Civilization: a Tale of Addiction
I had always played a few computer games -- beating my old TRS-80 at chess or perfecting the space shooter game score, playing duels on the Intellivision console I won in a drawing as a 15-year-old, acing every Atari I game I touched the joystick for, and even spending long hours through law school mastering Commander Keen and PGA Golf on the PC and everything I could find on Sega Genesis. My friend Joe asked me during my third year of law school how many hours per week I spent attending class and studying ("about 7") and how many hours on computer games ("about 80").
But I stayed away from the hard stuff. Some of my geekier friends had started gaming on "Civilization" during third year of law school. They would offer it to me, but I always said no, because I could see their addiction. Art, Joe, Steve, Pat and others hid versions of the game on the law school computers, and on the computers at home. I could see them wasting hours on it, and I had to finish school, had a serious girlfriend, had to focus on the bar exam and try to find a job and a place to live after the bar exam . . . .
So I just said no. But then the bar exam summer program started in Boulder, Colorado. I would be disciplined and study for hours, run and monitor the taped lectures as a part-time job in the evenings, exercise every morning with Kathleen, see my girlfriend on weekends -- the perfect bar exam prep. But Pat left for New Mexico and left his new Mac, with the bright color monitor and the newest version of Civ. And Joe put me in front of it, showing me the first steps: building a city, sending units into battle, developing technologies. It was too much. After some 40 hours, my girlfriend appeared, so I had to get out the chair to shower and eat, see her, and then as soon as she was asleep, I was back at it. two weeks went by, me at the computer, stopping only to go to my 2-hour job each evening, exercising in the morning. I didn't sleep. After several days of this, I said to Joe, "This game could leave me homeless and sleeping in the gutter."
That was 1993. Over the next couple of years, I learned to control it, playing for hours on end when possible, but balancing other things in life, like dating, road trips, and work as a lawyer. Which brought me into contact with better computers. Yes, I installed it at my work desktop. And learned to Alt-Tab with the best of them.
Then in the summer of 1996, I had bought a house, was working well, and Civilization II came out. I did the only reasonable thing -- I bought a computer and monitor and the game, THAT DAY, all on credit and spent two weeks calling in sick and playing it. I did not sleep. Again, I learned to control it so that I could work a few hours every weekday, maybe hike, ski or snowboard in the mountains.
After I had upended my life and left Colorado for Europe, I was in Slovakia in November 2001 when Joe smuggled me a new disc: Civilization III. I know it was the first of its kind in the former Communist Bloc. It would not work on my small laptap, and I spent two months downloading patches and consulting with whatever Slovak computer dude I could find to get it going. And it was good. At that time, I could just crash out in Danka's apartment for days at a time, only going into Bratislava on the one evening a week I had to teach. And taking it with me to Banska Bystrica to play when I taught there. That Civ III disc was my companion, and it accompanied me to Bulgaria, and then to Yap. I kept it under control, keeping games going on the screen and in my mind while I did other things with my life. In some thirteen years, I doubt there have been many days I did not play a few turns -- unless I didn't have a computer or disc available.
Last November, Civilization IV came out. I ordered it, and after a very long transit, it arrived. But our computers couldn't handle it. So no game for me. It sat on the back of my mind. I had it in mind to order a bigger, better laptop computer, but didn't have the cash. When I spilled Diet Coke into the Toshiba, it forced my hand. I found a refurbished Gateway online for the right price . . . and two weeks ago, it arrived. I was patient even then, and loaded Danka's programs and functional programs first.
And then, Monday, I loaded Civilization IV. And it played. Well. I haven't slept but a few hours since. I spent all night last night tactically planning and executing the counter-attack and invasion after China invaded my territory. My first Civ 4 war. Now they are on the ropes. I spent a long meeting in the Governor's office drawing out my map, with my American cities and the Chinese and Barbarian cities I have captured, and planning how to destroy what's left of China and spread the true faith around the globe. Ironies abound -- it was my American tribe who founded Islam, and New York turned out to be its holy city. I'm doing the computer version of sending missionaries to Buddhist Spaniards and Taoist Arabs saying, "Have you heard the good news about Allah?"
