Travian.... god damn Travian

well it happened again. Paul and I started a Travian account a few weeks back, Kris and Miranda have one and they are right next to us, and now even Geoff has an account also near us. For anyone who isn't aware, Travian is an online browser game where your objective is to build up a big empire and attack people, trade etc. You can be Gaul, Teuton or Roman (each with their own pro's and con's). It is highly addictive if taken seriously and it can consume some people (and when you see the bigger accounts you realise that it does). Last time we played, the four of us had one huge account that we shared, but it started to eat away at a substantial chunk of our time so we decided to quit it. We've started again with more modest ambitions, the first of which is to just have fun.

To be honest, I'm not much of a gamer. I find an hour of Civilization II (yes, the 1996 game) a month is more than enough. I'd feel guilty if I spent an afternoon playing games these days for many reasons. One, I'm way too old for it. Two, there are way better things to be doing. Three, it's just not THAT much fun, real life is much better. However, this game has a real social aspect for me, as Paul and I will get together, have a few makkoli's and play for a while, or get on skype with K&M in Halifax and have a chat about strategy that turns in to a "how's life in general" sort of conversation. Actually, I bet I've talked to Paul more in the last 2 weeks than in the two months before that, and that is reason enough to play a round. Also, with much smaller goals, it ends up taking very little time (30 mins a day or so). Being that it hasn't cut in to my "actually doing stuff" time at all I'm happy to keep it up for now.