Is the Civ Series telling a wrong (hi)story?

[God of Kings]

Headman Tootoosis of the Cree once said that Civ is inaccurate about portraying his people as being warmongers, yet he considered Civ to help educate a new generation about his people.

The whole Creegate was so large, it even made it to mainstream Canadian press.

Out of this, Poundmaker was rightfully exonerated.

 

[nzcamel]

Then Civ 6 had to come in and ruin it with districts and wonders taking up a whole tile. Now the Pyramids stretch for hundreds of square miles and my people must walk five hundred and fifty years to get from the stables to the library. I know scale was always a weakness of civ but 6 really amped up the “abstraction” to the point where I just see the game mechanics of cities, not the historical role play.

I was thinking more on what you said here, because I have found districts jarring to the immersion, though I can take on board the suggestion made in this thread that they are specialised towns. It helps somewhat
Re wonders, if we take the Ruhr Valley as a different kind of wonder, they can be thought of in VI as being the area around the wonder too. The Pyramids are shown taking up the whole tile, but that is Giza. Etc.

 

[Ferocitus]

So Civ isn't a simulator cos history as a whole is impossible to simulate. Doesn't mean that it isn't a useful tool in the hands of the right teacher.

Yabbut the right teacher wouldn't teach claptrap and then correct that
later.

You and I, and most people are not the average student yawning in history class. I'm not saying the whole years course should be handed over to games. But incorporating games into teaching will engage some of those falling through the cracks.

I didn't say games weren't useful as teaching aids, or a way to inspire some
groups of students. I think there are many games, (e.g. Sim City, Transport
Tycoon and variants, and many, many other newer games) that are terrific for
that.

The thread subject is that Civ's underlying structure and approach is somehow
inadequate for the purpose, with the implication that it should be changed to
be better suited as a teaching aid. That is just nonsense of the first water.

 

[nzcamel]

I certainly agree that Civ should not have being a teaching tool as part of it's design etc. If it can be used in that manner as it is, then good.

 

[Ferocitus]

No rome did built the pyramids. don't you know that?

You are wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong!
Rome started to build the Pyramids, but John Curtin rallied his
Australian workers and beat them to it!

 

[Kurnn]

Hi

Civ is a game, not a history book =)

 

[Gedemon]

Hi

Civ is a game, not a history book =)

It's not just a game, it's Civilization!

It's an alternate history book, so it can't tell a "wrong story", just a different one, but in uchronia I also like when the "what if" and what's follow can be related to the real history.

So I see nothing wrong (well, you know my mods) in trying to modify the game in that direction (TSL, historical spawning dates, specific and unbalanced bonuses,...)

But IMO it's a job for mods, not an objective for the main game.

 

[Equilin]

Speaking of educational game will it be possible Civ did the same thing as AC (which the latest edition comes with an educational mode for the sole purpose of learning)?

 

[historix69]

The thread subject is that Civ's underlying structure and approach is somehow
inadequate for the purpose, with the implication that it should be changed to
be better suited as a teaching aid. That is just nonsense of the first water.

When you go back to the OP and read the linked article about "Against the Grain", you will see that I questioned the role of cities in Civ series. While population in cities developed complex societies and civilization advances, for most of the time 75-80% or more of mankind did not live in cities. The rural population is not part of the Civ design, except for Tribal villages (Goody Huts), Barbarian Camps and tile improvements like farms and mines. Many cities in history had a negative population growth which had to be compensated from the rural population by immigration or slavery (in despotism). Slavery and Slave Trade were an important part of ancient economy and ancient societies like the Greek Democracy or the Roman Empire but are not part of Civ 6.
The same applies to the use of grain as a taxable currency in ancient times being an accelerator for development of complex human societies (civilizations) and early states.
(If you may remember, even in the first Shogun Total War Game (set in medieval), rice was used as currency.
1 koku = enough rice to feed one person for one year.)

The hint on Civ in classroom was just informal. However when Firaxis wants to sell Civ as an educational game (CivilizationEDU), one should question how adequate the design of Civ is in respect to current historic knowledge / theories.

 

[Kurnn]

When you dig into history, you will find that the most successful civ rarely means "the best".

Also, a religion is a big part of a winning civ in the game, which in history is something enlightened civs had to work against.

 

[historix69]

It's not just a game, it's Civilization!

It's an alternate history book, so it can't tell a "wrong story", just a different one, but in uchronia I also like when the "what if" and what's follow can be related to the real history.

So I see nothing wrong (well, you know my mods) in trying to modify the game in that direction (TSL, historical spawning dates, specific and unbalanced bonuses,...)

But IMO it's a job for mods, not an objective for the main game.

