Works for me, Marshall. Can you start it or shall I? (Better you, I think, since I have no idea what I would need to do heh)

I'm 57. I've developed a slightly different definition of friendship over the years.
A person who will occasionally take a sick day in order to play games with you on your (non-matching) day off is a real friend, and you should try to no lose touch, because if you have more than a dozen of thes in your life you are lucky.
A person who will put take a leave of absence and put their life on hold to try to bail (or break) you out of Thai jail; or to just stand at your shoulder at your dad's funeral without needing to say anything, is a True Friend. You must treasure these and be equally there for them, because if you have more than 1 or 2 of these, you are Blessed.

My wife's sig says the same thing, much more succinctly:
A Friend helps you move;
A True Friend helps you move bodies.

drrider

Hmmm. An empire just for Geezers.

How about the Depends Dominion? For when you truly, absolutely can't wait...

Hydro

Hey OZ, don't forget waking them up at 4 Am for a drink of water. Or screaming for help, making Them dash to your aid because a fuzz looked like a bug.

BTW i would definitely join a Galactic Geezer empire.

I loved those games.

When Curse of the Azure Bonds came out I was in a software store looking at the box cover and a salesman who was very familiar with my buying habits noticed me looking at it and said "I thought you'd like that one!"

glad to see I'm not the oldest galciv geezer, but it does look like I am the only female so far. My hubby and I both like GalCiv I and II though he is spending more time lately playing on-line poker. 54 years young, nights and weekends like most of you. Haven't played much GC in a while, as it takes so long to conquer the universe...
I like Rise of Nations, I and II. Sim City, Orion a long time ago, Freelancer once in a while. Age of Wonders, shadow magic, oblivion, and their pr-quels. Used to play Command and Conquer and Warcraft but the newer ones weren't as much fun.

im 57 married 23 years!im a kept man so i guess you could say im semi-retired i started out on the vic 20 and i had the first quote portable computer the osborne my wife plays some computer games but is not a like myself addicted to games i prefer turn based strategy games i play many other types of computer games . i do not spend near enough time gaming as i do acrylic and watercolor painting and far too many other projects. we will play on one of my old computers merchant prince against each other. im still fond of games made by a company called qqp such as grandest fleet,lost admiral etc.remember lode runner fondly.the bard series.As far as gc2 i like the gigantic maps but am going to have to go to a smaller size as the ctd's are taking away my enjoyment.i enjoy board games but no longer know anyone who plays. in the early ninties i had my own computer and board game store a dream come true but alas had to give it up.

You are not alone.  

At 53 I'm older than most but younger than some, a nice middle of the road place to be. My wife of 33 years is not a gamer but she does watch the whole My Space, Facebook, etc. world where our children reside and keeps us both informed as to what is happening in their world.

My son is a big-time World of Warcraft player. So much so that we have to threaten him occasionally to keep him in the general vicinity of reality. He is getting better now that he has finally gotten a girlfriend that's worth having. He's 19 and on summer break from his 1st year at college.

My daughter likes to play Downhill Domination and ... the dancing one ... having a senior moment and too lazy to look it up. She is 18 and still trying to decide what her life is going to be about.

First computer game was playing the old Star Trek, ascii-text thriller on a college main frame back in the 70's. Favorite quarter-eater? Gosh! Too many choices. Sucked at most of them anyway so it really doesn't matter. My bride and I spent many an hour in the arcade during our later childhood/early marriage years. (Do the math. I was 20 and she was 17 - just kids) Also, played a lot of the SPI board games during the 70's. Just couldn't get enough of the hex maps and cardboard counters. PanzerGruppe Guderian probably being one of my favorites, although I did play a lot of Outreach as well.

Currently, I play GalCivII:DL and Victoria a lot. I own a ton of games and have that cursed habit of hording games I know I'll never play again, like the DOS versions of High Command and Third Reich; but that's why I bought a house ... to store my "stuff".

Currently looking to get a bigger house.

Playing time right now is very random due to real life concerns, like house-hunting and shopping for a pickup truck to replace my worn-out Escort wagon. I usually manage to get at least 6 hours a week of play under my belt. Usually more than that, but at least that many.

TBS is my favorite game-style due to worn out reflexes and poor eye-hand coordination, and the fact that I find RTS and shooters to be rather repetitively boring.

Most played computer game was Stars! I played it single-player and PBEM for years before I finally moved on. I was thoroughly thrilled with I finally discovered GalCiv last year.

I qualify as a geezer! Where's my cane!? There's some kids I need to wave it at while yelling, "get off my lawn"! I'm... 36... had to think about that. For a minute there I thought I might only be 34. The thing about getting old is that you forget exactly how old you are.

Now... what was the question?

Well, I don't have a wife. Or a husband. My two cats, (yes, I'm well on my way to being the crazy cat lady), don't seem to mind my gaming addiction as long as I remember to feed them a couple times a day. I typically play whatever my current game addiction is until way too late at night. Then I sleep for the first couple of hours at work.

I remember having C64's with the tape drive in elementary school and I learned how to program some very basic BASIC on the Apple IIe in Jr. High and my dad had some IBM compatible thing with a cradle modem when I was older but my first computer was a Windows ME and I got it solely for the purpose of playing Myst III. I don't know why people complained about ME. Mine worked perfectly fine for about 3 years and then one day it decided to completely uninstall every single driver. I had to think back to my DOS days to remember how to navigate with the ALT and Tab keys to download a mouse driver so I could reinstall everything else. Since then I've moved on to Linux and I only boot to XP for games that I can't get to work with WINE. (I'm too cheap to use Cedega.)

Scarlett, you sound like you're my clone: 36, living alone with two cats, taught myself BASIC in high school, started gaming with the lovely C64. Never bothered with Linux, though -- I would if it were more gamer-friendly, as I really dislike having to run Windows. Especially WinME, heh.

