A game of Civilisation II dubbed ‘The Eternal War’, which has lasted over 11 years, has inspired a cult following including fan fiction and a spin-off game.
Played on and off by Reddit user ‘Lycerius’ over a decade-plus, the match has spanned 1,900 years in-game, with Lycerius’ army of Celts stuck in a stalemate nuclear war with the computer enemies, including a particularly stubborn group of Vikings.
“Rather than destroy the Vikings, my largest operation of the 41st century was a massive naval and land offensive to capture the new Viking capital of Piza,” Lycerius wrote after returning to the game for the first time in more than a year.
The game has gathered a large cult following among other Reddit users, which has included the subreddit r/TheEternalWarStories, full of fan fiction set in the world, and a spin-off RPG.
One user even took the challenge of never-ending war on himself, finding a solution that took 58 in-game years to eradicate the Vikings before turning on America, which Lycerius had allied himself with, to win the game.
It’s not the first time that a PC classic has been revisited after a long time to yield interesting results – one 4Chan user claimed that a game of Quake 3 Arena left running on a server for four years without human input resulted in the bots, which adapt their behaviour by observing human players,learning to live in peaceful harmony.

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