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  

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!

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

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   

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

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.

Pfft.



xkcd comics rock.

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.

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

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

they have t-shirts?

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.