Played Lately: Sid Meier's Civilization V

• My good friend, gaming burnout, came to visit the other day. But instead of coming and going, he decided to crash on the couch and eat all my tortilla chips right out of the bag. When he gets comfortable like this, the only way to get out is to change up my routine. So I put WoW on hold for a little bit and fired up Civilization V.


• I chose Civ V primarily because of the recent patch. I played the heck out of the game when if first came out, but I don't stick with Civ games too long, even when I enjoy them a lot. Happily, I can report that the patch does help with a number of issues that I had with the game. It made this return a great experience.


• In the first game I played, I was randomly assigned the Chinese. I decided early on that I wanted to try for a Culture victory, a goal that seemed impossible before. I kept my empire small, expanding to only three cities. And I was lucky with my placement since I was the only civilization on my continent, along with a handful of city-states. I spent my very little time fighting. In fact, I ended the game with just three units to my name. I upgraded them as I could, but mostly they stayed garrisoned in my city after the threat of barbarians had passed. Funny enough, everyone else left me alone and I completed the mythical Utopia Project. So yeah, it can be done.


• My next game also ended up with the Chinese, but on a continent with four neighbors. In spite of the crowding, I tried to keep it peaceful and try for a Science victory. One of the most interesting things about running down the tech tree is that you get access to all of these awesome toys. I mean, if you get the chance to build nuclear missiles, why wouldn't you wipe those smug Ottomans off the map? As you would expect, I ended up in a lot of armed conflicts, including a world war starting around 1700. Since at that point I was rushing toward my favorite unit, Infantry. I took on all comers, even fighting a multi-front war, and took several capitals along the way. By the time the conflict was done, I had pushed all of the other civilizations into tight little pockets where they couldn't damage me anymore. I went back to my research, built my ship and took off for the stars.


• The afore mentioned nuke was tossed at the Ottomans because they were the only ones on my continent still holding their capital. And thank goodness because the Arabians were on there also and I would feel queasy nuking Mecca. Unfortunately a glitch stopped the mushroom cloud from spawning so all I saw were a couple units collapsing and the terrain burning. Oh well.


• It's pretty fun how, even after being away from the game for a while, Civilization V can suck me right back in without even trying. Maybe that's why I play only rarely: I need my sleep.

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