It’s crack, but it could be so much more addictive

I’m addicted to Civ3. I was addicted to Civ2 and still played it regularly until Civ3 came out. The game is addictive, and since I’ve been sick and alone in the house, I’ve played a lot. Civ3 is a great update of the previous game, but it’s missing a lot of the stuff that made playing more convenient in Civ2. I’ve come up with a little list of things I’d love to see them add back to the new game.

  • The Go to city command for units. It’s a pain in the butt to have to drag each little unit individually to a city.

  • The “Upgrade All Units” that Leonardo’s Workshop used to give you. If you’ve got cash in the game, there’s no real reason to build it.

  • Build Railroad doesn’t work with the R key like it’s supposed to.

  • I haven’t played enough to have tried putting the barbarians past the second level, but they never show up. I have yet to see one.

  • Ou est le cheat menu?

There are also some things that other strategy games do that would make the game a lot better and more than a facelift.

  • In Command and Conquer and Age of Empires, granted they’re both real-time strategy instead of turned based, you can group units and move them together. Why oh why can’t we do that in Civ3? Towards the end of a militaristic game when you’ve got hundreds of units, moving them all individually is a waste of time that doesn’t improve the game experience.

  • Better special units. I’ve only played the Americans and Zulu’s so far, but the Impi is a horrible unit. Once you’ve got Spearmen, he’s useless, other than looking kind of cool.

  • Swordsman should be upgradable to Musketmen, or at least Infantry. I never build them now because you can’t upgrade them at all until Mechanized Infantry (which only take 1200 years)

  • I’m not sure anyone else does this, but how about a different leader over the years? No one’s emperor lives for three thousand years, although I guess in the game, the player is the leader. It would be interesting though to see Abe get older, and then be replaced by Kennedy, then maybe Reagan.

I was thinking about this yesterday on the way home from work, through my swollen face, that the diplomacy in the game is just a little more complex than in Civ2. Trading and making deals through the diplomatic screen is great. But, I’d love to see more nuance. I know it would be incredibly complex, and be a game within itself, but wouldn’t it be cool if you could nurture your advisors, make them act like real people, put them in charge of trade altogether, military operations, etc. That way, you could concentrate on the parts of the game that interest you without completely dropping the others. Also, it would be great if there were a system of back channels. Clandestine meetings with other countries’ advisors instead of going to the leader, with each nationality getting a different set of unique advisors (for example, the Greeks would have a killer Cultural advisor, the Americans would have great military and trade, the Romans, a great military advisor). Also, it would be cool if you could recruit away the Greek’s cultural advisor to improve your civilization’s culture. Yeah, that’s complex, but would add a new dimension to the game that I think it’s missing. Now, it’s “Hey, want some stuff?”, “Want a map?”, “Die, scum!” and that’s about it. There’s no real way to intimate sabre-rattling without sitting a bunch of naval units inside their borders until they declare war on you (cuz I don’t like to throw the first punch).

I’m not saying Civ3 isn’t a great game. It’s an excellent turn-based strategy game. It’s held up well over the years, and this installment adds some nice wrinkles. I just think it would be nice if they didn’t remove some of the nice utility features of Civ2, and added some more complexities.

Someone at work actually noticed

Someone at work actually noticed that I’ve lost weight. First time someone other than an immediate family member noticed since I started. Damn, that feels good.

New Geekery entry: Linux Newbie

New Geekery entry: Linux Newbie Tips and Tricks.

All Alone

After a marathon Saturday getting Jen and Max to the airport, circumventing a gigantic accident on the Beltway, navigating through a less than pleasant neighborhood in downtown DC, managing to get everyone to the airport, checked in, to Security, back over the beltway, wrong way first, U-Turn by FedEx field, getting antibiotics from nice old pharmacist at Safeway, coming home to an empty house to wallow in sinus pain.

Jen and Max made it to Tucson safely. Max was an angel and slept for two hours on the plane and then played quietly the rest of the time. I was prepared for horror stories of inflight diaper disasters, grumpiness and general pandemonium. Max gets a pony when he gets back, I think.

I slept through church on Sunday. I slept for 14 hours straight, and was still tired when I finally dragged my butt out of bed, downstairs to the couch where I had a cold bachelor pizza lunch and wondered why the olympics didn’t start until 7.

It’s no fun being sick unless I have someone to feel sorry for me, so here I am at work where I’ll do the “I’m sick, but aren’t you impressed that I’m here anyway” and try to avoid as much actual work as I can. The problem is three projects are at their apex of pain right now and that means I get to do eight things at once, answer thirty IMs at once and juggle ostrich eggs all at the same time. That’s pretty tough when I’m well, much less when I’m swimming in a facefull of bloody snot.

Spent today being sick and

Spent today being sick and playing with Max, and watching Jen pack for their trip. Now, I’m printing directions to the airport to combat last-minute mind-losing. Must go to bed now, head is full of snot.

Tomorrow – drive to airport, help corrall the kid while in line for security, drown sorrows in Super Troopers and Vietnamese food. Wallow in my sinus infection in front of Iron Chef.

It’s official…. I’m sick! A

It’s official…. I’m sick! A temperture of 100.5, flushed and achey, I’m sitting here at work delivering bad news left and right and stamping out fires with my sick feet. Happy Valentine’s Day ::cough, cough::.

Funky Funk

A funk has set in. Maybe it’s because Jen and Max are going out of town for two weeks, or the fact that I don’t feel well. Maybe it’s that they’re threatening to switch platforms on me at work, and I’m afraid I’ll have to learn a language I don’t want to (Java – Why the hell would you compile something that’s going to change every other week?).

There’s something to be said for a sinus infection that’s now bad enough that every time I sneeze it looks like a gib exploded in a bad gangster movie. My face is so swollen that my vision’s affected. Yeah, baby, I love it! I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to see what’s up and hopefully we can find a way to kill this thing once and for all.

In other news, I’ll be able to weigh myself on a reliable scale tomorrow and see if this soda reduction is working. I feel like I’ve lost weight, but our scale’s so old and messed up I have no idea where it starts, much less what number I should be reading when I get on it.

Are you fat?

I am. And I’ve come up with a list of ways to tell if you are too.

  1. Can you use your gut as a portable table?

  2. You’d buy a sports car, but the thought of getting in and out of it deters you.

  3. Lose twenty pounds and no one even notices.

  4. You know what dunlap’s disease is.

  5. Your belt is industrial grade, and not for decoration.

  6. You’re six feet tall and have been turned away from a roller coaster.

  7. You’ve ever said, “Bacon’s my middle name.”

Jen is strongly refuting my

Jen is strongly refuting my charge of infrequent seat-lifting. I think we’ve come to a consensus to blame it either on the supernatural or Max.

And just an update for those of you who may be wondering – I only pee sitting down at home. In public, I’m a stand-up manly urinal guy.

It’s a strange day. I’ve

It’s a strange day. I’ve been reading about the demise of a company I once respected, and a love story I’ve watched from afar (so far that I’ve only exchanged e-mails, but wow, it’s been a hell of a story – one I hope they never make into a movie because I don’t think anyone could get it right but the participants).