Another thing I've discovered recently has been Travian, a real-time game that has started with Settlers and gone a very, very long ways away. Such as there's a bunch more warfare. Anyway, you start with a tiny little village and build it up into--you hope--a mighty empire. There's also trade, warfare, diplomacy, raiding, culture, and pillage.
I've been doing reasonably OK. I have a respectable little hamlet, as these things go. The trouble is that you're given a random starting location, and mine is in the thick of a large web of very large, well-established, and heavily-armed alliances--all of whom are populated by Romanians. New players (Hi!) are typically seen by longtime players (i.e., the Romanians) as an overflowing supply of natural resources. Such as the time I was recently overrun by a huge army (131 units to my 7), who thereupon carted off half of my accumulated supply of grain, iron, bricks, and lumber. Now, I can rebuild that army, of course. The Romanian solution: Send 100+ units into my territory on a reasonably regular basis.
In the final analysis, I think success at Travian (and similar games) depends largely on having a very high caffeine-to-life ratio. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep up with this...although one of my fellow grad students at MSU knows Romanian...maybe I'll have her give me some messages to try to convince them that I, too, am Romanian and wish to join the Borg. That, or at least have her give me some Romanian swear words so I can hurl imprecations at them as I go down in flames.
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