Gamer Keeps Civilization II Game Going for 10 Years 219
Have you ever wondered what a game of Civilization 2 would look like after running for 10 years? According to one gamer it's a "hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation." "Lycerius" says that he's been playing the same game of Civ II off and on for over a decade. Some highlights of the marathon session include: 1700 years of war, the ice caps melting over 20 times, constant guerrilla uprisings, and "Roughly 90% of the world's population has died either from nuclear annihilation or famine caused by the global warming that has left absolutely zero arable land to farm." It's too bad you can't build the Hanging Gardens more than once.
He must not be that good (Score:5, Insightful)
He must be a pretty crappy gamer if, in all that time, there are still other civilizations in his way with which to have constant nuclear warfare. If he'd actually eliminated the other civilizations, he could easily rebuild everything.
Also, how on earth did he have so much global warming? That can really only be the effect of poor decisions or poorly waged nuclear war.
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Well, why don't you try it then? Play until the year 4000 and tell how your civilization is doing!
Re:He must not be that good (Score:5, Interesting)
I did that once with the original Civ. Played through until about the year 6000 AD. It was a long, hard battle at the start, but as the game progressed I eventually won out. By around 2000 AD I had virtually the entire planet and the AI had one civilization with two cities. In that situation the AI simply won't attack because you're too powerful, so the game continues peacefully virtually for ever. It gets boring pretty fast. Soon everything was covered with railroads and irrigation, the planet was effectively terraformed, all the technology was discovered, the climate was stable because there was no need for production and neither side had nucs. Almost all the cities had masses of happy people, it was basically a very boring utopia.
Re:He must not be that good (Score:5, Funny)
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Did you overheat the world before settling it fully? I remember that global warming eventually turned every land square into a swamp, and you could turn those into grasslands with your settlers. Since grasslands gave the most food, global warming was good if you wanted a large population.
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global warming was good if you wanted a large population.
A passle of 200Kg settlers /shuuder
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I did something similar with the original Civ for DOS. I was playing Prince level on the world map, and managed to wipe out every other country of the planet, except for the Aztecs, who had replaced the Egyptians when I wiped them out early on.
The Aztecs had one city going *somewhere*, but I hadn't come across them yet. So I kept on my merry expansionist/scientific ways, railroading everywhere I could and making super caravan cities and parking the caravans off on railroad sidings until I needed them. I eve
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I had a friend do that with the original Civ as well, except that he surrounded the one remaining civilization with mechanized infantry. It was incredibly boring, but he wanted to see how high of a score he could get. He basically ended up building then selling city walls in most of his cities, since most of the world was occupied. Each turn took him literally hours near the end. After a few weeks, he finally finished the game and got the ranking of King Solomon or something close, and that was the end
I cheated (Score:2)
I've played it - as a despicable player (as the game describes me for doing it in cheat mode). Actually, under the more honorable scenario mode. What I do is create enough units, and beseige and blocade every one of my enemies, w/o killing them, and cheating and giving myself 30k of money (the limit in the game) and all the technologies. I then change my government to fundamentalist (where I'll be flush w/ both cash and stability, but my research suffers, which doesn't matter since I know everything), cr
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I think this would have been more interesting if the game had been modded to remove the time cap and we were talking about a hear 40,000 game instead. A game intentionally played so as to not end and keep some balance (so leaving other civilizations fairly intact) and running the simulation long past its designed ending point.. could be kinda neat.
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I wish Dust was available for PC
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"how on earth did he have so much global warming?" (Score:5, Funny)
Deny it exists and do nothing to stop it?
Re:He must not be that good (Score:5, Insightful)
He must be a pretty crappy gamer if, in all that time, there are still other civilizations in his way with which to have constant nuclear warfare. If he'd actually eliminated the other civilizations, he could easily rebuild everything.
Also, how on earth did he have so much global warming? That can really only be the effect of poor decisions or poorly waged nuclear war.
Considering how his biggest gripes are when other countries violate ceasefires, as well as his reluctance in switching away from democracy, it looks like he was trying create an actual society that co-inhabits the world with other societies, rather than just play king of the resource mountain.
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A lot of historical societies dealt with these kinds of problems by being "king of resource mountain". If you get your ceasefire broken once, that makes you a victim of betrayal, but the third time it happens you're just being gullible.
