01-03-2005 15:46									#1
	Game Time Enter the AD-FREE zone

I felt a little froggy last weekend and decided to play a small world, highly aggressive AI's all competing for a small Pangea land mass under the Sid level.
I soundly got my clock cleaned.
Anyway, as I was playing, I stopped for 4 or 5 hours for some family time and then I returned to the game and soundly got my clock cleaned.
The entire time I played could not have lasted more than half an hour, but I left the game on during those 4 or 5 hours.
Two questions:
1) Can the game be "paused" without shutting it down?
2) Does it really matter, i.e. does the time spent affect the final score?

	01-03-2005 17:01									#2
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Time spent has no relation to the final score. It's just a "feature" to show you how much time you can waste playing this game

You can save, close the game down and start it back up later if you really want to....

	01-03-2005 18:37									#3
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

It's one feature from which I try desperately to avoid my eyes. That thing always scares me.

	01-03-2005 21:31									#4
	Suffering from ads?

it was introduced with the PTW expansion. I guess for multiplayer purposes, though it really doesn't affect multiplayer play. who knows.

	02-03-2005 01:07									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

thats what I thought, so now I don't feel guilty thinking I spent 30 hrs on my last campaign (prob more like 29 1/2, a man's gotta eat)

	02-03-2005 21:11									#6
	Get a bigger avatar today!

30 only???

Mine usually says a 100+

	02-03-2005 22:02									#7
	Suffering from ads?

I wonder what the record is...and I don't mean a bogus "left the computer on for a month just to get a large number"

Sounds like a new thread....

	02-03-2005 22:41									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Good idea. Make a few categories though. Map size & difficulty certainly come to mind.

	03-03-2005 00:15									#9
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I'll compete for shortest spaceship victory, but not longest! I hate long games.

	03-03-2005 01:25									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Yeah, but you keep playing chieftain even if you've been here for over 20 years and know more about this game than most of us.

	03-03-2005 01:31									#11
	Increase Your PM Length

Yeah, Chieftain

i don't push myself into harder play levels either

	03-03-2005 01:59									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

My games went from 10-20 hours on Monarch to over 40 hours on Demigod. This was without large changes to playing style. The main difference is the amount of required MM and diplomacy.

	03-03-2005 03:28									#13
	Increase the size of your Attachments

yeah cheiftan is the way to go baby .

actually I play monarch. I find enough challenge there. Sometimes I lose if I get a shitty start. Actually I only lost once. But it's possible

	03-03-2005 10:20									#14
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Go up a level Diss, you know you want to.

On the other hand, this is what happens if you slightly above your level.

Standard deity (continents, rest was random IIRC, well I did choose my civ)

Attachment: untitled-1.jpg
This has been downloaded 94 time(s).

	04-03-2005 00:09									#15
	Remove this text

I don't think I've ever had a game over 60 hours.

	04-03-2005 01:10									#16
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Yeah, it was a tough nut to crack.

	04-03-2005 01:37									#17
	Support Apolyton

I don't think I've ever had a game under 60 hours, except when the AI cleaned my clock. But I tend to leave the game running while doing other things, so my totals are pretty astronomical...

	04-03-2005 01:55									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Yeah, I have left a game up for days and never closed it. Nearly always will stop to watch a movie or eat and left it for a few hours. So the time is not telling me anything at all.

	04-03-2005 02:41									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Which is why i abandoned the idea of doing a poll on this as it doesn't really represent how much time you have spent playing a game versus how much electricity you have wasted around the time you've played the game

	04-03-2005 09:00									#20
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I leave games up and running *forever*... I find it very annoying that screensavers don't work when C3 is up!

	04-03-2005 09:21									#21
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Screensavers??

People still use screensavers?? What for?? The only thing they can do is crasch your PC, modern day screens don't need them anymore.
Just let your monitor go in stand-by mode. ( monitor, NOT your pc)

	04-03-2005 09:50									#22
	Inflate your Upload Space

No screensavers for me, nor any turning off of the monitor either. Let it burn all it wants. I have had this 21" monitor for years. If a pattern gets burned in, so what? You always have something up anyway to hide it.

	04-03-2005 13:57									#23
	Put an end to popups!

I don't use screensavers anymore.

but I never leave the game running anyways. That's what the save game feature is for. Maybe you guys have heard of it

And I don't leave my computer on when I go to bed either. Waste of electricity. Though I am worried about my power button. The other day my computer wouldn't turn on. I moved my computer out from under my desk. I figured I'd try one more time before I disconnect the cords, and it actually turned on. So I am worried about turning my computer off now.

and I do play other games than civ3. smac, kotor2, morrowind goty, nwn, etc.

	04-03-2005 17:46									#24
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by alva Screensavers?? People still use screensavers?? What for?? The only thing they can do is crasch your PC, modern day screens don't need them anymore. Just let your monitor go in stand-by mode. ( monitor, NOT your pc)

LCD Monitors definitely need screen savers, or at least need to be turned off when not in use.

	04-03-2005 19:39									#25
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Sorry... I wrote screensaver, but I meant standby... when I have C3 up, my monitor won't go into standby.

	04-03-2005 20:02									#26
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I use the my pictures slide show as my screen saver on both my work machine and my notebook.

(I've used up some of the surplus hard drive space by downloading lots of photos from my groups)

	05-03-2005 12:01									#27
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Dissident and I do play other games than civ3. smac, kotor2, morrowind goty, nwn, etc.

Other games than civ3? I've heard rumors about this kind of stuff. In fact I seem to recall once playing something called... um, 'civ too' was it...? Superstitious claptrap, I say...

	05-03-2005 21:33									#28
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by alva Screensavers?? People still use screensavers?? What for?? The only thing they can do is crasch your PC, modern day screens don't need them anymore. Just let your monitor go in stand-by mode. ( monitor, NOT your pc)

It is the job of my computer, when I am not using it to create brilliant documents or dominate the world via Civ, to create visual entertainment on its screen in case I happen to glance in that direction. Therefore, it has various screensavers it cycles through, either slideshows of pretty pictures or different graphic doodles. It has nothing to do with "saving" the screen and everything to do with having aesthetic value. It can easily be argued that was the purpose of screensavers all along. But, whatever else my computer may do, it is not allowed to be visually boring. Now, if I could get Civ to play AI to AI and show me all the battles and stuff, maybe that would combine the two obsessions.

As to the thread topic, yes, I leave Civ on in the background gathering time ticks. It gives rise to some amazing times reported at end of game. I figure that being able to ignore those obviously inflated numbers allows me to sidestep the real issue of how much time I do really spend on this addictive game.

	05-03-2005 21:50									#29
	Support Apolyton

I don't think Civ is addictive at all. I would explain why, but I feel compelled to go start a new game. Maybe as Carthage this time . . .