My 4-year-old nephew is a bit beyond his years. He’d been playing strategy/combat type games with my brother, and understood how to position his heroes, how to equip them, what types of armies to use against opponents, etc.
I look at these games wondering how in the world he understands what to click, let alone what he’s doing. To me, this is way beyond the kind of games I usually like to play to wind down and not have to think too much.
One day, my nephew asked me to play with him. I was a little bit hesitant – a 4-year-old’s patience may not withstand my “I have no idea what I’m doing sweetpea.”
But we sat down together with the little tablet and started to play. He explained to me each hero, what their strengths were and their skill levels, and I heard “blah blah blah blah” while nodding.
However I resolved to learn. Little by little. The more I learned, the more clever I felt. And the more I actually liked playing the game. I’ve set up a separate account (an alt) to try a different route of gameplay. And it feels great when I unlock all these heroes for my nephew to “hire” because he gets so excited and hugs me, and well, who wouldn't love that??
So yes, I’d become addicted. A far cry from the incomprehension and relative lack of interest not so long ago.
Addiction has its price. Literally. To level up, I could “pay to play” to speed up development. Or I could wait. I don’t like to wait. I’m a woman.
Lesson 1 – I CAN learn this kind of stuff when I want to. Even if it means using that part of my brain that resists tactical methods and “strategery” (I have a fondness for that ‘word’). When we learn, new neural connections are made in our brains and we become more problem-solving rather than problem-focusing.
Lesson 2 – I could easily adopt an addictive personality that really has to choose resisting spending money to speed up items like “construction” rather than wait 48 days for it to complete.
Lesson 3 – what is the value of instant gratification as opposed to waiting? The higher levels attain more respect from other players, yet they are also bigger targets for attacks. At which point more time is spent healing troops and repairing damaged goods, kind of putting “waiting” back into play just to catch back up to where you were. And again, I don’t like to wait. I’m a woman.
And if I had to have an addiction, I’d rather be addicted to this game than something that could cause harm. I mean there are worse things, you know?
Our in-game name was one my nephew picked and so far, 3 months later, I’ve kept it. Everyone thinks I’m a guy, but that’s ok – it’s kind of cool being messaged with “brother” and words of kinship that I feel good experiencing. They speak of the guilds they belong to as “families” which I found very intriguing, because it seems like every day someone left or got kicked out of a “family” and looking to join another.
Not that I don’t believe women would show connection to one another, but from what I’ve seen women in this game are few. So I get to experience a different perspective. And even though I might still might make fun of ‘guy bonding’ (brotherly love, grunting, and arm punching), I have an appreciation and a respect for its inclusiveness.
Yet I’ve also seen the guys turn on one another in a spiteful heartbeat once that trust is broken.
Lesson 4 – there’s a camaraderie among guys that’s easygoing and integrative. They’ll defend their “brothers” to the end, teleporting & attacking rival castles, and supplying each other with troops and resources. However, if the bond is broken and trust is lost, then they become instant enemies and attack each other, even if it means both lose all their troops, hero might, everything.
But it’s about pride, man. And honor.
Combat-wise I’m definitely a woman. The first time I was attacked, I nearly freaked out. I saw my hard work crumble, and I spit out some expletives. I swore to myself I wouldn’t let that happen again.
(Aside from the 1 hour I left my nephew to play on his own, and he attacked a random castle that happened to be part of a large guild, and the guild leader destroyed us, took our hero, and held him ransom for $1 million gold. A bit stiff and not the norm, but I paid and sent an apology explaining that it was literally a 4-year-old left to his own devices. He sent me a message back in Portuguese – hooray for in-game translator – “Ah no worries friend, sorry about that.” And now we’re friends.)
So I was even more resolute. And just like a woman, I focused on defense. The guys in the game tended to focus on troops and building huge armies to be able to attack with (pursuing). I focused on building a solid castle wall to be able to fend off attackers (protective receiving).
It took some time. And an occasional $5 treat of speed-ups I allowed myself to buy in-game. But I’ll tell you this: I have a few troops and some goodies, but my wall….my wall is a fortress of impenetrability.
And I’m proud of it!
Lesson 5 – I build this “wall” after getting “hurt” so impenetrable because I was determined to not allow anyone in to “hurt” me again. My fortress, my protection. Hmmmm….oh the metaphors and analogies are brewing from that one!
My wall was tested heartily recently. My alt account was attacked and I happened to be watching it while it was occurring. I immediately sent troops to attack the attacker. After all, I was defending my turf, man.
Maybe 20 minutes later, one of his higher-ranked guild members teleported right next to me and sent troops, one after another, to pummel my wall.
I watched a little fascinated. As he sent troops, they all fell or retreated…my wall’s stamina didn’t budge. This guy lost about 180,000 troops against my wall, and I started feeling really bad. I messaged him and said, “hi, I attacked out of defense for my alt account, that’s all. Please I don’t want to see you lose any more of your troops.”
The attacks stopped. And he messaged me back, in Russian. He said, “You are great!! I am shocked!! That is half of my total troops! :)” I felt surprised at this respect and appreciation. It was not what I expected, in fact, probably far from it. He followed up with “I understand. He will send you gold for the inconvenience.”
I felt confused...basically, I was going to be repaid for what was destroyed and looted from my alt account’s castle. That wasn’t necessary, it’s part of the game! I messaged him back and said, “Nooo, it’s ok! We are good, and you lost so many troops!”
He replied, “No friend, you must take it. He took the gold, the main honor and respect. He will give you 3,000,000 as a sign that we are friends. I would ask of you to join our guild, but we only Russian. You are a good man.” And he teleported away.
Wow! I didn’t know what to make of this. The original guy messaged me, “Take please, and my apologies.” I replied that it was really ok, I didn’t want to take his gold. Plus since I wasn’t in their guild, I physically could not accept it through the mechanism he was sending it through.
He kept telling me to take the gold and scouted the heck out of me to see if it was in my account. After a minute, he sent troops to attack me! This was really surreal to me!
I put up a shield and messaged him to please stop and not lose all his troops too! He said, “I will not leave until you take it.” The male craziness! I explained the limitation of the game that I could not actually retrieve what he had “sent.”
So then he told me to attack HIM! And then I could take his gold and we would be square! What is it with men like this, they have to “make good” at all costs to them - so I really, really begrudgingly complied. I felt horrible the whole time. And I told him I felt horrible. Especially since we had been calling each other “Friend” through messaging, and this wasn’t my idea of how to be a friend to him.
Lesson 6 - It was not just the honor within the game. After all, to me it’s simply (an addictive) game, but it had become way more than that for these guys. It appeared to be personal honor as well, and the game was merely an extension of it.
I winced when I attacked – it was like I’d been invited to a party I didn’t want to go to where everyone just sat there waiting for me to crash it.
Now, attacking as an act of surprise, as part of this new strategy (or my ummm randomness) - I could see how guys get a thrill out of creating fire in another's castle! There's a feeling of power and control that is deeply satisfying to burn and take down another castle, yet even then I still feel guilty and kind of want to apologize afterwards. Guys....they gloat.
However, when this particularly unsatisfying deed was over, my Friend messaged me and said he was very happy to have met a new Friend, one with honor, and would remember always, and people like me make the world and life better.
Whoa.
And he said he was sorry but he had to go, and until next time. He teleported off.
I felt good, confused, and thoughtful at the same time. I’m not even sure really what I did. Maybe it was how I defended my own, maybe it was how I reached out with some compassion to please not lose any more of their troops, maybe it was how I allowed him to “repay” me even when he knew it made me feel uncomfortable.
I wondered had he known I wasn’t a guy if his words and reactions would have been different.
Maybe I am trying to analyze something that is simply a ‘given’ among guys.
Lesson 7 – No wonder guys think we women are complicated. We tend to overthink things, we analyze certain things to death (especially in friendships and relationships). And here I am doing both of these things – in a game.
I’ve decided I like this perspective I’m getting (under somewhat false pretenses, since everyone thinks I’m a guy). For now, I’ll continue on with it and try to stop being all up in my head and just play and “be” like I would in real life. Why not? It’s an experience, and this I will use to help myself grow.
And who would have thought I’d have life lessons from a kingdom game?? I suppose sometimes our lessons come from where we would least expect. I will not be one to judge now where I’m able to gain a new perspective.
And I’ll work on that wall. :)