Point of Reference

If there's one game that I play more than any other, it's Sid Meier's Civilization IV.

What, you expected an MMO? WoW, maybe?

Oh no, not by a long shot. 

A rare cultural victory for me, from 
back in May 2022. I don't save a lot of
screencaps, but since I almost always win
a space race, this was a notable exception.

I bought the game around 2009 or so*, which honestly works as a counterpoint to WoW, and I ended up re-purchasing the game on Steam a couple of years ago when it was down to $4 or so on one of those Winter or Summer sales. My reasoning was that I'd already gotten my money's worth out of the original game, and I knew that in order to install it on this new PC I'd have to go buy a portable DVD drive, so it kind of made sense to save a few dollars and just buy the game off of Steam instead.

Having played the original Civ back in the day, and then Civ III for several years, I knew what I was getting into. Still, even I was surprised at how much I preferred Civ IV to Civ III. I don't think I've even bothered to try to install Civ III on this PC, and even though I dabble a bit in Civ V and Civ VI, I always return to Civ IV.

Just how much?

Uh.... Whoops.

That little graphic is from my 2023 Year in Review from Steam. That's roughly half of the year I played Civ IV, because some of those sessions went kind of long. 

It's the sort of game where I can play for a bit, go away and do something else for a while, and then return to the same session while it's been patiently waiting for me in the background.

Unlike it's brethren and other civ sim games, a match of vanilla Civ IV can be cranked out in about 3 hours or less, depending on how wars develop and my need to micromanage city building and development. It's when you add systems such as found in Civ IV: Warlords or Civ IV: Beyond the Sword do the Civ IV matches really start extending in length. I guess for immersion those later iterations of the game are better, but I prefer vanilla Civ IV for the overall simplicity and balance. I've gotten to the point where I can play for about 5-10 minutes and immediately decide whether it's worth it to continue a game or start over, something I can't really do in the latter two for a bit longer.

And don't tell Sid Meier this, but the AI in Civ IV is kind of predictable and brainless, so I can switch my own brain off for a bit while playing. That is especially useful during lunch, where I can hop on and play for an hour or so and try to forget anything stressful in the morning.

So... If you ever wonder if I spend all my time in WoW or other MMOs, I guess you'll understand that is simply not the case. Hell, I don't even spend the majority of my video game playing in WoW, but rather in a turn-based civ builder game from 2005.

*Just a guess, really. No idea as to the exact year.