Please consider joining our empire for older players, if you're interested. I guess it was in this thread that I came up with the idea for it, but I'm happy to report that the Gerontocracy is now alive and kicking (albeit using a walker). You can read more by following the link in the banner below.

Are you kidding... Linux is great for gaming! There's... uh... well, there's Nethack. And don't tell me that's not a classic!!



I'd love to join the geriatrics group. Do I have to submit my games? I'm still quite the beginner and my scores (on the rare occasion that I win) are rather embarrassing.

Funny, I'm actually playing a game of Nethack right now. You are my clone. This is starting to frighten me a little.



Well, it's a metaverse empire, so submitting games is sort of expected, though not really mandatory. We don't take it all that seriously, though, and most of us suck anyway, so don't worry about getting top scores.

Me, I just like having the colourful medals underneath my posts. I should have the racial victory one this week... shiny!

The medals are quite shiny. Funny, I just finished watching the Firefly series. Again. Now you're frightening me.

And gorram Nethack... I've never ascended. I even cheat and I still can't beat it. I've never gotten farther than Medusa's level and that was almost impossible even with infinite lives.

Evening, all!
I am 40, female, and really enjoy GalCiv DA.
Galaga and Centipede were my favorite quarter munchers. I also played Pong on our Atari.
The first computer I ever used was a Commodore 64. I had a text-based Dracula game that I played for hours. It was incumbent upon the player to stay oriented within the story and spatially in one’s head as virtual darkness fell. The objective was to get certain articles throughout a house that could then be used to defeat Dracula.
I really liked it and like text based games. I like TB games best, I think. RT’s are okay, and I am really looking forward to trying out Sins of a Solar Empire. I’m downloading it now.
I didn’t actually play games for years and years, so I am actually a bit new to all the gaming stuff.
Caio!

I had a Lord of the Rings game for my C64. It had a map of middle earth and shield that represented armies and some main characters. Yoiu had to get the ring to mount doom avoiding all the black shields and fighting when you couldnt. It too FOREVER to do. That was years and years before the movies, wish i had finished it now.

I am 58 so I am enjoying life. Play GCII a lot. Not posted any games yet. Have not won yet either.

I guess I somehow missed this post (I found it accidentally while searching for something else).
Some entertaining and heartwarming glimpses into other people's lives here.

The OP is over a year old now and although I see some familiar names, I kind of wonder where the rest have wound up... are they still active players in the GalCiv games and expansions or have they moved on to other things (some were even big time board gamers before comp. games caught their interest).

I'm so glad I stumbled upon this particular post.

It's not so much the fond memories of the games that everyone shares that touched me as I read each post, but more the sense of time passing in slightly different ways for people in very different life stages and circumstances (some desirable, some not so).

Married, some with families and adult children, divorced, single, reclusive, disabled and shut-ins, all connected to this game in a round about way it seems.

It's interesting to read how people's responses to the OP were matter of fact at first, but soon began showing a personal side to it as each one "opened up", even if only just a little, intended or not.

All in all, very touching to say the least.

I'm 55. I played Galactic Civilizations for several hours after work each day (and slightly more on weekends) from the OS/2 days to maybe six months to a year past the release of GC2 Dread Lords (of which I was a beta and gamma tester). While I purchased Dark Avatar and played it a while, I didn't really get back into GC2 until TA came out and I was intrigued by the different racial tech trees.

My wife does get annoyed at times with the amount of time I spend on GC2, but she spends a lot of time playing puzzle games (Everett Kaiser's shareware games, mostly), so she can't complain too much.

I never spent much time plugging quarters into machines - maybe I was already too old for that when they came out. I remember spending hours after work (about 1979-1980) playing the original Adventure (Colossal Cave) on the mainframe, and then spending a lot of time with games on the old original IBM PC in the early 1980s (I still miss those old Sierra adventure games).

I gave RTS games a try, and enjoyed those I tried, but these old wrists can't spend much time anymore clicking, clicking, and clicking without a rest. So I prefer TBS where I can find them.

BTW, particlewave, thanks for posting, I had completely missed this thread, and your post brought it to my attention.

i am 30 next year. Can i be counted.

hiya's !!

I'm Mark,...41 years olde, not married, no kids,..a paranoid-schizo on disability, and I have a sleep disorder, too. heh.

I game roughly 15-20 hrs a day and I just found Gal Civ and hadda buy GalCiv II !!

The game is very addictive, replaced Neverwinter Nights the very day I played it, heh.

Occasionally, i mow the yard or go shoppin for food,..see the doc when i HAVE to. I don't like doctors much.

Anyhoo,..I have tons of questions needing answered and I'd like to join an active guild for GalCiv II if any exist. I really love this game !!

about it,

Mark

I don't think there is something like a guild, but this forum is swarming with players that can answer all (or most) of your questions. Funny that as i say that i see you posted 6 days ago. Most questions you have will be answered promptly if it says something in the subject about needing info.

So feel free to post all of your questions right here. I still get surprised sometimes about something i didn't know about this game.

A fascinating thread. I'm 56 and have enjoyed strategy gaming since playing the Avalon Hill board games at university. We also played Adventure (Crowther and Woods), Star Trek and Kingdom (Hammurabi) on KSR33 Teletypes connected to the university mainframe. No quarters required - just lots of patience at 110 BAUD!

I'm currently single which means I can get away with putting a computer in the living room, connected to a large screen TV which adds a lot to the gaming experience. An air mouse (I've used Gyration and Logitech) works quite well with strategy games. I spend a few hours a week playing GalCiv II or Sins of a Solar Empire but, this time of year, I'd rather be out sailing!