Civilization+(Bill+Wellen)

Civilization Review

Civilization IV is a turn based strategy game in which each player builds an empire (civilization) beginning with a little patch of land and one or two “settlers.” You are competing with up to 6 other players who like you, represent actual historical figures and civilizations. You can win by attaining one of five goals: militarily conquering each of your opponents, being elected “World Leader” by the United Nations, raise your empire’s “culture” to a certain high level, be the first to land a space ship in the Alpha Centauri system, gain enough of the earth’s land and population, or simply have the highest overall score when the clock runs out. One must be wise in terms of how resources are invested. Too little military and you will be conquered; too little food and you will grow too slowly; etc. Here is a 7:23 video overview of Civ IV:

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By playing this game I learned content associated with the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each civilization. Each military unit and key civilization achievement (e.g., Pyramids) are accompanied by some text explanation. Beyond historical facts, players learn to balance the needs of an empire to stay strong and growing. One can’t always have all the guns AND butter one would like. If you invest too heavily in one area, your weaknesses in other areas will be your downfall. Balancing investments is a good thing to learn for use in business, individual investments, or work/life balance. A player must develop his skills in diplomacy. One is helped by trade agreements and alliances against mutual enemies. But be too compliant or belligerent and you may invite a new war. Another skill area is that of combat. You must invest sufficient resources into the quantity and quality of your armies. Development of religion is important. The more temples, churches, cathedrals, etc. that you build, the more happy your people will be and the less likely it will be that they will revolt.

The game encourages active and critical learning. You learn what works and what doesn’t and you can see your improvement in many ways (wins, points, territory gained). The “psychosocial moratorium” principle applies inasmuch as the game is frequently auto-saved so one can always go back to an earlier time and re-do a previous action that turned out badly. Also, like all games that include violence, one can be aggressive and warlike without getting a real scratch. And if battles and conquering feel uncomfortable for some players, one can also win through diplomacy or expansion of culture as mentioned above. I believe that the “amplification of input” principle applies as evidenced by the common belief that this game is among the most addictive. It is complex enough to challenge anyone, but players can choose difficulty levels to match their skills. In playing this game one can’t help but learn more about important cities and battles from a myriad of civilizations and interact with various dictator’s/leader’s avatars. Players can track their past games in their own “Hall of Fame” trying to beat previous personal bests. Players are rewarded for good play throughout the game with powerful “heroes” scientists and artists that boost their productivity.

Online resources include Wikia Gaming’s wiki site begun in February, 2008 ( [] ). They have a total of 807 pages that cover subjects like buildings, improvements, leaders, leader traits, resources, technologies, military units and World Wonders. The creator behind the Civilization franchise is Sid Meier. His website ( [] ) provides overviews off all Civilization games from III through V and with permutations of each (“Revolution,” “Colonization,” “Beyond the Sword,” “Warlords”). This is product oriented with no forums. The game maker, Firaxis, has a link on their website that takes you to “Civilization Fanatics Center” ( [] ). When I visited I saw that there were 197 users and 721 guests online at that moment. Within their forum I saw nearly a million posts existed in the “creation & customization” area. Sub-forums there included mudpacks, new civilizations, pre-made maps and tutorials. Within the general discussion forum were 650,000 posts, many of them were bug reports and solutions. Another link from Firaxis led me to “Apolyton Civilization” (http://apolyton.net/). Their forums included general, bugs, strategies and “super guides.” These super guides were references to books for purchase. Each guide pertained to a particular strategy (i.e., “victory conditions,” “Military Strategy & Tactics,” “Social Policies,” “Technology,” “Economics,” “Diplomacy,” “Exploration,” “Building Your City,” and many more). After playing Civilization for years, I had no idea how many resources existed out there to help players!

I haven’t played Civilization in several years, but after working on this assignment, I feel like going back again. Maybe this time, with the right advice online and with some helpful strategy guides, I can finally win consistently at the highest level of difficulty. Yet, I always had fun, and found it addictive using the earlier iterations of this game and playing at a difficulty level commensurate with my skill. I think this speaks to the great design of the game and how it has been able to attract a broad following from novices to the most serious of adherents. I’ve always loved history and found playing a historical game like Civilization to be a natural path. It is obviously only one of many, many paths that attracted millions of fans.