The focus is less on historical dates but more on realistic / historically adequate (gameplay) mechanics (comparable to physical laws) like ancient and modern agricultural production, population growth, desease, society structures, etc.

(When you develop a game about physics, you at least try to implement physical laws (forces) as correct as possible, so that players can move physically correct in the world of the game. Which direction they take is their decision.
When developing a history game like Civ, the historic forces / mechanism affecting human societies are important. Civ1 for example implemented mechanism like military conquest, martial law, different government types (e.g. influencing productivity), social unrest/unhappiness, luxus and happiness, trade and economy, science, pollution, global warming, etc. Civ1 was a very good start for the series, especially when considering that the size of Civ1 is only about 2 MB or so.)

 

[historix69]

I have not read all of them, of course, but I have read Volume IV "The Attack on the Soviet Union" in the process of writing my second book on the 1941 Campaign. Chapter VII (pp 481 - 524) is entirely on "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation" and includes sections on.
...

Thank you for your detailed response.

I think it is usefull to also consider circumstances to understand (not justify) history.
AfaIk e.g. with the British DoW in 1939 and the british blockade, Nazi-Germany and its economy, which massively depended on imported food, energy and other resources, were doomed to collapse within the next years. The Soviet Union compensated this in 1939-1941 by supplying Nazi Germany with needed grain, oil, cotton, metalls, etc. but demanded military and industrial equipment in exchange. So even before Barbarossa the germans somehow lived from the soviet lands. The deadly dependency on Soviet supplies (and the fear of loosing a German - Sowjet arms race) was probably the main reason for the Germans to attack Soviet Union in 1941, outweighing the ideologic differences between fascism and communism. So when the german armies (3-4 million men) were in the east (soviet territory), they often had to somehow supply themselves with food and energy from the occupied lands since the mainland could not provide sufficient ressources nor transports to supply them permanently, especially in times of difficult weather (mud, extreme cold).)

The german dependency of eastern european agrar resources was already a problem during WW1 when Germany spoiled relations with new founded eastern europe states like the baltic states or Ukraine because they needed the resources asap to not collapse.
(Mis-)treatment of population was definetely influenced by Nazi ideology (racism), but also by the dependency of the troops on the land and the increasng partisan activity, which was part of soviet military strategy and not solely caused by german/nazi atrocities.
So

"organizing rations from the villages" (in fact, as the Chapters in DiZW Vol IV indicate, the German military was expected to 'live off the land' throughout the eastern campaign)

was not solely caused by german or nazi evilness but also by economic and logistic circumstances and the general will to survive and not loose the war at all costs.

The amount of resource transfers from conquered territories into the german mainland to reduce war weariness and social unrest is a different topic.
(e.g. see Götz Aly : Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State)

 

[Ferocitus]

The Civilopedia is about as close to history as the game gets, and you might as
well teach kids to use wiki and the reference lists instead.

Everything else is just a game of what-ifs. And an excellent one at that! But
teaching kids that actions they take will have outcomes later on, is not what
the study of history is about. Planning to get a particular tech later in the
game by choosing a certain tech path is ridiculous, and about as valuable as
teaching plumbing via Super-Mario.

 

[historix69]

The Civilopedia is about as close to history as the game gets, and you might as
well teach kids to use wiki and the reference lists instead.

Everything else is just a game of what-ifs. And an excellent one at that! But
teaching kids that actions they take will have outcomes later on, is not what
the study of history is about. Planning to get a particular tech later in the
game by choosing a certain tech path is ridiculous, and about as valuable as
teaching plumbing via Super-Mario.

I think they focussed more on budget and economical decisions like shall I concentrate on food to grow quickly (and get more unhappy population) or shall I focus on production to build a certain building or focus on trade for cash or on military expansion, etc. If you build a new building or unit, you have to consider the upkeep costs and maybe then you have to look for a new source of income, too.
If you play on a TSL map, you can also discuss Geography and neighbouring civs in class.

Here is an official news by Take2 (from 2016). CivEdu is based on Civ5.
http://ir.take2games.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=86428&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2179762&highlight=

 

[nzcamel]

When you dig into history, you will find that the most successful civ rarely means "the best".

Also, a religion is a big part of a winning civ in the game, which in history is something enlightened civs had to work against.

Adding religion to Civ IV mainly as a way to distinguish between what AI Civs were more or less likely to to like/dislike each other lifted up the realism quite a bit. Obviously anything that becomes a victory path will get distorted in the pursuit of that victory.

The Civilopedia is about as close to history as the game gets, and you might as
well teach kids to use wiki and the reference lists instead.

Everything else is just a game of what-ifs. And an excellent one at that! But
teaching kids that actions they take will have outcomes later on, is not what
the study of history is about. Planning to get a particular tech later in the
game by choosing a certain tech path is ridiculous, and about as valuable as
teaching plumbing via Super-Mario.

