Is playing Civ 4 linked to higher intellignce?
- Thread starter akita4
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King Flevance
Deity
I am a prodigy with an IQ of 403. I find civ boring. 
I am a prodigy with an IQ of 403. I find civ boring.
Bah! I have an IQ of 999! Triple digit IQ is the new thing in town!
GBSFan
Chieftain
I think the question clearly ignores the recent understandings made by psychologists of the variety of intelligence that can be found in the mind.
Being that I am not particularly mathematical in my thinking, I have had quite some difficulty breaching the Prince difficulty (win very seldom, but that's what makes it fun and challenging!).
As a more imaginative and creative person, I find I have more fun sort of getting into the role and the historical story of my civs.
Anyway, other people are more mechanically intelligent and don't have the imagination and patience to be interested in video games very much, preferring to spend their time in the real world. Others are more socially intelligent and prefer the political intrigues of their own circles of friends to that of Hateshepsout and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
There are 14 types of intelligence identified by psychologists, which is one of the major fallacies of the IQ test (not to mention racial/cultural favouritism). I'm sure that people who have greater aptitude for a particular 4 or 5 of these are drawn to a video game like Civilization.
Furthermore, of the 4 or 5 which draw people to Civilization, each of these types of people will play the game in a different way, some will become incredibly bored with a peacful game, some will work harder than others to achieve high scores or beat the game on higher difficulties, and some prefer the modification and customization aspect of Civilization. In this way, I would say that Civilization appeals to many intelligent people, but I would consider it incorrect to assume that somebody who plays Civilization is MORE intelligent than somebody who doesn't.
I've been around Civ Fanatics since downloading mods for Civ2 at least as far back as 1999-2000, this is my first post on the forums. Looks like a great community here and I look forward to interacting with other fanatics like me!
Being that I am not particularly mathematical in my thinking, I have had quite some difficulty breaching the Prince difficulty (win very seldom, but that's what makes it fun and challenging!).
As a more imaginative and creative person, I find I have more fun sort of getting into the role and the historical story of my civs.
Anyway, other people are more mechanically intelligent and don't have the imagination and patience to be interested in video games very much, preferring to spend their time in the real world. Others are more socially intelligent and prefer the political intrigues of their own circles of friends to that of Hateshepsout and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
There are 14 types of intelligence identified by psychologists, which is one of the major fallacies of the IQ test (not to mention racial/cultural favouritism). I'm sure that people who have greater aptitude for a particular 4 or 5 of these are drawn to a video game like Civilization.
Furthermore, of the 4 or 5 which draw people to Civilization, each of these types of people will play the game in a different way, some will become incredibly bored with a peacful game, some will work harder than others to achieve high scores or beat the game on higher difficulties, and some prefer the modification and customization aspect of Civilization. In this way, I would say that Civilization appeals to many intelligent people, but I would consider it incorrect to assume that somebody who plays Civilization is MORE intelligent than somebody who doesn't.
I've been around Civ Fanatics since downloading mods for Civ2 at least as far back as 1999-2000, this is my first post on the forums. Looks like a great community here and I look forward to interacting with other fanatics like me!
Spend an hour or two reading some of the dumb posts on the forum then come back and ask again !
King Flevance
Deity
Accurax wins!
Just for those interested in the IQ itself...
It is defined by frequency - it's a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 (16 is used in some scales).
This means the number not inherently meaningful without knowing who we're comparing the test subject with.
An IQ of 200 would mean 'one in 5,000,000,000'. Anything above that needs to take into account multiple generations because any score above could be taken as 'smarter than the smartest person on earth'.
And since IQ isn't dependent on education or knowledge, it's quite likely that the person to deserve that distinction (if we're using the current population on earth as our base) has never been discovered.
Multiple generations are tricky as well. Because the skills measured improve in the general population, you need to do better to score the same a few years later.
There are tests that try to discriminate at the highest level, but the validity of any tests with a ceiling higher than about 170 is widely disputed.
Btw, I'm not a professional. If there's something glaringly wrong, I would like to be set right.
It is defined by frequency - it's a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 (16 is used in some scales).
This means the number not inherently meaningful without knowing who we're comparing the test subject with.
