Vacation, no need to think

[schneefink]

Being on vacation is great. I get enough sleep, I can spend most of my day playing computer games, and I can (try to) ignore the news. It's Friday already and I feel like I'm just starting to relax a little. (I did also plan to do things like clean up etc. but I pretty much suspected that that wouldn't happen.)
Not constantly being stressed because of work has also allowed me to feel a lot more general anxiety about the pandemic, but I guess you can't have everything. I am SO SICK of this why is this STILL going on can it not FINALLY be over I don't know how much longer I can deal with this without, idk, doing much worse

Conveniently there was a sale on Steam and I got a whole bunch of new games. I've already played several hours of "Ori and the Blind Forest". It's so pretty! The music is nice, too.
I'm playing on easy mode and very grateful for that. In Hades, when I die I can have more story progression and upgrades and then try again. In Ori, when I die I just have to try again, and again, and again, and again… It does feel good to finally succeed at a difficult challenge after failing more than twenty times, but it can feel a bit frustrating until then. Right now I'm at a particularly tricky bit and I don't have any energy left for save spots, curses, so it'll probably take me a while yet.
(I'm also very glad for detailed walkthrough instructions online, I would have been lost without them several times. Especially in places where I think I just need to master a particular route to proceed, only to then read that this is an area I can only access later and I need to go in a completely different direction.)

I also managed to get DD into playing Hades :D In return, she is trying to get me to play Civilization V, but I watched her play it (mostly Civ VI) and even tried for two hours and while I can see how it's interesting, I don't think I have the patience or sufficient interest for it right now.
I'm so glad DD came back (about a week ago), it's so nice not to be alone at home anymore. Second thing she said when she came back: "I forgot you look different now!" I got my new glasses and shorter (chin-length) haircut shortly before she left in December, heh. I'm still very happy with my new look :)

Comments

[nnozomi]

Not constantly being stressed because of work has also allowed me to feel a lot more general anxiety about the pandemic, but I guess you can't have everything.
My brain does this too, it sucks--it's like there has to be something taking up the worry space. I hope you get to relax well and that all the external reasons for worry get a little alleviated soon for all of us...

[schneefink]

Yes, that would be great!

[michelel72]

The Civilization games really want to be about conquest, which doesn't interest me as much. I like building and exploring. So I tend to tweak the settings to have a huge map and kick out half of the random/AI players -- elbow room and less competition!

[schneefink]

I told DD about your approach and she said it sounds great and she'd love to try it, but she doesn't know how to adjust the settings to do that - do you know where to find instructions for that?

[michelel72]

I can try describing it.

The first menu asks single player, multiplayer, options, and so on. I choose "single player". (This may also work in multiplayer but I don't know for sure.)

The next menu asks "Play now", "Set up game", and some other stuff. I choose "Set up" here.

The next page asks the following:
- Which civilization you want to be. You can randomize or pick a specific one based on its bonuses. (Poland is said to be greatly overpowered for pretty much any playstyle/goal; otherwise, it depends on how you play.)
- Map type. I pick "continents", because "islands" requires boats much earlier than I tend to seek them and the single-landmass option pretty much guarantees running into all opponents sooner than otherwise.
- Map size. I pick "huge" here, and it is a huge map indeed.
- Difficulty. I tend to hover between 4 (prince) and 5 (king) because they're not very hard and I'm not usually looking for a real challenge.
- Pace. I leave this at "Standard".

Then there's a footer button for "Advanced", and this one's key. If you choose that, you see a list of the selected civilizations and other detailed things. The first civilization will be yours, and then the other 11 are ones you can either leave random, set to specific civilizations, or delete. I leave 2-6 random and delete 7-12. You can also change the number of city-states; it defaults to 24 for the huge map, but I'll sometimes increase that to provide more non-hostile trading options.

After that you start your game and evaluate your starting position. If you like it, you settle and keep going. If you don't, you can pull up the menu and restart with the same settings but a new start position, as long as you don't end the first turn. (If you do end the first turn, you have to redo the advanced settings if you decide to start over.)

[schneefink]

She said that worked, thank you! (She recently bought Civ V on sale and has now started playing that because it's prettier than Civ VI.)

[michelel72]

Argh -- I see now that my original comment doesn't actually state "Civilization V" -- I think it originally did but I then reworded. I can't speak to VI at all; I've been waiting for the price to come way down and/or the DLC release pace to slow. (I bought CivV as a "complete" version for ... probably $15 or less, including all its civilizations and the Brave New World DLC.)

[extempore]

Ich mag die Anno-Serie. Es gibt komplett kampffreie Szenarien und man segelt durch die Weltmeere und besucht Urlaubsinseln. =D Für Civ existieren User-Mods, bei denen alle AI-Gegner deaktiviert sind. Da kann man sich dann ganz auf den idealen Entwicklungsverlauf konzentrieren.

Mich nervt die Pandemie inzwischen auch sehr, und dann hat man immer im Hinterkopf, dass sich nur hoffentlich keiner aus der Familie ansteckt, bevor es eine Impfung gibt. Ich selber rechne ja frühestens im Sommer dranzukommen, weißt eh, wenn erst mal alle Bürgermeister und deren Habschis geimpft sind...

[schneefink]

Hach, Urlaubsinseln... das waren noch Zeiten...

Ich glaub auch nicht, dass ich vor dem Sommer geimpft werde - und wer weiß, welche Impfungen dann noch wie wirksam sind.