What are some of your "civ rituals"?

[Disgustipated]

I do, uhh, play drunk civ a lot... not very well...

When I was heavy into playing this game, my ritual was to crank up the music, drink some beers, and play Civ6 after getting home from work on my Friday. I usually leave in game music on, but not on my Fridays. Friday was beer, metal (actually sometimes the random mixer threw everything in), and civ6.

I've gotten a little bored of the game since then. I often only play after new content comes out. And plus my work schedule has been crazy the last few months as well.

 

[iammaxhailme]

When I was heavy into playing this game, my ritual was to crank up the music, drink some beers, and play Civ6 after getting home from work on my Friday. I usually leave in game music on, but not on my Fridays. Friday was beer, metal (actually sometimes the random mixer threw everything in), and civ6.

I've gotten a little bored of the game since then. I often only play after new content comes out. And plus my work schedule has been crazy the last few months as well.

Yeah, I think I talk about civ more here than I actually play it these days, although I still do usually have a game to throw up in the background when I watch a movie or something. I just don't play it for like 6 hours every day after work and then all weekend like I used to lol

 

[Quintillus]

For some reason this thread showed up in the "Similar threads" to a thread I was viewing, and it's a neat idea that I'm surprised didn't last more than 22 posts. Thus I'll it and see if it has a second life.

I also like to make cuisine that matches the civ I'm playing, either in Civ itself, or in other historical games. Recent entrants include a Polish stew when playing Poland in Civ VI, and a nice vegetarian channa masala when playing Gandhi in Civ III. I really ought to acquire some garum and go exploring Cyrenaica in search of silphium to better-prepare myself for my next game as Rome...

Other rituals? Does staying up until the sun rises playing just one more turn count?

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

I don't know if it's a "ritual" - but I absolutely do not play after 8 PM... Pulled too many all-nighters in the early 90s!

 

[TyrannusRex]

I have a habit of reading/narrating the leaders' unspoken dialogue to myself, a bit like I'm actually negotiating with them. Naturally, big timeline events are also a good chance to break out the ᴇᴘɪᴄ ɴᴀʀʀᴀᴛᴏʀ ᴠᴏɪᴄᴇ

Not food related, but a sort of ritual i like doing while playing civ is looking up how a civ's orthography works before/as I play as them, and when possible use dictionaries to name units in their native language. It ends up giving me a lot more content each time a new civ is added - best recent example was Vietnam. Also helps me remember IPA symbols, since it just feels wrong to me to have founded a city I can't pronounce, and the most reliable pronunciation guides I find for foreign languages usually use at least some IPA.

For two examples, I usually name my first name-able scout something like "The Mapmakers", and last time I played as the Mapuche, I spent a good few hours deliberating on how to translate that, referencing a dictionary, checking how other similar words are structured, etc. Eventually settled on calling the unit "Adentumapufe", which is at least supposed to mean "Those who make an image of the land". The other example is pretty similar - as Kongo, a Korean city named Gwangju (meaning something like "Light Province") flipped to me, and I renamed it "Mbanza Ntemo", which (hopefully) means "City [of] Light".

I did this (renaming cities to match the language) once while pursuing a Domination Victory as Rome because of how many modern cities (including those in America) have official or at least easily translatable Latin names. It was a real challenge when it came to the Cree cities, though, and I had to really dig deep into the internet to find the meanings of certain words/placenames in Cree to even get an idea of what to translate. I wish I could remember specific ones, but I know there was something like "place of rivers" for one of them. It was fun.

 

[pokiehl]

I really like playing Civ with a good cup of coffee.

 

[dagriggstar]

I excessively research to try roleplay stuff with the idea of uploading to youtube but rarely ever getting around to it

 

[Chekko]

Sometimes I like to play as if I'm actually that Civ. For example as Norway I play as if I'm a viking and ignore things that are not for vikings. I pillage all the time, focus my military on naval units and go on coastal raids but for the most part ignore Great People and Art.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I don't know if this counts as a ritual, but I say a sarcastic "Thanks, Obama" if anything doesn't go my way in the game.

 

[reddishrecue]

I try to research and get any religion at a reliable time but with research in mind.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I do often cook and play turn based strategy.
Also chores.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

I moved house and I've lost the melodic call of a particular bird at around 6am when I thought it was still only 2am.
Now I just hear the first planes take off.
I miss that little guy.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I really like playing Civ with a good cup of coffee.

You spelled bourbon wrong

 

[Disgustipated]

Looks at my above post, damn, I've been playing this game a long time. And I'm still playing it. When I get bored I take a break for a while, but sometimes I get back in the mood.

