I love...

[emjay]

Thanks for your rep   I love my avatar too... it's a very meaningful symbol for me and the closest thing I've got to a religion as an atheist

I've never played that. My game was Colonization, and all the history that came with it inspired me so much, creating a lifelong love of American and Native American history. I even used to have it as kind of part of my identity, and had native american-style jewellery... an earring and a medallion in the shape of a dream-catcher. And my favourite book was Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

It's no problem!  I don't understand what it symbolizes, but i still think it looks awesome.

AoM? it was a really, really awesome RTS, with tons of mythical creatures, set in ancient greece (With a bit of troy too!), made by the Age of Empires guys (Obviously, considering the title  ). Never played Colonization, myself, though. It sounds really cool, though, as it had that much of an effect on your lifestyle. 
AoM got me interested in history, from a pretty young age, and since then i've picked up a lot of history, and love learning more. (though, never really learnt much about native america, though i know a fair bit about the USA). I've always been more about European history, being from britain.
My favourite book has to be Fall of Reach, of the halo books, it is just awesome.

It symbolises the clockwork universe... hard determinism... everything that has happened could have only been one way and everything that will happen can only be one way. But not working out for the good as is the Christian perspective but just what is.

I haven't actually played that many RTS's, though one about mythical creatures sounds pretty cool... the closest I've come to that is Populous/2 on the Megadrive. The only RTS's I've really played are Starcraft and Settlers. Colonization was a turn-based strategy game... so you had a lot more time to think. You played as English, French, Spanish, or Dutch and colonised America, starting with just a couple of colonists and a ship, building up colonies. Then when the time was right and you had built up a big enough army you declared independence and had to fight a war of independence against the motherland, who were a much stronger force. So you had to use guerilla tactics to win, just as the Americans did. Each of the four powers had different specialities... so if you wanted to conquer the Aztecs and Inca's you'd play as the Spanish, if you wanted to trade, you'd play as the Dutch, if you wanted religious emigration you played as the English, and I can't remember what the French were good for And then you also had privateers and shipyards and stuff. It was just a full on game covering all the history of America. It was beautiful on the Amiga and had lovely music. The PC version has crap graphics and possibly no music (or none that you can get working anyway) but it still plays and that's the important thing... you can play it on DOSBox if you want

I'm also British but have always found our history... and European history... to be quite boring All about dynasties and kings and queens, and that sort of thing. I haven't got a clue about that... about the order of kings and queens etc. I am interested in Russian history though... so not quite European... or not all quite European.