perfidy

I think that means my request for a permanent 25-hour day is under consideration, but that it's chances of being approved have moved from "slim", right past "fat" to "snowball's in hell".

At least this will (somewhat) make up for the 23 hour day earlier this year - but at the present value of time, shouldn't we get a 26 hour day out of the exchange?

Myself, I've always wanted to switch to a 30 hour day. I realize that this will inconvenience some people, but my circadian rhythm is just longer than the regular day. If I could sleep ten and be alert 20, I'd be fine. Squeezing it down to 24 is a real strain.

Strange coincidence - EDog included this idea in his novella Milkman, which is available at his page.

Buckethead, I could live on a 30-hour cycle easily.

I liked Kim Stanley Robinson's solution to Martian time in his Red/Green/Blue Mars Trilogy. Rather than stretch the minutes and seconds to accommodate the longer Martian Sol (which averages 24 hours and 37 minutes long), the colonists continued to use a standard 24-Earth-hour day. However, at midnight all the clocks would stop for the "time slip" and restart after the 30-some-odd minute gap.

Late at night as I blog or blast Covenant aliens in Halo, I wish I had a half-hour "time slip."

Oh well.
Late at night as I blog or blast Covenant aliens in Halo, I wish I had a 40-minute time slip.

Oh well.

Where did that hiccup come from?

Where did that hiccup come from?

Where did that hiccup come from?
Beer

Where did that hiccup come from?
Definitely Beer

30 hour days? Sign me up! 8 hours for sleep, 15 hours for work, 7 hours for Civ III (when is CivIV gonna be out?) or Rome: Total War.

John - we need to compare reading lists sometime. I swear you're looking at my bookcase!

Civ IV should be in stores today, though I didn't check - I am waiting on my uper-delux pre-order version which Amazon promised would arrive two days ago.

Bugger. I knew I shoulda pre-ordered. What's in the dee-lux version?

Nice case, fold-out tech tree map, and cd soundtrack. Same price as regular game.

And further, wtf is up with item two?

That's to get it past the spam filters.

Nice case, fold-out tech tree map, and cd soundtrack. Same price as regular game.

Now the real question: will the AI cheat like it did in all the previous incarnations, or will the cheating level be reduced to that of a whiney 10 year old brat?

Lysander,
Civ AI is notorious for "cheating", but of course it really isn't. It just plays perfect games on higher difficulty levels. PERFECT.

In Civ3 I'm competetive on the 3d highest level; past that, I'm done by the 14th century. I never even attempted Deity level.

Although, come to think of it the AI does seem to have some extraordinarily lucky combat outcomes. I love it when my computer nemesis has, oh, a single attrited phalanx that manages to hold off 6-7 Roman legions in the same turn, say. Or later, his veteran knight kills my marines. AI super units frustrate all Civ players eventually, I suspect.

I don't know what it is, but Civ II kind of turned me off. I think , pace GL, that part of it was when the AI cheated and killed off ten cannon units with one musketeer attacking from within city walls, but it also seemed that I burned out a little on Civ I way back in 1995.

I never really got the hang of trade as a growth strategy; it always seemed pointless. Diplomats also seemed halfway to pointless after you'd used them once.

I dunno. If Civ IV kicks enough ass, I'll pick it up. I don't play many computer games, but if as usual I come down with some mysterious respiratory ailment this winter (what's left... goddamn SARS? I hesitate to even joke about TB?) a good long time frame strategery game might be just the thing.

I never played much civ ii either. But ask Mrs. Buckethead about how much time I've spent with iv. All signs are encouraging for iv - the reviews by gaming journalists who got advance looks has been uniformly positive. Everyone seems jazzed about religions, and the increased control you get with the new gov't model. I checked amazon, and apparently my civ shipped yesterday, and is even now in the vicinity of casa de buckethead. I'll let you all know.

As far as I'm concerned, the AI was definitely cheating. I could win on civ iii any level up to (but not including) Diety. But on the higher levels, it was a tough slog, and only possible on medium or small er maps. By this time, I was using optimized tech development and flash expansion strategies that I either developed myself or got from the interweb. But no matter how fast I went, there was always an Ai who was moving four times faster. That's where most of the cheating was.

As far as combat, I think that's more straight up, especially when you consider the built in force multipliers for combat inside cities, and for infantry units against mounted units, which most people used for offense thanks to their mobility.

The new game will allow you to choose how your units gain experience, by way of selecting different kinds of bonused, rather than the old recruit/veteren/elite progression.

See that's the thing with the harder levels: it gets to be too much like work. The fun factor falls off a cliff.

Johno,
Trade and diplomacy is much improved in 3 over 2. I thought it was simply retarded that to conduct trade in 2, I had to find a commodity to sell, then a market for it, then the means to move it. Wtf, I have a computer to do that grunt work FOR me!

Also, you don't need to build a diplomat to go and do something in 3.

I expect 4 ought to be at least as simple and fun, insofar as trade and diplomacy, as 3.

Diplomacy is supposed to be better in iv, too. The alliances are reportedly vast improvements - in multiplayer games, allies can share tech. In single player games, many more options for treaties.

One thing I liked in 2 was that I could give units to friendly civs. Nice way to support allies or just keep balance of power among second tier powers.

Did you end up going in today?

Yeah, I'm here. I passed my game in a fed ex truck on the way in. I'll probably duck out a little early...

I got Civ IV at lunch time today. I will be sending you a bill, including for time spent in front of the game, since I have you to blame for encouraging me to become re-addicted to this franchise.

Hey, dude, I didn't hold a gun to your head. At least with computer games, the first one isn't free.

As soon as GL gets his, we should try and set up a multiplayer game. Sooner the better, I feel, before we start learning all the tricks.

(u wrecked ur citi! Noob!
wtf r nukes?)

Multiplayer sounds cool. Central time zone works to my advantage for late night games, too.

*TOJO has been eliminated*

B,
Good point. Let's not let it come to that. Even if we played a crawling, turn-a-day PBEM thingy it would still be fun.

I have a small check sitting in my mailbox right now. Mebbe I'll get it cashed and pick up the game this weekend. If that's not too late.

Will you have learned every in, out, cranny, and nuance by then?

<G33kL3th4l> I need iron. Who has iron?

<John0> I got 99 problems, but iron ain't one.

<G33kL3th4l> Wha u want trade for iron?

<8ucketH3D> Johno, I'll trade you not kicking your ass for not giving GL iron.

<G33kL3th4l> wtf did I do?

<John0> You don't know me I do what I want

<8ucketH3D> J as soon as he has iron he builds Legions and he's gonna march them up your ass

<G33kL3th4l> wtf bitch let him trade what he wants and I can't even build Legions yet and you have fucking ironclads fielded

Ladies, this is gonna be fun.

GL, classic!

I'll have to use that line.

But I don't think I'll have it all figgered out by the weekend. Next weekend, maybe.

I call Romans. Maybe Johno can be the French.