Yin's "What Civ Means to Me" Essay Contest: Unopened Special Edition to the Winner!

[Robert]

11,000 words?
Are you worried about the fact that we're bored sitting on the couch wondering how we can entertain ourselves all day long?

[Robert]

I'll summarise your review in advance:

I'm yin26, formerly known as "The Pessimist"
Civ4 is Tha Rockorzzzzzz! It Rulz happy big time!
ICS Is death and so is REX. No way to REX yourself brainlessly to a win.
I love cardboard boxes! I eat them every day, they taste good!

Now stop reading this silly review and start civing dudes 8)
Yin26


Just copy and paste it and you'll be fine! (eventhough I'm afraid that Poly will even split this review in 3 pieces with Daniel writing a large introduction to it)

[yin26]

In retrospect, I probably should have just written something like that. This 11,000 word thing (+40 screen shots) is pretty scary...

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I am going to take a punt and suggest that-based on your new 'tag line', the review is going to be generally positive. Of course, I am not prepared to eat a cardboard box if I am proven wrong . All I can say for my own part is to reiterate how much I am LOVING this game. My chief problem right now is in deciding when to play the game, and when to write up my Civ4 stories for Diplo games and Games of the Month!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Shogun Gunner]

11,000 words! Wow. Okay, looking forward to it. And will the link to you eating the box be in the third part of the series or will you release that MPEG seperately?

[Robert]

Will the "Yin is puking after eating the box" mpeg be available as well?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by yin26
LOL!

Well, let me just say that I will be submitting to Poly by the end of the week my 11,000 word review. Yes, that is not a joke (sadly!), and I think it will be pretty clear what my stance is on the game. Of course, knowing Poly, my review will come out in 3 parts, and you won't know the conclusion until March!

Oh well than I need to come back again in March to check it out

[Jeje2]

Originally posted by yin26
Well, let me just say that I will be submitting to Poly by the end of the week my 11,000 word review.

Where is it!
(Yin: do you have it as a *.doc or *.pdf for printing? 11000+ words would nice to print on paper for reading?)

[hexagonian]

Well I can say that I have read it already...and I ain't saying a word about it either

[yin26]

Actually, Hex and a few others whom I greatly respect had a *LOT* to do with my review. As for when it might be posted, Poly received it a few days ago, but it's so darn huge that I'm sure they are regretting ever asking for my review now!

[Robert]

Originally posted by yin26
Actually, Hex and a few others whom I greatly respect had a *LOT* to do with my review.

Glad to see that I'm involved as well!

[Stone-D]

So who's won the unopened game box then, pray tell?

[yin26]

The deadline is the 18th, so there's still time to post!

[eris]

First off, unlike many of the folk on this forum. I do not consider myself a computer gamer. My computer is for some desktop publishing and a couple other smilar pruposes.

However, back when I was younger, I was a strategy gamer of sorts, various board games where you pushed little counters around and simulated battles. I found that, for a devout pacifist, I made a rather vicious and effective general.

Nowadays, my health has gotten in the way. I am not really mobile and that has limited many things. (Thanks go to the RNG of Life that so far it is not terminal. However, unless we are 6,000 year old characters guiding a tribe through history, we are all mortal; I just have the "privilege" of knowing what the end will probably consist of. Then again, who knows, I may still end up being shot by a jealous lover.) So, finding something to fixate on with the computer has been an interesting addition to my life. I found the Myst series fascinating, but war games, even ones that evoked the old strategy games, didn't work for me.

Then I found Civilization. Not as many versions as some have been through on this forum, but a few. It was fascinating. It added a depth that I had found missing even in the old days of board games. It whiles away the late night hours when the pain meds and sleeping pills just do not work. Instead of someone huddled in a corner of my house, I am master of a tribe, then a city, then a nation, then an empire, all of it with effort and scheming and satisfaction and frustration.

I can't say that Civilization saves me because my life is empty. That would be foolish self-pity. I have family and friends who love me and whom I treasure beyond measure. They may have to visit me more often than I can manage to visit them, but that is just a detail. Still. there are times when everyone else is busy, or I feel like not being an inconvenience or a responsibility for someone else. Then I become Geghis Khan, or Ghandi, or make up a name and play with that. Some people talk about the game being an addiction. I have to add that for some people it can fulfill a need.

But that's not what I came here to talk about. (to borrow from Arlo Guthrie) I came to talk about my son.

You see, he has problems, too, just not the same kinds. At 13 years old, he is compulsive/obsessive, has ADD, and several other behavior and emotion issues that defy labelling. He is a wonderful person and often shows brilliance of mind and depth of generosity. Still he is difficult to raise or even relate to, even with much study and practice in those efforts. As such, times of making connection with him are triumphs to be savored. As can be expected with kids of this generation, he is immersed in video games, and can easily be engrossed for hours. Well, I get engrossed for hours, too, so I decided to share with him what my fascination is, Civilization. He tried a little Civ3, but got lost a little. Interestingly enough, although he is attracted to shooter video games, he plays an almost completely builder strategy in Civ.

Civ4 is different. It looks different and less intimidating. (People debate about what the extra graphics do. Now I have at least one concrete answer. It helps in not scaring some people away.) With his little bit of Civ3 experience and my babbling about my games, he understands many of the concepts of Civ4 with a lot more comprehension than Civ3.

Last night, at his request, for the first time, he and I sat down for a hotseat game of Civ4 on my system that can barely run the game. (The other one will get a replacement for a bad graphics card after the holidays when I can spend my limited free cash on said card. Holiday shopping comes first this time.)

We played for six hours. He beat me to the Parthenon. I barely beat him to the Pyramids by doing a last minute forest chop. We kibbitzed each others moves and traded comfortable wise cracks. Most important of all, we smiled and laughed. Who cares what the scores were? I wish there was some way to reach out and make all of you feel how deeply good that was, how I held back tears of joy so as not to confuse him or distract him from our fun. The save file waits for our next eagerly anticipated session.

Well beyond my own needs, satisfaction and enjoyment, this has become what Civilization means to me. It is no longer an escape from my reality. It is a tool to reach a critically important part of my reality.

If, by some incalculable chance, I should win this little contest, the prize will become his copy. I have the standard issue copy. His will be the "special" one and I will have to ask his "permission" to use it. Never mind that they are exactly the same software. The difference will be there and be treasured in ways those of us outside his little head can only guess at.

If I don't win. No biggy. There is still a save file waiting for us. And I got this chance to tell somebody who might understand just why I am smiling today as well as brushing away a couple of silly-seeming tears. (Messes up your typing badly, I tell you!)

Happy Holidays to you all and Happy Civving. I may have added one more member to our fold.

[Addled Platypus]

so at least you can eat the box in three parts

starting ?