There are plenty of absurdities in game that we could focus on to say it's inappropriate as a teaching tool as history didn't happen that way. That is beside the point of getting someone who is otherwise oblivious as to why person or country X might choose to do a "bad thing", to start thinking down that track. Critical thinking is painfully absent from modern western schooling.

 

[historix69]

Adding religion to Civ IV mainly as a way to distinguish between what AI Civs were more or less likely to to like/dislike each other lifted up the realism quite a bit. Obviously anything that becomes a victory path will get distorted in the pursuit of that victory

I think they somehow missed the point of religion.
In medieval times the church founded hundreds of monasteries like small cities in europe.
In Civ a religious leader is still a normal player with a normal empire of cities.
Founding a religion does not give the player access to other players cities with his religion which it should do.
A religious leader should have income from all cities with his religion, e.g. gold, faith, free military units from time to time (crusade).
In Civ a religious leader's strength mostly depends on Faith production of his own cities.

 

[nzcamel]

I think they somehow missed the point of religion.
In medieval times the church founded hundreds of monasteries like small cities in europe.
In Civ a religious leader is still a normal player with a normal empire of cities.
Founding a religion does not give the player access to other players cities with his religion which it should do.
A religious leader should have income from all cities with his religion, e.g. gold, faith, free military units from time to time (crusade).
In Civ a religious leader's strength mostly depends on Faith production of his own cities.

You are very much describing religion as it was in IV. I'm open to what you are saying, but there will be balance issues to keep in mind.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Thank you for your detailed response.

I think it is usefull to also consider circumstances to understand (not justify) history.
AfaIk e.g. with the British DoW in 1939 and the british blockade, Nazi-Germany and its economy, which massively depended on imported food, energy and other resources, were doomed to collapse within the next years. The Soviet Union compensated this in 1939-1941 by supplying Nazi Germany with needed grain, oil, cotton, metalls, etc. but demanded military and industrial equipment in exchange. So even before Barbarossa the germans somehow lived from the soviet lands. The deadly dependency on Soviet supplies (and the fear of loosing a German - Sowjet arms race) was probably the main reason for the Germans to attack Soviet Union in 1941, outweighing the ideologic differences between fascism and communism. So when the german armies (3-4 million men) were in the east (soviet territory), they often had to somehow supply themselves with food and energy from the occupied lands since the mainland could not provide sufficient ressources nor transports to supply them permanently, especially in times of difficult weather (mud, extreme cold).)

The german dependency of eastern european agrar resources was already a problem during WW1 when Germany spoiled relations with new founded eastern europe states like the baltic states or Ukraine because they needed the resources asap to not collapse.
(Mis-)treatment of population was definetely influenced by Nazi ideology (racism), but also by the dependency of the troops on the land and the increasng partisan activity, which was part of soviet military strategy and not solely caused by german/nazi atrocities.
So was not solely caused by german or nazi evilness but also by economic and logistic circumstances and the general will to survive and not loose the war at all costs.

The amount of resource transfers from conquered territories into the german mainland to reduce war weariness and social unrest is a different topic.
(e.g. see Götz Aly : Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State)

You miss the main point: ALL of Nazi Germany's wars were Voluntary: nobody attacked them, they attacked and started wars all by their little stiff-legged selves. The fact that Hitler mis-calculated badly and got a war with France and Britain as well as Poland doesn't change the fact that he was determined on a war with Poland from the outset.
And the USSR was his Ally, shipping massive quantities of raw materials that Germany desperately needed right up to the moment that German guns opened fire along the border (the last train crossed the border minutes before the barrage started!). German economic planners, operating in abysmal ignorance of facts, thought they would recover everything by seizing the areas of the Soviet Union that produced the materials - ignoring transportation and manpower problems implicit in getting the materials back to Germany.
Finally, the Germans stoked the partisan war in the East by, before the campaign even started, issuing orders to treat any sign of potential resistance as an excuse for massive, deadly reprisals - "Terror War' against the civilian population.

 

[historix69]

You miss the main point: ALL of Nazi Germany's wars were Voluntary: nobody attacked them, they attacked and started wars all by their little stiff-legged selves.

Why did Hitler/Nazi-Germany attack Poland in 1939?
And how could Nazi-Germany (realistically) have ended the war with Britain and France afterwards?

 

[rattatatouille]

Why did Hitler/Nazi-Germany attack Poland in 1939?

One of the key tenets of Nazism was Lebensraum, or "living space", basically, since they held Slavic peoples to be subhuman that means conquering their lands to make way for ethnic Germans was very much acceptable.

That said, they weren't above opportunism either; why else would they ally with Stalin (who had designs on Poland as well) and then undertake the Fourth Partition of Poland?