The Glade 4.0

Think you spend too much time playing the same video game?

Try playing it for a decade.

In an impressive display of dedication, Reddit user 'Lycerius' claims he has been playing a single game of Sid Meier's classic world-ruling strategy game Civilization II for nearly 10 years now. But sadly, the future world he's dealing with is "a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation."
The year is 3991 A.D. Multiple nuclear wars have decimated the planet, melting ice caps and leaving the world useless for farming. The only land left for the three remaining superpowers to lord over are mountain tops.

Those superpowers — the Celts, Vikings and Americans — have been waging war for 1,700 in-game years. And it doesn't look to be ending anytime soon.

"Peace seems to be impossible," writes Lycerius. "Every time a cease fire is signed, the Vikings will surprise attack me [he plays as the Celts] or the Americans the very next turn, often with nuclear weapons - even when the U.N forces a peace treaty. So I can only assume that peace will come only when they're wiped out. It is this that perpetuates the war ad infinitum."

Roughly 90 percent of the world's population is dead in the game, due to famine and nuclear fallout. It's not a pretty picture, though it is a totally fascinating one. But it gives rise to one big question: Who the heck would play a single game for nearly 10 years?

"I thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be," he said.

Lycerius doesn't play every single day, instead using the game as a sort of go-to time-killer when he's got nothing else on his plate. He says that he wants to rebuild his game world, but he "isn't sure how."

"My goal for the next few years is to try and end the war and thus use the engineers to clear swamps and fallout so that farming may resume. I want to rebuild the world. But I'm not sure how. If any of you old Civ II players have any advice, I'm listening."

The Reddit community has swarmed to action, offering hundreds of suggestions on ways to not only end the war, but to bring the planet back to its former glory. It's been such a viral hit, the term 'Civ 2' even made an appearance as a top trending topic on Twitter.

Lycerius says he's appreciative of the feedback, but suspects it will take many months, at best, to revive the earth, even after the war is won. You can check out pics of his apocalyptic world here.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin