Whoops

Meant to post this earlier today but I'm actually developing a workload.
Trying out post by email, too. See how it goes.
Sleepy.
Oh, this is another M$ paint doodle.

I Actually Would Like to Set the World on Fire

So ... I remember why I quit Farmville. And Vampire Wars, and all of those Facebook timewasters, actually. Plainly speaking, I hate being told I have to do something.

Employment aside, of course.

Now, what this means is, I like games that offer me branching paths, and choices and such, because even the illusion of free will is better than nothing. And I hate games that basically devolve into a routine of "plant twenty dickberries and come back in ten hours."

Which ... is one of the unfortunate side-effects of daily quests in the old standby, World of Warcraft.

What's even more frustrating?

Starting back over at the beginning, through anything other than my own volition.

So, what relevance does this have to anything whatsoever?

Apparently when you perform a faction transfer, you lose your status with a neutral faction (The Argent Crusade) and have to build your way back up from scratch. Now, this is almost understandable since the faction that actually 0's out is the Sunreavers/Silver Covenant, not The Argent Crusade. Except ... none of the other factions, like, at all, do that. Even the ones that, like the Silver Covenant or Sunreavers, are just equivalents, not truly neutral.

And you lose all your achievements, and your titles, and access to the special crusader vendor.

Which means 28 days - at least, assuming you miss nothing - of building your way back up from the very bottom rank for ... apparently no reason.

Very frustrating.

It's not even current content, but it's important to my character's RP.

So ... I feel obligated to do it.

Bastids.

CIV

So, Firday I purchased a new game to try to take my mind off of being so depressed/paranoid/sobbing ball of angst. That game was Civilization IV.

I think I've actually found something to do between digsites. Wow.

So the first thing you need to know about Civ that I didn't fully comprehend at first is that it's very, very long. Like, very. Like, by the time the day was out, I wasn't quite done with the game I'd started that morning.

This isn't the first or only game of its kind that I've played. I mean, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of the bigger reasons I plan to keep a computer with XP around for a while.

But yes. Civ. Long. There are no zerg.

That said, I had a bit of fun playing around with it.

At first.

Once I got over how long it took to even get my first other unit, I ran up against the fact that I pretty much had to shoot for the score victory, because the few cultures (read all) that had survived to the modern era didn't really like me well enough to vote for me (because they didn't like each other to tolerate me associating with all of them). Next time I play peacefully I'm tempted to see if I can strong-arm my opponents into starting up long, bloody wars to ostracize and murder the competition for me.

You know. Peacefully.

Alternatively, nukes.

The Space Race is another win condition I might be able to do peacefully, except for how long it takes to get there, which I am slowly shortening down to the lowest possible number.

I discovered something in pursuing the Space Race, too.

The AI? (On Chieftan difficulty?) Not really designed to operate in a void. I started up a new playthrough after my first attempt crashed to the desktop (damn you, Windows), remaining peaceful - and isolated, thanks to living on a tiny island. By the time the other cultures' feeble wooden ships skimmed near my shores, I was exploring nuclear technology - and defending myself against the possibility that, I dunno, maybe one of my own engineers would go nuts and bomb my own cities, maybe? None of the other cultures were even in a position to try to comprehend the technologies I was developing. I was in a position to dominate the world, and I was seriously contemplating crushing my opposition under the sheer force of my nuclear might because I could do so unopposed.

And I think I'm going to do that on my next playthrough.

Which brings me to something else that amuses me greatly: Mom brought up that throughout her listening to my discovery of new technologies, there was never the mention of any kind of witch burnings, nor even the Crusades or any kind of religious warfare. Despite the fact that my technology rapidly approached the 'indistinguishable from magic' point compared to my contemporaries, and I founded four separate religions on my tiny island.

Burn the witch! Before she BURNS YOU IN THE RIGHTEOUS NUCLEAR FIRE OF GOD!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - BOOM!

A God's Log: A New World

So, playing Black and White again.

I've sorted out that the creature can learn to buff itself, it's just stupid - I ended up spending half an hour teaching Kitty how to cast this one, last miracle before we left the island, to a chorus of death, death, death, and when the creature's finally learned the miracle, I set him to rest at the temple - whereupon I lost him again.

Death .... I figured out why all of my villagers were dying, anyway: it's either old age or starvation. The second village we came to is simply not producing enough food to sustain their numbers, apparently.

While waiting for my creature to recover, I discovered that replaying the rock-throwing minigame gives you some more one-shot water miracles. Nevermind that I have a water miracle dispenser. I found some other one-shot miracles due to the fireflies diving under rocks and trees - so far I have three forest miracles, two wood miracles, two fireball miracles, and one lightning miracle.

Time to go.

I have to find my creature again, because apparently he likes to wander - and when I finally do find my creature, he's collapsed from starvation because apparently he hasn't learned how to feed himself yet. Damn carnivore.

Clicking the last gold story scroll causes the Guide creature to tell you all about something called the "Creeds," brings Nemesis to my tiny little island, and is promptly incinerated horribly.

Death ....

So, that brings us to Island 2. What fun.

Oh. And near as I can tell, the Creature has no idea what to do with his newly-learned buff spell.