Online Name : Tamerlin is the name of a famous wizard and explorer in the universe of Talislanta (a rich and detailed world Jack Vance would have certainly liked to create himself, "and still no elves").
Name : Jean-Francois Cabirol
Age : 35
Location : Toulouse (France)
Gender : Male
Occupation : Assistant Manager
Marital Status : Separated
Kid : a six and a half years old boy
Favourite :
Book : "The way of Anubis" (Tim Powers)
Movie(s) : "The cat on a hot tin roof", "Les tontons flingueurs" (sorry, almost impossible to translate
)
Location : Toulouse (I've not yet been in the countries I would like to visit : Egypt, Japan, the USA...)
Food : traditional french food
Music : Jazz (hard bop), Hardcore and Fusion (Infectious Groove, Incubus, Body Count, Senser, Red Hot, Deftones...)
Role playing games : Talislanta, Space 1889, Legends of the five rings, Al Qadim, Fading Suns
Boardgames : Advanced Civilization (surprise !), Age of Renaissance, Twilight Imperium
Wargames : World in Flames, World war 1, Hannibal - Rome vs Carthage
Sport : Rugby (I support the greatest team in the world : the "Stade Toulousain"
)
Civ History :
I discovered Civilization in 1997 and it came as a revelation. The first computer game I ever played was Age of empires a few weeks earlier, first seduced I became bored very quickly, clicking everywhere as fast as possible is not what I considered to be strategy, building again and again the same buildings and units neither. As soon as I started my first Civ2 game I knew I had found a real treasure and played it again and again.
Meanwhile I discovered games like Steel Panthers, Operation Panzer, Eastern and Western Front and became more concerned with "realism", needless to say that I did not deemed the "stack vanishing" system of Civ2 entirely satisfactory. I have Alpha Centaury but never had the time to test it, shame on me I know... I then bought Call to Power, I was really disappointed although the game had excellent concept and was promising... Call to Power 2 was realeased and was very well reviewed, I bought it and discovered a wonderful game... with bugs, but the experience was nonetheless very pleasant and the "combined weapons" concept far superior (in my own devious opinion of course) to all the other Civ games, and the Apolyton Pack now gives me the opportunity to play the game "as it should be" (I'am a rather conservative lot, until now I have not played any mod which is changing the concepts of the original game... but I think I will try, one day).
When Civilization 3 came out in the USA I bought it immediately and tested it, the experience was weird, great improvement of the original game, very good concepts (aerial units, trade, spies, new diplomatic and combat systems) mixed with old concepts inherited froms its predecessors (I'am not happy at all to dispatch a horde of workers at every corner of my territory each turn especially at the end of the game). In fact, I found Civ3 less funny than its ancestors and Call to Power 2... An excellent game not so funny to play, this is currently what I'am thinking about it.
I must add that as I'am interested in many different kind of computer games, I'am not playing Civilization games very often, my civ games are separated by more or less important periods consecrated to other games, but I'am always coming back to Civ.
To end this long monolog, I must say I'am not a computer specialist, I do have some good knowledge of the software and hardware technologies I use but I'am perfectly ignorant of programming languages (which I regret). I would like to mod but I'am not sure I can do it without destroying my Hard Disk Drive...
Some wishes (sorry I can't have only one) :
- That humanity understands we can all live together while keeping our historical and cultural identities,
- That people stop thinking Real Time games are strategic games (to the exception of games like Europa Universalis and Close Combat),
- That I will not be banned from the Apolyton forums because of this long babble
.
