![]() The problem isn’t that events don’t have causes––they do––but that history is far too knotted to draw straight lines. Advanced theological thought didn’t actually require poetry as a prerequisite, and it’s hard to imagine how the construction of the Cristo Redentor would have been impossible without plastics. ![]() The actual past happened once and in one way, yet it is surely not the only way it could have happened. Tech and social policy trees might allow for some divergences, but everything in Civilization V tends towards an overpowering determinism––we made pottery, then conceived of monotheism, built gothic cathedrals, and now artificial comets criss-cross the evening sky, beaming images and words into and out of the celestial ether.īut if humans of the distant past had never developed a calendar, it’s not as if technological innovation would have halted at optics and mathematics. “History,” Adam Gopnik recently wrote in The New Yorker, “is past, and singular, and never comes around twice.” From the perspective of a historian, Civilization V ’s greatest fault is that it distorts beyond recognition this simple observation: history is made anew with each game, and yet the history that is made is always more theme than variation. Perhaps it’s easier to start with what it can’t teach us. The present moment is the perfect opportunity, then, to consider the titular question: what, if anything, can Civilization V teach us about history? Moreover, with the release of Firaxis’ Civilization: Beyond Earth later this month, it’s possible that Civilization V ’s place atop the strategy hierarchy will be usurped. The fact remains, though, that Civilization V, with thirty million man hours recorded on Steam alone, is among the most popular “historical documents” today, and the values implicit in its many systems have been and continue to be communicated to millions of players. In other words, it is not an ideological decision, but one of design, meant simply to make the game more varied and more enjoyable. The “+3 Unhappiness per new city” requirement is not a serious claim about one cause of civic discontent––it’s intended to allow small empires of high-population cities to be competitive with civilizations built on many, low-population cities. Of course, it’s not fair to subject Civilization V to this kind of criticism. That the discovery of new natural wonders will alleviate that discontent is somewhat more problematic. Do more “traditional” historical studies corroborate these claims? Yes and no––that an empire built on occupation will experience more civil unrest appears to be is a strong argument. If we take Civilization V at face value, the game argues that the foundation of new settlements, overpopulation, and the occupation of foreign cities are the primary causes of civil unrest. ![]() Modeling historical phenomena like cultural diffusion, civic dissent, and the spread of religion, all of which appear in Civilization V, entails making assumptions about the causes and effects of these phenomena. The methods by which history is written––or coded––are inherently ideological. Yet whether or not they intend to, games like Civilization constitute a form of what academics call historiography––the study of the writing of history. Historically speaking, this is, of course, bullshit. From this example, one might conclude that had Rome simply gone on the offensive, we might still be speaking Latin. The “Fall of Rome” scenario vividly illustrates one of the many difficulties of making games that take history as their subject. If only the Romans had known that their crumbling empire could have been saved had they simply abused the terrible programming of their enemies’ archers. Victory, unexpectedly, is most easily achieved by gathering what little forces remain and marching into barbarian lands. Historical wisdom does the player no good: abandoning Rome’s outer colonies in Spain, Gaul, and North Africa, prioritizing defensive structures, and defending at the few mountain passes of the southern Alps will only prolong an agonizing defeat. “The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + and ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.” – David Mitchell, Cloud Atlasīy common consensus, Civilization V ’s “Fall of Rome” scenario is the most challenging of the twelve historical scenarios bundled with the game’s complete edition.
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