I'm tired and I want to sleep tonight, but I think we know that is not happening. Just have to get through one more meeting and hold it together to make the SCUBA dive Sunday . . . .
But I stayed away from the hard stuff. Some of my geekier friends had started gaming on "Civilization" during third year of law school. They would offer it to me, but I always said no, because I could see their addiction. Art, Joe, Steve, Pat and others hid versions of the game on the law school computers, and on the computers at home. I could see them wasting hours on it, and I had to finish school, had a serious girlfriend, had to focus on the bar exam and try to find a job and a place to live after the bar exam . . . .
So I just said no. But then the bar exam summer program started in Boulder, Colorado. I would be disciplined and study for hours, run and monitor the taped lectures as a part-time job in the evenings, exercise every morning with Kathleen, see my girlfriend on weekends -- the perfect bar exam prep. But Pat left for New Mexico and left his new Mac, with the bright color monitor and the newest version of Civ. And Joe put me in front of it, showing me the first steps: building a city, sending units into battle, developing technologies. It was too much. After some 40 hours, my girlfriend appeared, so I had to get out the chair to shower and eat, see her, and then as soon as she was asleep, I was back at it. two weeks went by, me at the computer, stopping only to go to my 2-hour job each evening, exercising in the morning. I didn't sleep. After several days of this, I said to Joe, "This game could leave me homeless and sleeping in the gutter."
That was 1993. Over the next couple of years, I learned to control it, playing for hours on end when possible, but balancing other things in life, like dating, road trips, and work as a lawyer. Which brought me into contact with better computers. Yes, I installed it at my work desktop. And learned to Alt-Tab with the best of them.
Then in the summer of 1996, I had bought a house, was working well, and Civilization II came out. I did the only reasonable thing -- I bought a computer and monitor and the game, THAT DAY, all on credit and spent two weeks calling in sick and playing it. I did not sleep. Again, I learned to control it so that I could work a few hours every weekday, maybe hike, ski or snowboard in the mountains.
After I had upended my life and left Colorado for Europe, I was in Slovakia in November 2001 when Joe smuggled me a new disc: Civilization III. I know it was the first of its kind in the former Communist Bloc. It would not work on my small laptap, and I spent two months downloading patches and consulting with whatever Slovak computer dude I could find to get it going. And it was good. At that time, I could just crash out in Danka's apartment for days at a time, only going into Bratislava on the one evening a week I had to teach. And taking it with me to Banska Bystrica to play when I taught there. That Civ III disc was my companion, and it accompanied me to Bulgaria, and then to Yap. I kept it under control, keeping games going on the screen and in my mind while I did other things with my life. In some thirteen years, I doubt there have been many days I did not play a few turns -- unless I didn't have a computer or disc available.
Last November, Civilization IV came out. I ordered it, and after a very long transit, it arrived. But our computers couldn't handle it. So no game for me. It sat on the back of my mind. I had it in mind to order a bigger, better laptop computer, but didn't have the cash. When I spilled Diet Coke into the Toshiba, it forced my hand. I found a refurbished Gateway online for the right price . . . and two weeks ago, it arrived. I was patient even then, and loaded Danka's programs and functional programs first.
And then, Monday, I loaded Civilization IV. And it played. Well. I haven't slept but a few hours since. I spent all night last night tactically planning and executing the counter-attack and invasion after China invaded my territory. My first Civ 4 war. Now they are on the ropes. I spent a long meeting in the Governor's office drawing out my map, with my American cities and the Chinese and Barbarian cities I have captured, and planning how to destroy what's left of China and spread the true faith around the globe. Ironies abound -- it was my American tribe who founded Islam, and New York turned out to be its holy city. I'm doing the computer version of sending missionaries to Buddhist Spaniards and Taoist Arabs saying, "Have you heard the good news about Allah?"
I'm tired and I want to sleep tonight, but I think we know that is not happening. Just have to get through one more meeting and hold it together to make the SCUBA dive Sunday . . . .