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If life were like Civ
Jul. 23rd, 2008 08:27 amPartly because of the Great Civ Mishap (tm) yesterday and partly because I've been playing Civ IV an average of once a week for the better part of five months, it's been on my mind lately. This thought pattern was only encouraged by the recent journal post of the friend I've been playing with (entry 502, for those looking back at this in the future).
And, given all the changes that have been going on in my life lately, my thinking has occasionally trended along the lines of "what if life were like Civ." Even ignoring the matter of cheat codes (which might one day be an entirely different post: "what if life had cheat codes?"), here's what life might be like if it were more like Civ:
1. I could set the difficulty of my life. Sure, setting the difficulty to "easy" might not give me as many points in the end, but it would make social interactions a heck of a lot easier.
2. I could save my life before making any major decisions so that if the results were not positive, I could do it again differently.
3. I could branch my life, saving it at various different stages, to go back to many different points in my development and see what would happen differently if I'd chosen a different path.
4. I could always "look at the big picture" to see the exact effects a particular path of research or major behavioural change. If I didn't like the results, I could change whenever I wanted without any ill effects except maybe a minute of anarchy.
5. To keep people in my life productive and happy, I'd need only to ensure they had enough toys (luxury) and that they were healthy. Any deficiency in these two areas could be easily fixed by a reallocation of resources.
6. People would do exactly what I told them without complaining.
7. I'd have advisors telling me what would be best in any given situation for their realm of expertise. And I'd have complete freedom to ignore them if I thought I knew better than they did. And they wouldn't get offended.
8. You could know the exact percent certainty of success in battle, every time. You could ensure that you only attacked when you were 100% certain to win.
9. Death would never be permanent, except for my pixellated soldiers. And even then, my soldiers would be an easily-replaced resource with no hard feelings for the deaths of their former colleagues. As for myself, death would only last as long as it took to start a new game.
10. I could choose to start at any stage of development I liked, happily bypassing the growing pangs of infancy and awkwardness of adolescence.
Okay... that's my morning reflection. Now it's time to go off and do work. Bye.
And, given all the changes that have been going on in my life lately, my thinking has occasionally trended along the lines of "what if life were like Civ." Even ignoring the matter of cheat codes (which might one day be an entirely different post: "what if life had cheat codes?"), here's what life might be like if it were more like Civ:
1. I could set the difficulty of my life. Sure, setting the difficulty to "easy" might not give me as many points in the end, but it would make social interactions a heck of a lot easier.
2. I could save my life before making any major decisions so that if the results were not positive, I could do it again differently.
3. I could branch my life, saving it at various different stages, to go back to many different points in my development and see what would happen differently if I'd chosen a different path.
4. I could always "look at the big picture" to see the exact effects a particular path of research or major behavioural change. If I didn't like the results, I could change whenever I wanted without any ill effects except maybe a minute of anarchy.
5. To keep people in my life productive and happy, I'd need only to ensure they had enough toys (luxury) and that they were healthy. Any deficiency in these two areas could be easily fixed by a reallocation of resources.
6. People would do exactly what I told them without complaining.
7. I'd have advisors telling me what would be best in any given situation for their realm of expertise. And I'd have complete freedom to ignore them if I thought I knew better than they did. And they wouldn't get offended.
8. You could know the exact percent certainty of success in battle, every time. You could ensure that you only attacked when you were 100% certain to win.
9. Death would never be permanent, except for my pixellated soldiers. And even then, my soldiers would be an easily-replaced resource with no hard feelings for the deaths of their former colleagues. As for myself, death would only last as long as it took to start a new game.
10. I could choose to start at any stage of development I liked, happily bypassing the growing pangs of infancy and awkwardness of adolescence.
Okay... that's my morning reflection. Now it's time to go off and do work. Bye.
