[pf] 'what do you do with your time?'

**  As some of you might have guessed, today (early afternoon on Mon. 10
Jan. 2000), is the first day I've had easy access to this computer for 2
weeks - the length of my wife's summer holiday.

**  Many will also, I'm sorry to say, be surprised that playing computer
games fills a lot of our spare time (not just mine and hers, but our
children [22yo & 26yo] as well). I have no apologies; as a second choice to
enjoying our natural surroundings or teaching oneself something new, it is
eminently sustainable I think. The only thing that beats it for our
daughter, is ICQ-chatting with her good friend in Switzerland (he arrives
for a visit in about a month), or talking with her friends here.

**  However, I'm also surprised to find that the kind of game I've been
playing for 5-10 years now, such as Sid Meier's "Civilization", is also
very much enjoyed by the others, including my wife when she's happily
taking time off her lecturing job. The feature I think is so absorbing is
the complexity, which allows goals to be reached in /many/ different ways.
By the way, I first met "Civ" on a black-n-white Mac Powerbook 100 - the
colour version added little to my interest.

**  The game we've all been playing (for the younger two, only up to a week
ago - they've moved on to RollerCoaster Tycoon; for us old fogeys, we're
still at it) is the Sierra game Caesar III.
    You're given a (series of) map(s) on which you're supposed to build a
city: one of the key ones in the development of the Roman Empire.
    That means attracting settlers, so you have to make living there
attractive. This particular game relies on providing work, and paying your
plebeians more than Caesar does his, together with the usual bread and
circuses (& "opiate of the masses"), and halting attacking armies before
they damage your city.
    You have farms (usually), some raw materials and a range of workshops
(including olive oil presses and wineries), so your city can earn money by
trading your produce with other cities.
    Keeping the right balance, e.g. adjusting the speed at which you
develop your city according to your resources, gives the player quite a bit
of satisfaction when you've got everything running well (and one of your
people says when asked: "You know, this ain't such a bad city, as cities
go!").

**  In my:
http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/DavidsDailyLife99.html
    I say: 
 "... sometime before or soon after 3 PM I switch over to playing computer
games, to get in enough time for some satisfaction before [my wife] gets
home about 5:35 PM and I leave the computer for the day." 
    That is, when I can't rely on my thinking ability being at "normal"
level, I go to a (relatively) complex computer game for satisfaction.

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3142/Pg1-AD11.html
 or better: http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/
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