I probably said it some time ago, but have to put it out again that I'm rather burned on playing The Sims after all these years and I'm sure that is something many of you can understand if you've been with us from the beginning. It feels like Sims 3 is winding down, while we await Sims 4 and fresh gameplay. With the Guide at 500 pages, I'm putting off any remaining work on TS3 for Into the Future when I can do it all at once and be much more efficient. Time's a valuable thing and the more I enrich my life with new people and activities, the less I have to be spent behind a computer taking notes. I will never stop calling myself a gamer, but the long days playing just aren't as appealing as they used to be. Having a new project that challenges me and offers me new game concepts and mechanics to explore is very welcome at this point in my life. Thanks as always to the people who have been so supportive of me even in the worst of times. For now life is good and I'm excited to be taking my writing in a new direction. I've never covered a turn-based strategy game before but enjoy the notetaking and analysis it takes to come up with guides. Though my interest in The Sims may take a dive from time to time, I'll always be back to keep informed on what's going on here and how the community's doing. I just wanted to point out I'm purposefully very busy with something else right now, and things haven't excited me this way in quite some time, so I'm happy in my chosen profession. Nothing Sims can bring such enthusiasm for writing out of me without a new game and that seems less than a year away.
Civ 5 is a project that I started covering over a year ago, then set aside to work on other things. I never thought it'd amount to much beyond a few visits a day, but its developer, Firaxis did a good job developing the Expansions for the game, and with the Gods and Kings and Brave New World DLC it is probably the best Strategy game I've ever played. I was thrilled to see readers swarming the site overnight with the release of the latest DLC, so set literally everything aside to pursue the project. After all, I had a few dozen pages with incorrect information and that severely bothered me. It messed with my morale to know that my own work was playing against me, making me look like a fool to people that don't understand that patches and DLCs will make extensive changes to gameplay. Unable to do anything about the ignorant, I set out to work hard and get this thing done. I am almost done with the corrections - a few pages aside - and feel there's plenty of quality material to show off or at least explain my absence.
This past month I have been very busy developing it so am not ashamed to show off the
Civ 5 Strategy Guide I've worked on to any fans of the franchise among our Community. I play at level 6 (Emperor difficulty) but find that some
victory types are harder than others at this level. Through the losses and struggles, I've become a much better player so have a lot to say about the game. Right now, my agenda stands at 79 pages to go and this is a solo project, so I'll be on it for quite some time. That'll put the Guide well over 100 pages - there are 43 different Civs to play, all other gameplay aside. I expect to be distracted from this site and working on Civ for the rest of 2013, aside from a (hopefully) short visit to cover Plants vs Zombies 2 (an experiment into casual gaming on my part) and, of course, The Sims 3 Into the Future EP.
The only section of the Civ Guide that I am not proud of is the Leader List. There you can see major flaws from outright wrong information to patches changing gameplay for the better but making my writing a complete waste of time. Some of the updated pages, namely
China,
Aztecs, and
America are receiving a better reception than the drivel I put out in order to have a complete leader list. I learn as I go! Other Guides are great resources for newbies -
City Management and Output,
Tips and Strategies,
Great People (Scientists, Artists, Engineeers etc.) and
a Wonder List I am quite proud of, because they are thorough and provide key information to newbies. With them I accomplish something I seem to be capable of doing a decent job at in this field, getting all the information into one spot to make it conveniently available. Most information on any game is known, but it's often scattered around the web and needs fact-checking and extensive playtesting. Especially with the game so vastly improved since its release over two years ago.
If you're an avid player, I encourage you to look over my stuff and help me to improve it by using the comments system on the Guide. Otherwise, thanks for your time and for being a member of our Forum. Cheers to you all and I wish the best to each and every one of you. A big thank you to the staff here for allowing me to pursue my Professional dreams outside of Sims and write for other games as I'd always intended. Things got so much bigger here than we ever anticipated, and without them I'd be forever here just trying to keep up. Each and every one of you have my respect for the time and effort you put into this Forum and your continued dedication to its wellbeing.
Now to go sink another several hundred hours of gameplay into learning the ins and outs of every Civ leader! I can't wait for the project to be done, but thankfully still enjoy the game enough that I wake up each day excited to investigate the game and what article I'll be writing to cover it that day
Carl
