games in a couple months, then don't play again at all until a good while later.

The reason for this is that it depends on a procedurally-generated map that is very, very different every time. Sometimes I'll play a couple of games in quick succession because I end up with a very easy start despite the difficulty (Emperor or higher even) and can finish those games with minimal effort. Then I get a game or two with an interesting but difficult start, like starting on an isolated continent as Morocco but having a shot at Petra. And after all that, I eventually hit a rather horrible start (once was in all-tundra as Inca without any mountains nearby), and that's usually the point where, even if winning is possible, it just becomes too tedious.

BNW has made it easier to make a go of it on sub-par starts. But it's still a game where a huge amount of the fun is seeing the hand dealt to you while simultaneously occasionally getting dealt an awful hand and having the experience turn into a managerial one rather than being entertaining.

This is different from a game in the Total War series where I could probably play custom battle every day for a battle or two, but would never be able to play campaigns back-to-back because of the map being the same map every time (except for the smaller, non-grand campaigns that some of them have). Total War games I might spend a little time playing every day, as a single battle takes as little as ten minutes, yet the amount of time spent in a short span of days or weeks is not as much as in Civ V, because I prefer to not re-play the same campaign map over and over again.

 

[BuzWeaverCiv]

The game seems to hing quite a bit on the start. You essentially have to have a particular game plan and then pursue that in the hopes of beating the Civ's to the various Tech's, Wonders and Real Estate Locations. Playing Civ after a hiatus from strategy games was a shock to my system.

Civ is an incredibly micromanaged game. I was more accustom to Total Annihilation Kingdoms, Age of Empires and Warcraft, where you could finish up a game in a few hours at the most. Civ requires a lot of thought, strategy and dedication to staying on task. Anyone with a short attention span isn't going to last long in this game.

I've just returned after playing Battlefield 4 Beta and Launch, so I'm ready to get back into something a little more paced. After taking just a short break from the game I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with all the intricacies. I often find myself enjoying watching Let's Play than playing the game myself.

 

[Autoclave]

well, finishing a full game even on prince takes some time. my personal record was a 3 hours, but i had games as long as 9 hours. If you play it very often it DOES get repetitive. Social policies, religion, tech paths and so on.

I agree with the op about the game being addictive in waves, since you DO need to take a break between those long games. I have 650 hours played in Civilization 5, and i think i am quite burned off on it.

I refuse to play on anything harder than king as the catch up game is not fun for me in a game with so much unique building competition.

In the end, Science > everything. And Population growth = Science. So there is not much room for real diversity here. Only maps allow for some interesting synergies like some specific abundant resource, and pantheon and buildings available to improve it.

I guess this is the problem with all the 4x games. Most of the progress and in game success is derived from one core unit. When I run endless space for the first time, i didn't take me long to understand that population was the key there as well.

 

[SYKOJAK]

For my situation, "my waves of addiction," all depend on what I feel like playing and getting others to play as well.
Fortunately, we live in a time of a lot of great games out there to play. Unfortunately, I am not independently weathly.
So between sharing time between other Media pursuits, family, friends, work, and occaisionaly sleep. Not enough hours in the day/week to do all I would like to.