Do you learn history from Civ V?

I probably got Civilization 5 just because I love history and geography.

 

Not really. I've taught history(World-American) in High School, graduate taught Ancient history as a GA in college and read it and traveled forever, and I have played Civ since it first was avaiable on a MAC. But the game has many good factors, but is a bit off setting in order to make it a game.

 

I remember Civ 3 and 4 made history class a breeze!

 

Because he stopped all research at bronze working and was using impis vs rifles.

Civ definitely gives you an appreciation for history. Do you have any idea how few people actually know who mansa musa is and what continent timbuktu is on? They only know it as a place really far away as in a saying. I've read the entire civ4 civilopedia and while a lot of the info is paraphrased basically it's still informative.

 

Playing Civ 5 made me want to learn everything about Mesopotamia. I utterly love history now, especially ancient and classic history. Credits to Firaxis!

 

As someone who majored in History, I think Civ is great for inspiring people to read and learn more about history.

Sure, there is a lot of incorrect information there, but if kids at school played Civ, maybe more people would care about history and knowledge.

Saying that Civ is bad for History because it has incorrect info is the same as saying that tv shows about astronauts are bad because they don't give all exact details and information. It is about making dreams and inspiring people, not being a boring encyclopedia.

 

Sorry, but just an example:

My 13yo kid loves FPS games (Call of Duty, Battlefield, you name it), but after seeing me playing Civ, he started playing it a bit, up to the point where I bought another one just for him.

Mind you that he is brazilian, so English is not so easy yet, but now we usually talk 2 or 3 times about someone or something that he saw in game and then later researched about (yeah, wikipedia, but it is a start). Yay Civ!

 

I have learned quite a lot of history from Civilization. Such as how George Washington built the Chichen Itza around 1000 AD in the city of Boston with the help of Nikola Tesla and that the Apollo Project was developed by the Chinese in the early 19th century after being in 300-year war against both France and Carthage.

All joking aside, I wouldn't say I've learned so much as have become intrigued by history and implored to learn more about the upstarts and developments of human societies and civilizations. A good jumping-off point, like one mentioned, into inquiring about information about the people and places in our computer games.

 

It's more important how it inspires interest then the actual, somewhat lacking, civpedia itself. I know a guy who plays with his kids and it gets them interested in all types of world history lessons.

 

I dont want to talk about degrees but incomplete information and inaccurate information are completely different things and the civilopedia does both.

I agree with you that its a good thing to use as an inspiration but after that we will have forum talks about 'facts' that are no facts at all. There is an old Greek saying that says, incomplete and inaccurate knowledge is worse than having no knowledge at all.

 

definitely . I honestly think early CIV games and RTW are what got me interested in history.

 

No, but every time I should learn for my history course I play CiV instead.

 

Does anyone know where they get all this civilopedia information? Do they have some cooperation with some historians or they just have some team, which concludes some info from some various information sources? This is interesting question to ask to Firaxis, isn't it?

 

I'm 99% sure the majority of the info comes from Wikipedia...

 

No. When the information is a bit strangely off or lacking Wikipedia often gets it right. There errors would be more consistent with Wikipedia if that was the source.

 

No.

However I haven't really notice any of these blatant errors people keep mentioning. An example would be great.

NB. I have by no means read the entire 'pedia

 

As with any sourse of knowledge it is always best to double check.

In every Civ game some Civiliopedia info was inaccurate, but most of it is true. Same goes for Wikipedia, not everything wrote there is true.

So read the Civiliopedia, read Wikipedia, and if you need deeper information just go to a library and borrow a book on the topic that interest you, you country needs more .

 

Just out of curiosity. In the Civilopedia, does it say anything about Napoleon's height and the French and British measurements?

 

http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/LEADER_NAPOLEON.aspx

No, there is nothing about it.

 

I learned alot from Civ 5 like Thebes holds 75% of all wonders on earth.