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If you get your ceasefire broken once, that makes you a victim of betrayal, but the third time it happens you're just being gullible.
Why does that logic sound so familiar [childdevelopmentinfo.com]?
Ah yes, ages 4-7:
The child has an intuitive grasp of logical concepts in some areas. However, there is still a tendency to focus attention on one aspect of an object while ignoring others. Concepts formed are crude and irreversible.
Perceptions dominate judgment. In moral-ethical realm, the child is not able to show principles underlying best behavior.
Once again, display of maturity and an attempt to build an actual society.
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The story talks about a long game. Not a good game.
Re:He must not be that good (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently, there are three main super powers left and they have been locked in constant war with each other for the past thousand years or more. Every time someone moves beyond the relatively stable front lines, their armies just get nuked into oblivion so no one can really push the attack too far beyond a set border. Spies constantly plant nuclear devices in cities, wiping out the population and spreading pollution. Engineers are generally kept busy building roads to keep moving troops to the front lines so there's not really enough time to clean up the pollution or improve the terrain.
Basically it's reached a point where it's almost impossible to gain an advantage. Everyone is armed to the teeth and nuclear weapons will demolish just about any army in the field that gets to far across the lines. Everyone is also so committed to the war effort that there's not enough resources to devote to fixing things up and anytime something does get fixed up, it's generally just nuked back to oblivion.
Sounds like a really fun game of Civ II.
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Mr. President, we can't afford to have a mineshaft gap!!
Re:He must not be that good (Score:4, Funny)
Apparently, there are three main super powers left and they have been locked in constant war with each other for the past thousand years or more.
We've always been at war with Eastasia.
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Why does the ultimate goal have to be to eliminate all competition?
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Nukes are terrible weapons. They have a lot of collateral damage, and they don't help that much to take over a city. You lose half the population. Your units can't be anywhere close by or they get hit, too, and the nasty pollution really hits your civ score hard! It's a weapon best avoided. The disadvantages way outway their advantages.
So game with GW agenda? (Score:3)
I knew it! Those developers are damn liberal hippies! :)
Seriously though, life defining game series.
1984 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
Or at least that's what the government tells you...
Re:1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
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1984 does have a seen with the soldiers of one of those nations. Granted that's not entire proof positive of the war. The three nations, if they exist, could come to various accords. In the end, it's much simpler to assume that the three nations do exist but their wars are predetermined and planned in order for all three nations to keep their populaces stupid.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, IIRC theres good reason NOT to believe that there is a war. As I recall there are several clues point to the fact that there simply isnt any war, and that the entire thing is a hoax to keep the people under control.
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Actually, IIRC theres good reason NOT to believe that there is a war. As I recall there are several clues point to the fact that there simply isnt any war, and that the entire thing is a hoax to keep the people under control.
I agree, that's how it feels when you read the book. But if true - why switch enemies periodically, only to cover it up later and deny it ever happened? The system would work just fine, and even save some trouble (altering records and disappearing people), if the enemy was always Eurasia.
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But if true - why switch enemies periodically, only to cover it up later and deny it ever happened? The system would work just fine, and even save some trouble (altering records and disappearing people), if the enemy was always Eurasia.
I think the powers that be were also switching enemies just because they could. They aren't in the least interested in saving trouble. I think it was part of the intended environment of fear and control. Forcing
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Citizen we have always been at war with Eurasia. Now stop spreading nonsense and get to your junior anti sex meeting.
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Real history though has countries fighting back and forth, often finding the cost of finishing the job to be too high (indigestion absorbing new territory, economic costs of prolonged war, etc)... and I kept
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And don't get me started on the AI...
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I remember one game where another super power and I were essentially fighting a giant proxy
religion (Score:2)
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It's not there in Civ5 right now, but apparently they've simply made it into a DLC that should be out in a week or so.
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The Europa Universalis series might be for you (And they tell me that Hearts of Iron series are quite similar in a WW2 Setting)
Our Future (Score:2)
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Yes, the future of slashdot stories are links to reddit comments. Truly a frightening visage.
Virtual machines (Score:5, Interesting)
First, I thought this was about a continuously running game... And my fist thought was dang, I bet he wish he started it in a VM, because he could have kept moving it to new hardware, rateh than keeping that old Pentium IV around. But I guess there's a save-game feature.
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You can convert conventional Windows installs to VMs.
Google it. It's been an option for several years at least.
