What did you do before Civ?

[T.A JONES]

I was Room service booze n food attendent at a swank hotel before civ . Loved seein the flight stewardess in thier 'evening wear' Lets just say that kept me working many a day or should say 'nights' at good ol 'Valbay hotel resorts'.

Oh, also a few cool celebs you'd likly meet with hotel guests who want food discreet. Met the likes of touring Comidic stars like George Carlen, Washup singers like ALice Cooper or just strange drop-ins like Dan and Stephen Baldwin sharing a room were 'Prime exmples, the others were Stephen Harper and Paul Martin ..STill I can say Pilots have the best job :god dam. 'West Jet' girls were the best. I ask Blondie DoubleD How was the flight for she? 'Oh It was Soooo Bouncy!' she gestures with the up n down for ad lib!

Right now Im certified in surface extractioin mining . (NORCAT common core)Once I actaully head out the door to Fort McMurry, I bet I'll be the only miner to ever be a member here. (job dosn't jive with civ in some people thinking I bet )
If it wasn't for me finding out the place my friend was so gracious to save was carpet space, ID probably be in ALbeta already working. (as is, IM waiting for my spot for some real space to come up)

I started playin civ3 when I was laid of from my job working as a skidder driver and then tradjectly demoted to front end Komatsu and mainly menial constructioin -ununionized slave trade
IT was massively addicting peice of shareware, so much so I bought the real deal from Amazon and rode out the enire 9 monthes one paid epic at a time! So fun I never really looked for a job till the last check hit the mailbox

My fisrt PC game was Civ1! then BARGAMES and EArl Weaver BAseball for AMiga. Their was also "Leisure Suit LArry and Land of Lounge Lizards" and Gold Rush!. A Seirra game where you could pan for gold in a river or dig it up from the ground . Very cool and very telling of my future career plans, well sort of cept, what I mine won't be mine to keep lol

 

[BENdage]

lol, I played Lego and Action man, Civ 1 was the first PC game I got

 

[Gene]

For me, I was a Panzer General fanatic in the early and mid 1990s. I still am actually, and keep a very clunky old Windows 95 computer on hand for when I feel the need to drop everything & invade Russia. I also had the Close Combat Series and RE Lee - Civil War General. I bought Civ I in the mid 90s
and have been hooked on the Civ series ever since.
Prior to Computer games, I recall that I played quite a bit of Avalon Hill board games - usually solo.

 

[fugazi]

Before Civ2? DOOM!

Haha, I was born in 1985 and started playing with Lego when I was 2 years old and went straight to the NES after that while playing on my cousin's Amiga or Commodore. There it was that I found out about Colonization and when Civ2 came out, I just had to get it even if English wasn't my native language. Ever since then I've been addicted.

Funny fact is that at the age of 11-12 I had a girlfriend and after breaking up with her and talking to her years later, we found out that while she was at home she'd be playing Civ1 all the time and when she wasn't at my place, I'd be playing Civ2 nonstop. Ha, too bad she's a lesbian nowadays.

 

[Tronicoz]

Spoiler :

DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA DotA

Before Civ i played DotA

Moderator Action: Spoiler tags added. that is.... large.

 

[KMadCandy]

Well I don't know if this qualifies as a game but the first computer I worked with was in h/s. You had to right your own programs buy filling in punch cards (You may have seen these in old movies) then feed them into a card reader so the computer would know what to do. It had no real memory so when you took the cards out it no longer could run the program. It took 70+ cards to be able to feed more cards with names on them, so if you typed in (find g) it would list all the names that begin with g. Aaahhh the good old days LOL.

i went to a really freaky junior high school where they tried to warp our brains with all kinds of advanced stuff. it kind of worked, my brain certainly is warped! but not in an advanced way, oopsies. the computer science / physics / chemistry / calculus teacher was the oddest guy, smart and completely bizarre. i drove him nuts talking in class and passing notes, he'd get so mad he literally couldn't speak. he'd just snap his fingers, moving his mouth but no words coming out, and gesture to the doorway . the poor guy also got stuck teaching us sex ed, state requirement that we have it and the only place it fit into the schedule in one of his classes. i wanted to go to his alma mater, since he was such a freak, and in fact i actually did. and now i'm a freak too.