As I've gotten older, I've slowed down in some ways. No longer drinking the beers and cranking up the thrash metal. These days I like to start a game with a cup of green tea and my music of choice is stoner/psychedelic rock/doom metal these days (even though I don't smoke dope). I enjoy the more mellow sound, and I've really been enjoying gaming with this music on (I also enjoy BG3 with this music). While both of these games have fantastic soundtracks, I'm pretty burned out on both of them at this point.

 

[Quintillus]

Be sure to make tuh'u the next time you play as Babylon! I made it a little while ago--it's delicious. I also make a Persian okra stew called khoresht bamieh pretty frequently.

I didn't get the civ coordination right - I'm playing as the Ottomans - but I made this tonight, and it is indeed delicious! Makes me want to start a game as Babylon, build a pasture around some sheep, build a farm next door, and enjoy the leftovers tomorrow. Thanks for expanding my cooking horizons several thousand years farther back into history!

My other new Civ VI ritual is to always declare a surprise war on Cyrus when he is my neighbor. He tends not to be amused on the whole, but he does like me a bit more because of the surprise war (though also a lot less because he was the target of it). Kind of funny seeing that "+3, likes your surprise war" modifier on the opinion screen.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Beer, Beer, bathroom, more Beer.
Conquering the world is thirsty work!

 

[Pantechnica]

Necroing this thread again. Civ for me IS a ritual -- getting into it every so often consumes several months, usually as a way of escaping tough mental situations but also because sitting up late on a summer evening riding horse archers over the steppe or blasting off into space is the perfect sundowner for this teetotaler. (Or doing same late at night after the uni books were put away. I discovered Civ 2 at university and barely left my hall of residence after lectures were done.)

At the moment I'm playing on Switch, so I can sit on my bed or even lie in it and play till all hours, but the other day I set up on my Steam Deck so I can actually use mods on a handheld device.

I know at some point I'll get bored, bur for the moment I'm keeping with Civ VI as there's not yet enough variety in Civ VII to hold my attention. With the roleplaying elements and expanded goody-hut system, it'll be fun at some point, but not yet.

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In-game -- I play long games and huge maps with few Civs and am gingerly experimenting with warfare through turning barbarians on to get into a fight. In earlier games (I played 2, 3 and 4 to death) I'd be able to cheat and stack up the units and just blow the AIs away, but now even with access to the cheat panel mod

I used to play more women than men, and unfortunately also more Europeans than other ethnicities, but Gilgamesh with his massive culture bomb cities in Civ 4 was the one I kept going back to. (Not done much with him in Civ 6 with him though.) Now the pretty princesses like Eleanor and Jadwiga are still my favourites, but Julius Caesar feels good now that I've turned barbarians on and I'm working my way through the official DLC leaders and then probably through a lot of both serious and unserious user-created civs.

I like building the civ and have gradually felt out all the nuances of the game. It can feel like endless games of Sim City, but I just like seeing my little computer people spread out all over the map and in the current global Dark Age where the wargames are happening off the computer, playing an optimistic sandbox game feels like I'm more in control than the current world permits me to feel

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Out of game -- it's the only game I can eat while playing. I spent a long time on Civ 4 with Dominos Pizza, then had a Pimm's beside me later on. I can no longer drink and am trying to watch my middle age spread, so neither of those is appropriate, but something that holds together and can be spooned up like risotto is a good Civ food. (Plus I tried Dominos and Civ again. It wasn't the same as it was 15 years ago. Time to find new rituals.)

I also listen to podcasts while playing. Nothing too taxing, just those tacky ones on YouTube where they narrate AakReddit posts. I do this a lot with other games without a clear narrative structure, but it's just relaxing and doesn't break the Civ immersion too much.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

Yep, on those rare special weekends, when no one wants something from you… then a Pizza and a cold Pepsi Coke, and then the story can begin.
Those weekends are sadly really too rare… have so many good memories. =)

 

[Markvs]

I don't know if it's a "ritual" - but I absolutely do not play after 8 PM... Pulled too many all-nighters in the early 90s!

Same!
My first game of Civilization was in early summer 1992 while I was taking an 8 AM Calculus class.
I loaded the game on my 386 right after dinner and started playing... and then noticed the sun rising.

I forced myself to quit, drove 40 minutes to the university and went to Calc on no sleep for 2.5 hours. Then drove home and crashed hard for an hour before I had to go cut the grass. I was a zombie for the rest of the day and didn't turn the game on again until the weekend.

So... yeah. I learned my lesson *early* about "just one more turn..."!