We're such geeks

And you thought the Star Wars concept art we have hanging over our mantle wasn't proof enough that we're techies? You haven't even scratched the surface. ;)

You see, we weren't going to set up my computer, really we weren't. One computer is enough for a family of two, right? But the multiplayer function on Rise of Nations sounded so much fun, and we had the wireless capabilities to make our own LAN.... so now we can beat up on the computer together (or JM can beat up on me -- he's a much better RTS gamer than I am... or any kind of gaming for that matter).

EDIT by JM: I find it quite strange that Harmony is perfectly fine when I'm beating her, but gets all stressed out when faced with the possibility of being on the offensive against me. She was very distressed and thought she was losing the other day when *her* B-52 bombers were pouring bombs on one of my cities and I was scrambling to do something about it. We never did finish that game.

For those who don't know, Rise of Nations is a bit like playing Risk on the computer, but in 'real time'. It's also a bit like the Civilization series of computer games, in which you try to become the best civilization in the world.

There are at least four ways to win at Rise of Nations:

1) Destroy all of your opponents
2) Control more than 70% of the map space, by building cities and castles and researching civics, etc
3) Accumulating 8 wonder points by building a certain number of 'wonders of the world'. Different wonders are worth different amounts of points
4) Reaching the final Age (as in Information Age, Classical Age, Industrial Age, etc) of the game

Any of these (and I'm sure there are more) goals can be set at the beginning of the game as viable victory conditions. You can even set the game to be Nonviolent, which means that no nation is allowed to attack another nation during the course of the game. It's really a very deep game. Each civilization is given certain special powers based on their history. Here are some examples:

*The Mongols get horse units cheaper than other nations.
*The Turks have more powerful siege weapons.
*The Spanish have special exploration abilities.
*The Greeks gain technological advances much quicker than others.
* EDIT by JM: Strangely enough, neither Germans nor Koreans gain special abilities from wine.

All in all we're having a wonderful time even though it's spent two rooms apart and we're typing at each other instead of talking half the time. ;)