but anyway, this school had TRS-80s you could check out for the weekend and take home if you wanted. the one-piece computers with the green text and all. the absolute worst was they tried to teach us some computer language that was already old by then. i can't even remember, i think Fortran? we had to do those punch cards like you did, but the school didn't have the computer to read them. so they'd mail them to UCLA and we wouldn't get the print-outs back until two weeks later. i'm not good at computer mumbo-jumbo in the first place, and a two-week delay before you see whether it worked or not (turned out to be "not" in my case 99.04% of the time) certainly didn't make it any easier! god that was a mess. i don't remember a blessed thing from it, of course. i do remember some from latin class tho, that was fun.

Haha, I was born in 1985 and started playing with Lego when I was 2 years old

*giggle* i was starting high school in 1985, and i still play with Legos . you should see my Lego electric train, it's really spiffy. i have at least 8 Lego watches, you can mix and match pieces for the bands and faces. mom buys me one every time she sees one, and she sees them all over the world. she spoils me ! i particularly like to wear them when i go to the opera with her. i pick something subtle, of course, black and grey pieces for the band or whatever. i sit there trying not to giggle, thinking "all these stuffy folks here, and i'm probably the only one with a Lego watch on." obviously i'm easily amused.

 

[spankey]

I am 37 and started playing video games with pong. Then I loved Atari Combat and played all of its titles- including Pitfall, River Raid, Warlords. I had a Commodore 64 and loved games like MULE, Blue Max, Seven Cities, Pirates. I then had a PC (without a hard drive) and started playing Civ when it came out my senior year of college. I have been playing its iterations ever since.

 

[littlej]

Will be 31 soon.

Romance of the 3 Kingdoms killed a lot of my time. Nintendo in general killed a lot of my time and the Atari before that.

Axis & Allies was popular with my family (my cousins and brother used to play it whenever we could).

Before video games it would have been hot wheels and GI Joe.

 

[Padma]

Before Civ ... hmmm....

My first computer was an Atari 400, with 32K RAM (I had an upgrade ), back in the early 80s. Between then and the 90s, I played a lot of forgettable games. (And some more memorable, like M.U.L.E.

But I got into Strategy & Tactics, and SPI / Avalon Hill games when I was stationed in Germany in 1975. And before that, I played a lot of Risk, and Chess.

 

[DragonHawk]

Will be 31 soon.

Romance of the 3 Kingdoms killed a lot of my time. Nintendo in general killed a lot of my time and the Atari before that.

Axis & Allies was popular with my family (my cousins and brother used to play it whenever we could).

Before video games it would have been hot wheels and GI Joe.

ROTK rulez !!! My 5 1/4" floppy of ROTK1 even had a dent on one of the corner from being stuck in my floppy drive from hours of plays.

Explanation for the younger generations: the 5 1/4" floppy drive has a lever on the right side to secure the floppy disk in the drive. When the lever is twisted down, it slightly presses on the floppy disk. After a prolonged pressure (plus the heat of PC), the lever would create a dent on the floppy.

 

[Diamondeye]

I guess I'm mainly asking the over-30's but anyone can answer,
What did you do before Civ 1 came out (1992?)?
Were you a gameplayer of any kind? If so, what? And if not on computers,
what did you do? I think it takes a certain way of thinking to become a
long-term Civ player and there are probably interests we shared.

I'm from 1990, but I'll try to answer anyway - I was on the wagon from 1997 till now and (I hope) rest of my life

I liked chess and board games, first Monopoly
and later Risk, Diplomacy and Trivial Pursuits. I was also into model soldiers
in a big way from about seven. By my thirties, I was heavily into painting
soldiers, table-top wargaming and historical reenactment games.

Yup, definately those board games, though I don't know Diplomacy - I like chess a lot aswell, and have been in a model-period aswell - Warhammer, figures from WWII and the Roman // Punic wars. Not anymore, though.

My first game, I think, on my friend's Amiga, was Populous then Sim City.
Then I discovered Civ 1 and then Colonization. I was hooked! Since then,
I've played every version up to BTS, though my fav. was probably Civ 2,
esp. the Fantastic Worlds and Conflicts in Civilization expansions.
I also, still occasionally play Sid Meier's Pirates and Age of Empires.
My question, therefore, is how did we all get here, so that this game has
become one of the major focuses of our lives.
What fatal flaws do we share, that have brought us all to this point?

