The constraints of time.

As I get older, time becomes my most precious resource. It is the thing I have the least amount of. When I have spare time, my wife tends to capitalize on it. Now that we have a house, what time my wife doesn't take I use to improve our ancient house (I like my house, but it has its fair share of problems). So when I do happen upon some glorious free time, that I can use to do whatever I want, what do I play? Why, an old-ass game, thats what.

Civilization the fourth is the closest I will ever come to abusing a controlled substance. I will admit, I'm not that great at it. I usually play at the prince difficulty. Anything lower and I steamroll the lobotomized computer opponents, anything higher results in my spearmen getting run over by tanks. In the classical age. Bah. Much has been said about this game. But it still continues to draw me in, years after its release. Part of it is the look of the game. If I played any other game from that period it would look rather pedestrian. But the art style just doesn't seem to age. The game was released in 2005. The same year as the Xbox 360. Graphical and art design has changed by leaps and bounds in that time. Yet Civ hasn't changed, and it hasn't lost its appeal.

Its fairly incredible what we do when we want to waste our time. I have a stack of new games waiting to be played, but I spend my time on something that predates my current video game console. I find Civ 4 to be comforting. It rewards you in direct proportion to how much time you spend with it. The more and deeper that I get into the game, the greater the emotional reward. Micromanaging is something I don't particularly like to do, and I can gloss over it while I play. But when I do pay close attention, I gain a much more significant reward for my efforts. Very few games feel this rewarding for simply surviving in the game world. Even when you are mediocre, you can do something interesting. There is allways something to do, allways something to try. Thats what keeps pushing me back to Civ. It still has new things to do, after four years of play.