What do you all do?

[Muaziz]

I'm curious as to what you all do in between Epics and Adventures. I am sure many of you have Real Lives with real responsibilities, but I imagine that there has to be a fair share of Civ junkies out there, just like there are for every other game.

Personally, I came from a hardcore WoW raiding guild so I am very used to a fast pace. Now that Epic 14 and Adv 24 are long behind me, I am suffering through withdrawal. It used to be that I could just kick off a random Civ game and enjoy it for a couple of days. But now that I have played a couple "more competitive" games, it's really hard to go back to mundane games. I think it is my competitive nature getting the better of me.

So I was wondering what the rest of you all did to bide the time between games.

[sunrise089]

Several answers:

1) Most of us picked up Civ around release date, so we've had LOTS of experience with it to date.

2) RB is a pretty old crowd for gamers, so lots of us have "real life" commitments. Sullla is even a #^$@& college professor (more or less) yet still has to try to fit Civ, DDR, and Diablo time in.

3) We have succession games. Right now I'm in one, which is about my limit w/ full-time work + full-time school. Over the summer I was in 5 - that offered no shortage of Civ action.

[Sullla]

As sunrise said, most of our players don't even have enough time to finish the games that we run right now. (We could create more games, but hardly anyone would have time to finish them!) Over the last five years, it's been well established that trying to have more than two games ongoing at a time causes participation to drop drastically. I'm sorry if that causes some withdrawl issues for our eager beavers.

You could also try joining more succession games, trying out the CivFanatics Game of the Month (another competitive endeavor), or simply going back to solo games. I wish I could play more, there's just not enough time!

[darrelljs]

I average two games a week (outside of RB and succession). That probably points me in the minority, but I play really fast (Normal speed and most games under four hours real time) and I'm kind of addicted. I've had two burnout periods, both of which lasted about a week. When I skip an RB event it is because I don't have the time to write a report, those usually take me longer than the actual game.

edit: If you are getting bored with non event games, try varying the settings. Play with different maps, at different levels, go for different victory conditions, different leaders. There really are so many permutations it is hard to get bored. You could also try multiplayer, I think Atlas does that a lot and he might be able to help you get started.

Darrell

[Atlas]

I'm curious as to what you all do in between Epics and Adventures.

You could always play some old Epics/Adventures and even post a report.

I am sure many of you have Real Lives with real responsibilities,

Yep

but I imagine that there has to be a fair share of Civ junkies out there, just like there are for every other game.

There are, and I can recommend playing some SG games and/or Muiltiplayer.

About MP civ... I played ALOT for the last year and a half, but have not played MP in about a month. I have never played WoW, but I imagine that you can come across some rather "abrasive" players. The same is true for MP civ. Don't let them calling you a "noob" bother you, in all truth you will be for at least a month. It is a different game and even if you know single player Civ backward and forward you will still only be "okay" at MP so take critique (kind, helpful, abrasive, and rude) with grain of salt. If you really want to play and learn some stuff, I would be glad to play some 1v1 against you or we could team up and play some 2v2 (do you have a Microphone and Teamspeak?). If you decide you like MP I would recommend joining the ladder http://www.myleague.com/civ4players/ You will find that most games are "ladder" games, this helps prevent people from quiting the game as soon as something does not go their way. Also, if you decide to play MP I would not play team games with random people right away, instead play "cton" games, this is what ladder players call a "free for all". If/when you play team games listen to your teammates, you don't have to do everything they say, but follow their tech lead in picking tech

If after reading everything I wrote you decide to give MP a try check out this thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=203782

and this one

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=176505

[LKendter]

As sunrise said, most of our players don't even have enough time to finish the games that we run right now.

That is so true. I can't tell you how many half completed RB games are sitting on my hard drive to finish "one of these days".

I was happy that I completed ADV24. Even with 4 weeks left when I started, I don't think I will complete EPIC14. Just two games at once was more then I could handle.

[TriviAl]

WoW raiding - sounds very familiar. Although I knocked that on the head in the run up to The Burning Crusade. One brief relapse after that was released... but don't play any more.

With Civ, got involved with it all online not long after Civ III came out - Civfanatics GOTM being the start of online stuff. Been playing on and off ever since. Keep coming back to it!

Personally, I like to play an SG or two in addition to other games. Don't like to subscribe to more than that, in case work has a sudden overload.

Find single player self imposed variants can be good fun. Hundreds of good ideas out there - normally find SGs I don't have time to sign up for a great starting point? Additionally it's nice to play a game where I'm not going to write a report.

[sooooo]

That is so true. I can't tell you how many half completed RB games are sitting on my hard drive to finish "one of these days".

Yep, one of these days I'll finally kill those barbarians in epic 4

[sunrise089]

Yep, one of these days I'll finally kill those barbarians in epic 4

I know the feeling...

And the high quality of the reports at RB doesn't help procrastination either - as Darrell said often the report can be a more daunting task than the game itself.

[Sullla]

I know the feeling...

And the high quality of the reports at RB doesn't help procrastination either - as Darrell said often the report can be a more daunting task than the game itself.

Seriously though, you don't have to write a particularly epic report. Short, focused descriptions are perfectly acceptable - there's really no need for screenshots either if it's too much work. I'd rather we have more people getting involved than not playing because they feel the reports are intimidating. That's not the goal!

As for me personally, I've got plenty on my plate right now. I'm intently working on my dissertation proposal, and preparing the syllabus for my first independent course upcoming in the spring. Gaming time is being split between Civ, Diablo, Master of Orion, and DDR - plus writing reports on those activities. Then there are two Wii games I want to play (Fire Emblem and Mario Sunshine) releasing in the next couple of weeks - what am I going to do?