I like the same games - even Populous, which is genius Haven't got it anymore, though . Also, the Caesar // Pharaoh // Emperor games are good, and then some more action-like games, like Warcraft (incl. WoW for a period), Diablo (I and II), Mount & Blade (newly found on the internet ), LOTR:BFME (Battle For Middle Earth), mostly the first. Settlers is brilliant aswell, threw away my II, but have III still.

 

[Zivilyn]

Civilization is new to me with my recent purchase of Civ IV. I have known of the series for years, I just never played the game.

I have been into gaming since the release of the Atari 2600. I never really played many PC games until the late 90's. Starcraft, Command and Conquer, Caesar III, Pharaoh and Diablo were staples.

For the past several years my gaming time has been spent on XBOX Live which I continue to enjoy on a regular basis. I have also been enjoying board games with friends like Memoir '44, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan.

I picked up Civ IV because I needed something with a lot of meat to it to take along on my new laptop. I say I made an excellent choice!!

 

[siliconsmileg]

Before Civ IV it was WoW. I have a 70 horde warlock and a 49 pally. I haven't quit WoW but I am on a bit of a break.

Before Civ there was Populous (1989). I also enjoyed other titles from Peter Molyneux like Black and White although I didn't get much into it online. And I didn't do B&W2 for some reason.

 

[KMadCandy]

Spoiler siliconsmileg :

*giggle* you're, i can't think of a good word really, so i'll say "old-school" WoW aren't you? you said horde warlock but didn't mention a side for the pally . two locks here , one on each side (on different servers with different sets of friends) and a hunter. all are only 60, i quit before TBC. i love pet classes, does it show? i've played one in every game i tried that had the option.

to make this on-topic:
my brothers and i got pretty competitive on the atari for a while there. dad ended up moving the "chores for the week" chart from the fridge to the tv, so that we'd be reminded what we had to do. and he'd check it to be sure we were up-to-date before we could play that day. what a dictatorship!

 

[Padma]

For the past several years my gaming time has been spent on XBOX Live which I continue to enjoy on a regular basis. I have also been enjoying board games with friends like Memoir '44, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan.

I picked up Civ IV because I needed something with a lot of meat to it to take along on my new laptop. I say I made an excellent choice!!

Watch for Civilization:Revolution to come out for the XBox360 this Spring.

(Check out our Civ Rev forum.)

 

[Scrybe]

Date.

Haha!

I'm 32, but didn't get into Civ until the 3rd one came out. I've always loved history and fantasy. Maybe the closest thing to Civ I did as a kid was play with legos and Crossbows and Catapults. That was a cool little game with plastic blocks for building castles, little viking dudes, and rubber-band powered weaponry that shot disks at your opponent's castles and men.

But I guess the way I look at the OP question is this: What should I be doing instead of Civ? And the answer to that is art. I'm trying to start a sculpting business, but Civ is seriously slowing me down. Check my sig link to see the kind of stuff I'm NOT doing enough of thanks to this infernal game.

 

[nimling]

when i first played civ in... what, '92? i was only 9 years old. i did the things kids my age do when they have no friends, namely more video games. not much of a story i'm afraid, but had i been born ten years earlier i don't think it would be much different.

 

[Amunhotep]

Played the old Gibson games board game Civilization (relased in the US by Avalon hill) saying "wouldn't it be cool if some one turned this into a PC game" I know the PC civ was not based on the board game civ but we where pretty happy when we found out about it.

Also played and a lot of other board games/ RPGs. Along with a lot of the classic early 90's PC games

I was very into the Ultima games in the 80's and the strat games of that time

 

[MrCynical]

The original Civ was the first computer game I ever played, though I there were a few others I got shortly afterwards.

As to what I did before Civ, I would have only been 6 at the time, and I can't really remember. I think I played board games a bit, but not much.

 

[jkp1187]

Played the old Gibson games board game Civilization (relased in the US by Avalon hill) saying "wouldn't it be cool if some one turned this into a PC game" I know the PC civ was not based on the board game civ but we where pretty happy when we found out about it.

Actually, it looks like they did....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_Hill's_Advanced_Civilization