On 1/23 I put an hour into Civilization 1, same save as before. My fortunes have improved. I decided to stop trying to grow my cities, seeing as how I cannot make both science and economics flourish without either starving my cities or losing all of my structures to the maintenance. So with that in mind, I decided to focus my resources into military, meaning actually conquering other nations instead as opposed to exploration. Since I hadn’t lost any units over the course of the game, I had over 30 individual units ready for shipment, and a single Trireme able to transport two units at a time. With each unit moving only one space per turn, it took quite a while to gather my forces at my coast and then move them across the ocean into French territory. My game session didn’t last long enough for me to take more than two cities, but i discovered that every time you take a city, you get to learn a technology as a result. With the first city i took, i learned how to use gunpowder, which I hope will change the dynamics of my invasion force. As it is, I must throw five to ten militia and phalanxes to their deaths to take a single city. In each of the other Civ games that I have played, gunpowder is the turning point for l=military, and if you can get to it first, you have a good chance of winning the whole game. With how much stress that this game is giving me, I’m not sure if I am still playing it or if it is playing me. As I progress farther into the game, i get less of a sense that this is “play” as Sutton-Smith seems to suggest, and I am starting to feel like this game is work, with the payout being either the grade from this class, or just finishing the game. Also I would like to mention how twitchy I am about first discovering gunpowder by the year 1928. The history buff in me is having apoplectic fits. Next post: hopefully the destruction of the inglorious French nation.