An IQ of 200 would mean 'one in 5,000,000,000'. Anything above that needs to take into account multiple generations because any score above could be taken as 'smarter than the smartest person on earth'.
And since IQ isn't dependent on education or knowledge, it's quite likely that the person to deserve that distinction (if we're using the current population on earth as our base) has never been discovered.
Multiple generations are tricky as well. Because the skills measured improve in the general population, you need to do better to score the same a few years later.
There are tests that try to discriminate at the highest level, but the validity of any tests with a ceiling higher than about 170 is widely disputed.
Btw, I'm not a professional. If there's something glaringly wrong, I would like to be set right.
Caeili.Draziw
Warlord
I play Civ.
I am stupid.
Therefore playing Civ does not make one smart.
I am stupid.
Therefore playing Civ does not make one smart.
SenhorDaGuerra
Prince
maybe being good at Civ means that you just have a severe case of OCD and should probably go outside and talk to other people from time to time.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
Emperor Giulio
King
I would say playing Civilization back in 1993 on my SNES is what helped spark my interest in history and political science, but in a way has also made me a bit egomaniacal.
blitzkrieg1980
Octobrist
lol. Yeah my buddy introduced me to Civ on his Mac in the early 90s. I remember liking it, but not quite grasping the concept of strategy. I liked my immediate gratification games like Mario Bros 
Emperor Giulio
King
lol. Yeah my buddy introduced me to Civ on his Mac in the early 90s. I remember liking it, but not quite grasping the concept of strategy. I liked my immediate gratification games like Mario Bros
Yea it took me a while to grasp how to play with a good strategy, back then I used to just play as a chieftain and drop nukes on other Civs. I had no concept on how to properly run my cities too; I even used to build them right next to each other in large square and rectangle forms. and still have phalanxes defending them well into the modern age.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
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- 27,995
Genv [FP];7184420 said:
By definition, having a triple digit IQ is AVERAGE.
Also, whoever said Civ IV is a waste of time:
Nay.
That would make any recreational activity a waste of time. I don't think humans can perform optimally via just sleep and work ( I.E. it CAN be done, but is actually less efficient).
Work/nonwork balance was a major part of one of my graduate class lectures, the professor spent an entire 3 hour class on it. It's been mentioned in numerous others.
Life is a waste of time.
r_rolo1
King of myself
Just collecting my eurocent in copyright.....No... but sociopaths would probably do well to play CiV
If you think it right , a obsessive sociopath would do far better in Civ than most of the players in this forums ...... and in my book that is not a automatic synonim of inteligence
And about IQ: someone should explain to me how does someone gets a IQ of 180.... I can only find tests with 150 top
Bob the Barbari
Warlord
And about IQ: someone should explain to me how does someone gets a IQ of 180.... I can only find tests with 150 top
Try a test for Mensa.
When you think about it CIV is in fact quite sociopathic: killing your citizens for increased production, sending your soldiers for suicide missions, nuking people to the stone age, sending your tanks against spearmen.
First, civ obviously isn't infinetely more complex than chess.
Second, chess unlike civ is a game of complete information, and therefore you can actually make longer plans there. Also if gamme becomes much complete, like if you were aware of everything happening in a civilization game, you'd have to rely more on intuition than thinking.
Of course intuition is part of intelligence, and probably many of the world class chess players are more like savants than heavy calculators, but the bottom line, I think, is that it doesnät require same kind of intelligence like chess.
In my games I have very rarely had to think very much, so I don't think civ requires intelligence. On the other hand, one thing that I like in Civilization is building a world or empire or systems, and the workings of it, and I believe that this kind of preferences are realted to certain kind of intelligence.
Second, chess unlike civ is a game of complete information, and therefore you can actually make longer plans there. Also if gamme becomes much complete, like if you were aware of everything happening in a civilization game, you'd have to rely more on intuition than thinking.
Of course intuition is part of intelligence, and probably many of the world class chess players are more like savants than heavy calculators, but the bottom line, I think, is that it doesnät require same kind of intelligence like chess.
In my games I have very rarely had to think very much, so I don't think civ requires intelligence. On the other hand, one thing that I like in Civilization is building a world or empire or systems, and the workings of it, and I believe that this kind of preferences are realted to certain kind of intelligence.
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