I feel like i don't belong. :-(

Not so, young man! You just have different tastes than everybody else. When I was 13, I played old RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment when everyone else was doing Diablo II. There's nothing embarrassing about being a PC gamer, it's a time-honored tradition. It just means you're a little more patient and cerebral than everyone else. If I were you, I'd try introducing the game to other people. Besides, no one's going to make fun of you just for playing a game, and if they do, they're probably dimwits.

I have kids and grand children and none of them are in love with TBS games. They are mostly into xbox 360 and one older boy that plays Eve a lot.

My advice is to quit school grow a beard and get a middle management job  

Uh, i don't know how to do that and i want to stay in school so i could get a job in game developing when i get older. So i could just start a strategy gamer's club.

Hey Sethpenguin, when I was your age, home computers and game consoles weren't around (yes, I'm old). I didn't fit in at school either, because I had my head buried in science fiction novels, and the board game equivalents to GalCiv2, when everyone else was into other things.

Different people are attracted to different types of entertainment, that's all. It's like the difference between playing chess and football. Both are great games, but a chess Grand Master probably isn't going to be a star football quarterback. The games appeal to different people with different skills. I'm not a twitch-shooter type of gamer, so I like strategy games on the PC, and flight sims, and the occasional good single player game like Bioshock or The Witcher on PC (both very good, if you're into that type of game as well as strategy).

If we all liked the same type of game it would be a boring world, and smaller companies like Stardock that cater to niche markets like strategy games, would go out of business. I hope that never happens. Anyway, welcome to the GalCiv community!

We had Pong  
And Sethpenguin, Guess you'll have to hang around us older dogs.

Take comfort in that fact that this game requires a heck of a lot more thought and strategy than most of whats out there. Not that other games are bad, mind you, but this is definitely a more cerebral (and creative!) game than most.

I'm also one of the only ones out of all my friends who plays TBS games like this, and yeas, it does get lonely sometimes, but we're all different. And face it, they probably just can't understand why this game rocks so hard

Something to remember: Idiots like something because it's popular, bigger idiots dislike someone because they don't like something popular.

Part of the problem is that GalCiv isn't a social game, it is meant to be played by oneself and enjoyed by oneself, and unless someone else is a fan of it there isn't much to talk about ("..and then I redesigned my ship..."). So, if you are concerned with the social aspect of things, then you might want to learn to enjoy console gaming so that yo have something to do with your buddies, while reserving TBS games for your own personal time.

As for your age, don't sweat it. My brother and I would have day long jam sessions on MOO2 back when were a couple years younger then you, and looking back it was some of the most fun I've had playing video games.

Hey man, don't worry too much about it. You'll eventually meet the kind of people who play these games. Right now anyway, you're talking to a bunch of them  

Play what you enjoy and don't worry too much about what other people do, eventually the kind of people you want to hang out with will appear. Just make sure you're outside sometimes so this will occur   

Sethpenguin, 1) don't sweat it

and 2) I want to share a story with ya that changed my worldview of "popular" kids that has stuck with me to this day (and I'm not that old, only just turned 26)

Anyhow, it was in eighth grade, so I was prolly just a year older than you. We were in social sciences class and somehow we got into a discussion of something we liked to do that would surprise those the knew us. I remember this girl who was very good looking and very popular getting a little shy when it came to her turn. And after taking a deep breath, she didn't miss a beat when she said "I really like reading Star Trek and Star Wars novels."

Sometimes those around you can really surprise you.

Don't sweat it, Sethpenguin. Aside from the fact that you are at the age when you feel like you don't fit in anyway (I have a 14-year old daughter who is going through that phase), you've got nothing to worry about regarding your tastes in gaming. To each their own, you know?

My kids rock at Guitar Hero and I completely suck at it. But I pony up and play it with them, even if they make fun of my style and suck-ass ability.

Besides, sometimes I feel like I don't fit in with other 30-something-year old dads. They all seem to be into their careers and playing golf or biking on the weekends when they aren't driving their sports cars or minivans around. I like to play PC games (and I don't mind sessions on the Wii and 360) and collect Star Wars statuettes. I skateboard on the weekend and have driven the same Jeep since 1997.

But you know what? I'm happy. I'm really happy. And that's all that counts.

EDIT: Damn, Silverbeacher... I've been hot on your heels today

I agree, just take look at what happened to Westwood Studios.
Both Stardock and Petroglyph with the excepption of Westwood are the only two good independent companies, Lionhead, Strategy first and 2k aren't doing so well.

One of the best things about being a teenager is eventually you'll grow out of it! I find it amazing to think back about the things that I thought were life and death situations as a teenager, and now can laugh about. Don't take life too seriously.

And to add another "When I was your age..":

If I wanted to play a computer game, I had to write my own, in BASIC! They...weren't very exciting.