Re:Virtual machines (Score:4, Interesting)
Hibernate -> Copy HD -> Start in virtual machine.
I've actually done this.
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Not while running, that Im aware of-- doing a P2V will work, except the newly created VM will typically be off once its been created, and it certainly wont replicate the current physical computer's CPU state.
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Load FreeCiv into a virtual machine, define a really really large map and a very large number of initial civilizations, and leave running for 20 years.
For added fun, hack the code to allow a civilization to split (as per the Roman Empire) if unhappiness levels get too great, where the scion AIs use slightly modified parameters a-la genetic coding.
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Would you like to play a game of Chess?
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Not really, do you have a Global Thermonuclear War option?
Bad player (Score:2)
Now we know whom not to vote for in the next election. Such mismanagement never happens in my games...
9-9-9 (Score:2)
One more stat (Score:2)
7,338 tanks destroyed by phalanxes
Make him president? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, this guy has some serious management skillz! Maybe he should be running Spain or Greece or the US?
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Wow, this guy has some serious management skillz! Maybe he should be running Spain or Greece or the US?
Dude, the guy has let the entire world crumble underneath him. I don't think that's management skills. Rather, I think people like him HAVE been running Spain, Greece, and the US...
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You underestimate how difficult it is to achieve this kind of perfect balance in Civ.
in 10 years... (Score:3)
I wouldn't be at all surprised that if in 10 years we'll have some people playing the same Minecraft worlds as well. It would even be more interesting, since your "history" would be remembered as you moved from camp to camp.
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I run a Minecraft server with/for a small-ish group of friends and family (~25 people whitelisted). The problem we've faced is that as Mojang adds more features, you have to do a reboot of your map if you want to have access (or easy access, I should say) to them if you're playing in Survival mode. Because of this we've already rebooted once, since we ran one map from ~1.2 beta through the 1.0.0 launch (to get NPC villages, Fortresses+The End, etc), and now are facing a second reboot because of Emeralds bei
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Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Informative)
It is pretty nerdy, and interesting!
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I would LOVE to have stories like this on Slashdot, but all we get is some pro-piracy, anti-microsoft circlejerking. The same goes for the comments, obviously. I remember when the John Carmack used to post here - he does not anymore, and you wonder why?
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
the problem with reddit (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with reddit is that its even more of an echo chamber because of the way they do moderation. Basically its all determined by the masses, like digg was. It used to be (circa 2006) that differing opinions were more visible. Now they are completely buried.
Also 95% of the stuff on there is memes, pictures of girls or animals, people complaining, or self aggrandizing (bestof, iama, TIL) and also constant reposts of the same crap from 10 years ago.
In short, its now a "community" as opposed to what it was when it started, a site which didn't require any email verification and was trying to be as anonymous as possible. Now they have karma, anniversaries (cake) and other "features" which make it more like a social networking site than a link agregator. They want people to build up their reputations, but this stifles independent thought. The delays on postings for non long term users is horrible now. Was much better when it was pseudo anonymous and not as popular. I blame the diggers who came over in 2008 or thereabouts.
all that said, i read it every day, but not usually the comments. Slashdot comments and moderation are far far far superior.
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It also shows that Reddit nowadays is often much more interesting than /.
A few years ago, everyone was saying the same about Digg--and how Digg was the /. killer. Heard from them lately?
Reports of slashdot's demise are frequently exaggerated.
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It also shows that Reddit nowadays is often much more interesting than /.
I don't read Reddit regularly but when I checked it now, it seemed to just be a similar "random crap" pool much like Digg. :)
I would LOVE to have stories like this on Slashdot, but all we get is some pro-piracy, anti-microsoft circlejerking.
Totally agree. It's a shame how one-sided the discussion regarding those topics is. You get nearly automatically downmodded if you oppose piracy, Linux is some holy water which makes everything good and, there's almost never any article related to solving some problem using MS environment. That said, this is still an awesome website...
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Agreed. As a news junkie, /. is just a little too slow with new stories, too.
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When Digg was about to implode, there was a sudden influx of high UIDs making positive comments on slashdot about digg too.
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The thing with reddit is that it can be tailored to your interests. Specially when you focus on small sized subreddits.
The majority vote system has its pros and cons but it's all around a very good site.
