How many of you guys has or is playing Civilization IV? For those who don’t know what this game is about, it’s sort of like Populus where you control a “civilization“, maybe like the Greek or the Chinese or the American and you start with just a settler (he builds cities) and a unit for exploring. Then you build stuff and even more units and after you have massed a number of powerful units, you go and whack some other civilization. It’s that simple but super fun. The aim is to control a portion of the world or to build some spaceship to carry you to some distant planet (there are several other options for you to choose from, like diplomatic victory or cultural victory).

Anyway, I think I have spent too much time on this game but anyhow, I have compiled a list of why this game is so very enjoyable. I just can’t get enough of it! I am currently playing the second expansion pack called Beyond The Sword or BTS for short.

1. You get to be one of the famous leaders of your Civilization. Talking head and all. You even get to meet Churchill then smack him around because you don’t like his arrogant English accent.

2. You get to build the Internet. And you get some cool video of you doing that. Makes you all horny and stuff.

3. You get to wipe out some civilization. Don’t like the Dutch and their windmills? Build an army and wipe them off the face of this earth. Don’t like the pesky Russians and their cheap vodka? Send in your nukes!

4. I love it when they attempt to insult you, right before their cities get annihilated.

5. Each Civilization has it’s own unique unit and building. If you choose Singapore, you get the unique unit “sheep” which is very cheap to build(1 hammer cost) and can explode upon contact with intelligent lifeforms. For the unique building, Singapore gets “Media Corp”. It replaces the broadcast tower, cost way more and does nothing.

5. Your heaps and heaps of modern armour, against their lonely catapult. Think power overwhelming!

6. Your heaps and heaps of stealth bombers, against their puny airships. Think power overwhelming!

7. You get to found religions and errr….. make tons of money from it.

8. Just one more turn. Just one more.

9. The hordes and hordes of howling barbarians right at your doorstep. You remembered to build walls right?

10. Quests! Yes, you get to complete a quest and get some nice stuff, just like an RPG!

11. You get to build corporations with stupid, cheesy names that will be bound to fail if it is in real life. Sid’s Sushi….who in their right mind would name their corporation Sid’s Sushi?

12. “Corporation: n, An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”

13. You get to play big boy spy and wear big boy spy underwear like James Bond.

14. Launching that beautifully rendered Rocket and Spaceship to Alpha Centauri….

I play games to keep my mind off work and playing Civilization IV is so much fun! If you had not yet tried playing this game, you should have a go at it. It won’t disappoint. And unlike the previous Civilizations games, this version takes less time to complete. You won’t be spending weeks playing this game. Probably, a medium sized map will take one day or so to complete.

Hello guys, I am in my whining mode again. And yes, it’s my Internet access. The problem was my web surfing. FTP, emails and others seemed to be normal. But there surfing speeds I was getting down here was rather pathetic! I believe it had to do with my ISP’s super lousy proxy server. When I browse to a page, it will take like several seconds before it loads. Sometimes it will just time out. It’s so damn frustrating, especially when you urgently need to look for information on the Internet. Maybe I am too spolit with high speed Internet connections!

I phoned my ISP to complain about the slow surfing speed and guess what did they tell me? Well, the tech guy told me that it could be my PC is slow and cannot handle the “fast” speeds. Okay, perhaps, but I had tried with my laptop and it is just as sluggish. The helpdesk guy then told me that it could be because I have 2 PCs connected to the Internet and thus the bandwidth is shared between both of my PCs. But then it still happens when I switch off one. The helpdesk guy then told me that it is most likely I have been using the bandwidth too much and the “Quality Department” had throttled down my speed to maintain performance for the rest of their customers. I then asked him whether they have such a policy and why wasn’t I told about it and whether I should be refunded. The helpdesk guy then went silent. I really hate defensive helpdesk support. They tend to place the blame on the customer rather than check whether their Internet connection is okay. And I am the kind of person who seldom raise my voice and get angry with anyone. Yes, I know that there are some customers do demand a lot of things, but I am certain I am not that kind. I am just asking whether is there any problem with their proxy server. But alas I have no luck with this one. So finally I gave up and hang up (I have been talking to that guy for over 25 minutes trying my best to explain everything!) .

The next time I called, another helpdesk person answered. After explaining the problem to him, he agreed that it is most likely something wrong with their DNS or their proxy server. He promised to look into it and said that he would call back. Lo and behold, in less than 15 minutes, my surfing speed went back to normal. However, I didn’t get all call from the helpdesk. But at least, I got my problem solved. Sometimes, it really depends on your luck. If you get a responsible helpdesk person who gives feedback to their technical staff, then everything can be solved in a pretty short amount of time. If you get those who thinks that every customer is wrong and refuses to even bother to check, then you are in for a long haul with them. A really long haul and a big time waster.