  If i had a laptop i could use it to show my friends my ship designs during our free time or i could take screenshots and print them to show my friends. :NOTSURE: 

Pfft.



xkcd comics rock.

indeed.

And I understand you, Sethpenguin. Been there too, but don'T worry. As you'll grow up, you'll either begin to understand the appeal of low-cerebral games, or you will find peoples who appreciate the same kin of games than you do.

We all belong somewhere, we just don't have the chance to begin there.

Had a similar problem except all were playing d&d while wierd little me was hooked on starfleet battles. Now some thirty years later I still delight some and annoy others with my heroic retelling of my latest GalCiv II exploits. Most play little or no games, and im the oldest on my shift.my motto:never give up, never fit in, live happy.I also have a 7 year old who loves to build ships during my games for me.I just wish he would include weapons, but i still build them so he can see them in the game.

Hey, I'm 38, in work instead of going to school now and I don't have anyone to talk to about this game. The guy i used to share an office with just stared at me and nodded. LOL. I'd try to explain the game to him but i know he never quite got it, still i never shut up about it. I'd come into work and complain about the Drengin invasion or something.

Fitting in is nice and all, but its not something to concern yourself with to the point of changing what you like. The only person your age that you know now that you will still know 5 years from now is YOU.

I do hope though, that you and the other kids in your class talk about more than just gaming. You can just fit in on other topics. Like those female things that try get you with an influence victory.

Sethpenguin, I know a forum like this isn't real social time, but I gotta say that your post spawned a swell example of what the crew here can do by way of offering "community."

I noticed that the fresh round in How Old Are You let you know there's another active poster very near your age. Have you thought about founding a Metaverse empire for young players? I'm with the Gerontocrats (35+), and our empire has gone pretty quiet of late; perhaps some youthful competition could motivate my fellow geezers into posting a few fresh games

Sethpenguin..don't sweat it. The world is filled with people who "don't fit in" and the fact is that they are the ones who make life interesting. In fact, more often than not, the ones who don't fit in are going to make their living off of the ones who do. All your friends who are addicted to Wii and xBox and all that crap..who do you think created those items and the games that are played on them? Do you want to be a piece of hay in the haystack, or do you want to be the needle?

Don't worry about fitting in. Keep coming to forums like this, and eventually you will find other people like you who are in your age group. You're not the only one, I can guarantee you that. I have a lot of friends, most of whom are not into this type of gaming (some aren't into any type of gaming), but that doesn't matter. There are other things we have in common, and those are what keep us together. The world is not divided into PC gamers and console gamers. Be true to yourself and the other stuff will take care of itself.

Hrm...would that be Traveler? Or am I missing out on another game?

Hi Sethpenguin i share the problem that most of the people who have posted here have, that being no one i know plays the game over here in England let alone at my place of work. I tried explaining the game to a few of them and i might as well have been talking to a wall
In the end i purchased one of the GCII t-shirts from Stardock and wore that around for a few days (yes i washed it each night ). Wearing the t-shirt made a few of them come on here and one of them even purchased the game, so now i have someone to talk to about the game at work. Between the two of us we confuse all the others with our 'weird' references to Drengins and Korath
Stick in there as sooner or later someone will come round to your way of playing!

PS I remember Pong

they have t-shirts?

Hah! Games like Traveller didn't come out until a decade after I was Sethpenguin's age. No, I had to be content with Risk as the closest thing to 4x games back then, and the more abstract strategy games like Chess and Go. I would have killed to have something like Traveller, or today's computer games like GalCiv2. Kids these days don't know how lucky they are. Now, where did I put my rocking chair and cane....


Come to think of it, one thing we did have with those older board games, was that they all supported "multiplayer."

BASIC.

When I was you're age there were no computers. We'll not totally true but certainly no personal computers. Those pretty much came along when I was about twice your age.

But when I starting programming we didn't have CRT displays, we had hard copy teletype machines. It was convenient because you didn't have to scroll up and down to see what you already entered you just picked up the accumulating roll of paper off the floor behind the machine and read it from there. But what a racket they made.

In fact when we first got CRT's a lot of folks wouldn't use them because the view was so small (only 20 lines of 40 characters).

Plus the teletype's didn't have 1's or 0's we had to use a lowercase L for a 1 and an uppercase o for a 0. I once wrote an entire database management system using nothing but lowercase L's and uppercase o's (actually that's a joke).

Anyway, none of this really matters, there have been a number of 13 year olds that could hold their own in a duel of wits with the old geezers on these forums, certainly TheGreatEmperor and FireBender to name just a few. There have been many others. The only problem is that they tend to out grow us and go on to more adult pursuits whereas us geezers are stuck in a perpetual state of adolescence.

Were can i get them and do they sell them in the here in the US?