I've got bugger all to really talk about so with the release of Civ 5 I'm going to comment on the divorce earner and time loser that strategy gaming genius Sid Meier is. Even if the only thing he ever went near were the aforementioned Civilization series he'd have accounted for millions of pounds to the biggest selling entertainment industry (well except "adult entertainment") and probably an equal amount for divorce settlements.
The key factor of these games is depth and replayability and he makes sure there's plenty of this. In Civ for example you move from a small settlement to hopefully head of the UN and winning the race to settle on another planet (after nuking Mahatma Gandhi's vast empire due to his xenophobic and agressive diplomatic policies this one's a bit of a wasteland now...) and no two games are ever alike. Plus as it's a long running game it leads to the disease "onemoreturnitis" and that "quick play" soon becomes several hours as you notice the time appears to be long gone. If you were to add up the time played even if you have relatively short runs it's not uncommon for people to have played the series for at least a month of their lives.
The recent bane of my existence has been Railroads. Anyone who's ever played a PC game will be familiar with "X Tycoon" well he's the man behind the first "tycoon" game which was Railroad Tycoon, as you'd expect it's about running railways and the series has got SOMETHING which draws you back again and again. For some, maybe it's the basic sandbox mode and the ability to create a "dream" railway and since it'd cost a fortune to have the full Hornby set designed this way it's far cheaper but to me that's not as fun. A game needs a challenge and to me that just is not it, where're the rivals?
What keeps me coming back is trying to get a "perfect" profitable and efficient mini-empire. Playing on and making Hitchin the business capital of the United Kingdom with all sorts of industry based around this little Hertfordshire town (meanwhile Manchester and Liverpool are certified as "a village") and trying to get it running so well that the rivals are unable to prevent my aquisitions and even funnier, financing my own businesses. Thing is, although it's played out in real time and so doesn't have the onset of "onemoreturnitis" as a plan comes into your mind and you spot that new profitable route and that target it becomes that little bit harder to pull yourself away until the goal is achieved. Then of course you have that next target, and the next, and the next and then, just as you're about to achieve your prime goal.... You're bought out, due to your obsession with that bottleneck outside the metropolis of Lands End you forgot to make sure once you started making big profits that you bought all the shares and some sneaky bugger (Brunell I'm looking at you...) has bought you out and you're seeing out your days as a.... well, depends how well you played but in my case I see "travelling circus freak" an awful lot...
As the man behind games like Civilization and (colonial Americaesque sim) Colonization I owe a lot to my interest in history to this man. I still remember handing in my first piece of homework in secondary school a 10 page document on the relationship between Cortez and Montezuma and it is purely due to the time spent on his games on boring weekends. Now Civ 5 is out I'm going to have to bite on that there thumb of mine not to buy it. I'd initially told myself the laptop wouldn't cope with it but now research shows it probably would I am somewhat relieved how skint I am, otherwise I might finally have drove the wench away with my inescent rambling and warmongering. "Bite that Convention on for size Geneva muahahahahahahaha"
