On the 21st of January I found myself at the computer for another hour of playing Civilization 1. After loading my recent save, I found that this session was a delicate balancing act of whether to lose money or let my cities starve. I ceased all construction of new buildings, and decided to focus on military power. If a quiz came around, all of my work could be for nothing, but building structures would just put me farther into the hole economically. Since hadn’t explored anything other than my tiny island, I built several Triremes and discovered another dynamic of ships being lost at sea if they do not end their turn near a coast. With this knowledge, I had my ships skirt the coasts and discover the outlines of the rest of the world, on the way finding the other two civilizations; The Zulu and The French. The French were cordial at first, making contact and asking to trade technologies which I gladly agreed to, but after several trades, they demanded another technology or they would attack me. They must have been bluffing because when I refused, they offered peace anyway. The Zulu wouldn’t even talk to me. During all of this exploration and diplomatics, I was able to stabilize my economy more or less, and keep my cities from starving, but at the cost of my science output (the only thing that I was actually succeeding at). Despite my early struggles, this game seems fairly well balanced, in the sense that focusing on one thing specifically (for example science), causes the civilization to suffer in some other way, so the player must strike the dangerous balance of focusing on everything simultaneously, and carefully pushing emphasis on one thing more than the others, but remaining adaptable to a variable situation. My current play through seems doomed, but I will keep forging on. Perhaps my fortunes will change now that I know to keep my pursuits more equal.

All that the light touches is my domain…. At least on this island.