Way back in the mid 1990s, when we got our first family computer, one of our friends gave us a bootleg copy of the original game Civilization. It was painfully slow. The graphics were primitive. Mr S-P loved it, in spite of its clunkiness. He used to start a game, and then walk away for extended periods while it loaded and built, and sometimes he'd do that just so it was ready to go the next day so he didn't have to go through the process that next time. At first it annoyed me, and then after several months, I tried a game. I found out I actually liked it. (This set a pattern for an awful lot of games to come over decades.) A few years later, we were shopping with my old business partner, and found an updated version, Civilization 2. (I think she might have actually bought it as a gift to us.) The graphics were significantly improved. The game experience was light years better. It became my favorite version of my favorite game ever, full stop. I played it every chance I got, and the games could take days to complete, usually as a combined six or seven hours spread out in bites after work. Subsequent versions came out, and I tried version 3 once and hated everything about it. Everything. It was an abomination, as far as I was concerned. As long as I had clunky old desktop computers that would still play Civ 2, I did, even when version 4 came out. I think we bought Civ 4, and Mr S-P found it tolerable, while I found it confusing and uninteresting, although not like the Age of Empires ripoff that Civ 3 was.
Once I got my first iPad, I found a lighter, quicker app version called Civ Revolution. It was simple and fun and I played the hell out of it. The second iPad worked with it, but the one I have now wouldn't support it anymore. There was a second generation of it that I got for my phone and regretted it. It was dumb. I deleted the app. I gave up my favorite game and tried to pretend I was happy just doing digital puzzles, or playing casino games without the real money investment. Once I was sure I was staring down the barrel at surgery and anticipated down time while I recovered, I went looking for an update. There was a 60-turn sample game of the most current app-based version, and I tried it. I debated for two days whether to spend 20 bucks on the full game, but with an unknown amount of time stuck in my bed threatening me, I went ahead and paid the money. It's not an easy game. It's insanely complex, and I haven't figured out yet how to do half the stuff. But I'm learning. It's nice to have the chance to re-enter that gaming world again.
Flash forward to tonight. I've been feeling fantastic since the tumor came out and they started pumping me full of prescription strength vitamin D (separate doctors' efforts there). I didn't spend as much time in bed as I expected, but I still have had to be restrained while I heal. I played those other games. I watched dozens of hours of videos of people painting with poured acrylics. I've eaten too many bite-sized candy bars. I got super bored. And tonight, I took another stab at the Civ 6 app. Until tonight, I never made it past halfway before I gave up or was defeated out of the blue. Tonight I kept at it, playing well past one o'clock in the morning. I thought I was going to finish for the first time since I bought it a couple of months ago. I made it all the way to turn 450/500 or so, to the year 2021, the last time I looked at the ticker at the top. I was tired, but I was committed. I didn't want to stop. I kept getting notifications that one of the other civilizations was racking up culture points, so I tried to bump mine up. I couldn't do it fast enough. All of a sudden, the screen changed from a game map to an animated scene that looked like a bombed-out city. I had lost. I think I put more than seven hours into it, and I put off all kinds of things that I should have done (like take my pills, write my blog, and sleep). I feel cheated, but I don't know whether to blame the AI of the game or myself. Probably myself.
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