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
It is cool as frig to see that someone went the distance on it. More often than not, I just said 'screw it' and restarted the game after I reached the main goal and won, or after it was apparent that I was toast. I only went long-term once, and that was only for a month (same schedule, off and on as time permitted). Got way too bored with it at that point, nuked the remaining cities, and restarted the game (or sometimes I'd just go all Anasazi on it and begin to dismantle all my cities to see what happened.)
I usually won it by being the American team up-front, since the game engineered that particular role to be even more aggressive than the real USA could ever hope to be.
Best bet though was to find and identify the aggressive mofos up-front, wipe them out post-haste, and then quickly surround the weaker nations with your stuff so that they didn't expand. Eventually, you could leave them with one city apiece, and you own the rest.
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:4, Funny)
I used to play Civ 1 on a monochrome screen. The first objective was to find the nation with units of the same shade of gray as your own and completely wipe them out.
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Screenshots here:
http://imgur.com/a/rAnZs [imgur.com]
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Just one more turn....
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Now look at this article
You
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You mean a media news website like this: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/06/12/man-plays-civilisation-ii_n_1589153.html [huffingtonpost.co.uk]
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I'll admit it the HuffPost piece almost looks like an Onion article, if it makes you feel better.
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`"Man Plays Civilisation II For 10 Years, World Disintegrates into 'Nightmare Of Suffering' (PHOTOS)"
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wouldn't you LIKE to think that this site is just a LITTLE above that?
Not really, and you're foolish to think otherwise.
Why should Slashdot stoop to THOSE levels?
You tell me, but as everyone complains on a daily basis, it seems to have done just that.
WHY are you comparing Slashdot to that?
See above.
This "well, it could be worse!" mentality has grown REALLY OLD.
When you get old, you tend take what you can get and chill the fuck out.
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...casual gamer?
I'd say someone who plays a single Civ2 game save for 10 years is pretty hardcore.
If this place were really "news for someone who played a single Civ2 game save for 10 years" then we would ALL be out (that guy probably doesnt even post here).
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:5, Funny)
No? Not even x-com on steam? Well... frankly I don't think YOU matter.
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why does any of that matter to nerds?
It arguably is stuff that matters.
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Disregard the fact the full tagline is "News for Nerds", I happen to enjoy living in a world where "news" isn't confined to what one persons thinks it should be.
Re:MORONS!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you want "news for nerds" then you should be on specialized websites like reprap.org, cnczone.com, buildyourcnc.com, etc.
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Welcome to Idle.
Pull up a kitten and stay awhile!
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Except this isn't a case of uptime. Any computer can run for 10 years, on and off. Get 10 years uptime is a whole different story. If this guy actually ran Civ2 for ten years, rather than loading up a save file off an on for 10 years that would be a bit more impressive.
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What it has "become"? People bragging about their uptime is pretty much how it /started/... I really don't see what all the fuss is about.
That reminds me, talking about the uptime of a UNIX system has pretty much disappeared. Back in the day, it was some kind of pride (or maybe a pointless number) to have a long uptime -- months, even years. Not that much anymore. It's probably partly related to the OS and its updates being a more live and changing thing.
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Re:Reddit reruns (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one am sick of hearing about unemployment, the election and Syria. Want to hear about it? Go to News.google, cnn. USA Today, etc.
Absolutely nothing wrong with nerd news appearing on a nerd website. Just because it isn't exciting enough for YOU doesn't mean others won't like it... nor does it mean everyone watches Reddit Live.
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Or Fintlewoodlewix.
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Yeah, thanks, you're right and I should have read the article more carefully.
But even so, isn't this just indicative of 4X computer strategy games in general anyway?
When you play games of this type that start with 8 or so players, then you usually end up with about half of them being wiped out in the early to mid-stages of the game because the successful players have been the quickest and fastest to follow a specific strategy - whether it's fast expansion and strength through numbers or being the most techn
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The problem I have with 4X games is that the best games are those with human opponents, and the number of people prepared to sit and patiently play turn-based strategy games seems to get fewer and fewer by the day...
I always find that playing against the AI, I tend to fall into the same strategy of play that always lets me win in the end - in my case, it tends to be a strategy of getting as technologically advanced as possible whilst not expanding too much and keeping all my opponents friendly until I can r
Re:Am I Missing Something Here? (Score:5, Informative)
Give Galactic Civilizations II a try, you'll be amazed by the AI at higher difficulty settings.