I shouldn’t admit this, but the Facebook game “Medieval Empires” is becoming an addiction. It’s a game of economics, rather than pure strategy, and the checks-and-balances are what makes it interesting to me. The perennial scourge of medieval kings was raising enough cash to pay their troops. Sure, they were owed service from their vassals, but like as not they were at war with at least some of them at any given time, so that didn’t work so well.
In this game, money equals bigger army, which means that you more successfully attack and defend from your fellow players in “skirmishes.” You can make money three ways:
- From your “conquered” cities, which is a steady income stream. You need progressively more powerful armies to conquer more energetically defended cities.
- From skirmishing with other players. This has the downside of increasing your experience level, which could push you into a higher class before your army’s power catches up.
- From buying more sources of revenue. (Trade caravans or thieves). These pay for themselves in roughly a month, so there is some delayed gratification.
So it basically boils down to two basic strategies: Patiently allowing passive revenue to build your attack over time, or actively skirmishing and taking your lumps (because you can, theoretically, lose money when you lose to another player). So far, I’ve been trying to skirmish my way to power, although I’m a rather small fish for my level. And that takes active participation over a not-inconsequential period of time, because you’re limited to ten skirmishes per ten minutes.
The central problem is also another medieval one: Allies. I have one, and I don’t trust him as far as I could throw a war elephant. So I need to put a lot of distance between him and me. Fortunately, he’s been something of a slacker since I met him twenty-some years ago. ;-)
So the takeaway is that I'm squandering time I could use for more tangible empire-building, all because, even in the make-believe arena of "Medieval Empires," I still can't stand the thought of losing when just a little more diligence could give me that breathing-room for another day, another week...maybe even forever if my "ally" loses interest and moves on to another game.
But it just hammers home that people don’t really work for money. Seriously. Money is just a means to an end. Even the most stone-hearted backstabbing miserly bastard in the world is ultimately looking for security. For him/her money keeps the wolf from the door. And I believe that’s true for even good-hearted people. Most folks probably wouldn’t mind having oodles of cool stuff to enjoy inside that security, and more than likely someone to share it with. But the walls of our fortresses are ultimately built of cash. Walls mortared with the sweat of work and worry—no question. But the bricks themselves are pure cash.
So it seems to me that if that much work and sleeplessness and time is involved, it’s important to describe your fortress to yourself before you start building it. And you may need to describe it to the people who are important to you, if it means that you will spend less time with them as part of that process.
For the record: My fortress is modest by business standards. It largely revolves around freeing me and mine from having to fret about money. It involves building a house off the grid on my own terms. And as a means to that end—partly an end in itself—I want to create a business that I want to work for—without having to turn into someone I don’t like in the process. Maybe I’ll want to add a porch or a bigger garage onto that fortress after I start feeling a little more comfortable inside those walls. I’ll worry about that when I’m at that point.
But, if you’ll excuse me, I have about a half-million dollars that needs to be converted into armed militia so that I can go conquer Kiev thirty thousand attack points from now…
