Muskblog: Making the Internet better since 1995

Once I maintained the most popular Nurgle webpage on the Internet. I spent considerable time and effort updating it and fending off challenges from the Wikipedia, pornographers, and online haters…

Despite the game being several years old, and despite taking several six month breaks from gaming to study for CFA® Exams, I continued to play Sid Meier’s Civilization V even after Beyond Earth came out in the hopes of reaching a milestone of sorts…

During the six plus months I spent preparing for the Level 2 CFA® Exam I did not play any video games. Not on my computer, not on my Wii, not even on my iPhone…

Yesterday at GW Highgate I got talked into painting a model. The first model I’ve painted in over three years…

Last week the 2nd expansion to the video game, Sid Meier’s Civilization V was released. Against my better judgement I download it on day one. I’ve only managed to finish four games since then, but that still represents substantial time and effort, especially when added to the fact all the time I’ve put in since the first game was released in the 90s. Sid Meier is my favourite video game designer and Civilization is undoubtably the video game series that I’ve spent the most time on. As a result I have more than a few thoughts on how to play the game, even though I don’t play competitively or even optimally, I still have much hard earned experience.

During my lengthy period of unemployment one of the suggestions I was given was to become an iPhone developer as I actually was a professional software developer coding in Objective-C over ten years ago. Some people must think nothing changes in the computer industry in the average decade.

Update: the second expansion Brave New World came out…

Civilization did not spring fully conceived from the mind of Sid Meier back in 1991. It was an extension of his previous work such as Pirates! and more directly Railroad Tycoon. It was also influenced by the board game Civilization, it’s successors such as Advanced Civilization and to a lessor extent History of the World. Other influences came from the literary world…