DAYS 14-17: Mixed Success and Failure

DAYS 14-17: Mixed Success and Failure

I now began classes with structured activities when possible. On Day 14, I began class by asking students to write three unrealistic things about the game, using Jason’s complaints about the Native American barbarians as an example. About half of the class filled out their post-its (See Table 4.2).

Several students started new games during the last few days. Chris and Jason switched to the Egyptians because they were convinced that the Iroquois were too isolated and, as a result, were technologically behind the European civilizations. Dwayne simply grew tired of his game and wanted to play as Africa. Bill, on the other hand, was being dominated by the Babylonians and, convinced that they had an inherent strategic advantage, wanted to try playing as them instead. Students were beginning to devise hypotheses about which civilizations stood a better chance of surviving through history and switched games based on this knowledge.

As students started new games, it was clear that most had mastered the aspects of the game that they had struggled with earlier during the unit. For example, Andrea restarted her game out of frustration over her war with Greece. Within five minutes, she created two cities in Egypt, irrigated the flood plains, and built roads to bring incense to her people – all strategies that she had failed to use beforehand successfully. Likewise, her cities were perfectly placed to balance food production, trade, and the utilization of luxuries. Kent’s work was similar: He restarted his game so that he could better plan his cities’ growth and quickly built cities up the Nile River valley. Both Kent and Andrea, students who were slow to learn the game and who did not stay to play outside of required class time, had now mastered the game controls and were beginning to understand the underlying game system as well. Despite such progress, however, a few game intricacies remained opaque. Norman, for example, was confusing entertainer and research icons and had wasted much time and energy trying to figure out why his city was revolting³³. Shirley was still learning to manage her cities, and I spent five minutes walking her through production management.

Investment in Her Civilization

Andrea became increasingly invested in protecting her people, a unique “win condition” not necessarily rewarded by the game itself. Over the past few days, Andrea began reading city improvement screens carefully and asking me questions related to it, such as what an aqueduct was for and how happiness worked as a game mechanic. Her questions pleasantly surprised me as, up to now, she had asked very few specifics, despite being generally receptive to help. Andrea explained that she was interested in how happiness worked so that she could please her people. The game’s flexibility had provided an opportunity for Andrea to become engaged on her own terms by it allowing her to create her own goals. Like Wright’s (2001) “collector / hobbyist” type, Andrea’s pleasure was creating a civilization and taking care of it’s needs.

As Andrea became more invested in her civilization, she devised strategies for saving her people from war. She studied the geography of Africa, found natural resources in Kenya, and decided to build her civilization up the Nile rather than compete with civilizations over control of the Arab peninsula. She also started building a network of peaceful allies to fortify herself against the Babylonians and Greeks. Andrea, more than the others, really appreciated the humor in the political negotiations. She laughed out loud when taunted by other civilizations, sometimes repeating their lines out loud for others (e.g. “Shame that little civilization you have is in our way”). She wanted to avoid war but found dealing with aggressive civilizations difficult. The Greeks had once again established a city near her western front (Northern Libya) and were threatening war if she did not pay tribute.

“180 Gold !?!? They must be out of their mind…. Greece! Again? Why are they always coming to get me?” she scoffed.

I said, “Gee, I wonder why? Weren’t you just attacking their city up in Libya?”

Andrea laughed, “Yeah, well they’re coming into my territory. I can’t let them do that.” For Andrea, the game was initially a simple contest between warring civilizations. Eventually, however, it became about building a civilization of contented people. Still, it did not take much to send Andrea back into conflict.

By Day 16, the students playing civilizations in the Americas (Tony, Dan, and Norman) had mapped out most of the territory and were anticipating contact with other continents. Tony was building his infrastructure, Dan was building an army, Chris was exploring China, and Norman had no plan other than to build his civilization and wait for the arrival of the Europeans. When I asked Norman his long-term plans for the game, he shrugged.

A highlight of the unit occurred when Dan (Iroquois) made the first trans-Atlantic contact with another civilization. In 1914, the Celts reached the shores of Nova Scotia and founded a city only a few moves away from Dan’s capital (near Montreal). Dan called out in shock as he noticed the Celtic settlement so close to his capital, “How did they get here?!” As he watched the cavalry disembark from the Celtic frigates, he realized that he was in trouble. Dan immediately reached peace terms with the Celts (thankfully) and set about figuring out how to catch up to them. Within moments, the Carthaginians also landed along the eastern shores of North America. To Dan’s surprise, he discovered theology, then construction, and then technology after technology until he had discovered 15 technologies in one turn. He had built the Great Library (which gives its owner any technology learned by two known civilizations). Andrea and I watched with amazement as Dan’s civilization leapt generations ahead in technology.

“Imagine how far behind you would be if you didn’t have the Great Library,” I said.

“I’d be dead,” Dan replied.

I explained to the onlookers that Dan was behind the other civilizations in technology, probably because he had no other civilizations to trade with. He would need to catch up quickly, trading for horses and upgrading his units so that he would not be drastically overpowered by the Celts. Dan’s first goal was to trade for horses now that he had navigation. None of the known civilizations were willing to trade horses, however. Dan was very concerned that the Celtic cavalry would overpower his spearmen, so he decided to build a galley and sail to Europe. Other students thought this was an interesting idea: What if the Native Americans had done something similar? Under what conditions might the indigenous populations have explored Europe?

Dan, Tony, Chris, and I briefly discussed these questions. Tony, Chris, and Dan all saw the primary issue as one of population density. Looking at their maps, it was clear that the European and Asian countries were all battling over land and resources while the Native Americans had no incentive to expand. Students noted Native American’s geographical isolation and the fact that they had opportunity to trade technologies with other civilizations as a secondary issue affecting colonization. These responses, while much more general and abstracted than most historians might frame them, are quite consistent with many modern readings of colonization (e.g. Diamond, 1999).

Eventually, the Celts and Carthaginians both attacked Dan. The Celts had three cities in Canada now, and the Carthaginians settled in the Caribbean. By 1952, Dan became caught in a battle between them and was being crushed. The Celtic cavalry moved right through his spearmen and warriors and it became obvious that they would overpower his army in a matter of turns. He decided to restart his game from a previous day, hoping to make peace with the Celts by giving them a city before war started. This kind of move – retrying different strategies to examine their impact – is a common Civilization III strategy, one that encourages players to consider how their games could have played out differently as a result of different decisions. Dan traded maps with the Carthaginians and was stunned to see how big the other civilizations were. Most civilizations had 15-25 cities, whereas Dan had six. Seeing the entire globe populated, and seeing how expansive the Celtic civilization had become, was awesome to Dan (See Figure 4.3). Tony and Jason ran over to watch. Both were stunned at the size of the other civilizations and realized what this might mean for their games. Because Dan was 100 years ahead of them, they thought that they might still survive, so they stuck with their games. It was clear, however, that their small civilizations of 5-10 cities would be no match for the Europeans. News of Dan’s experiences meeting the new world colonists quickly spread among students playing as Iroquois, as they realized the ill fate his game portended. Tony and Jason quickly modified their game play, appropriating Dan’s game as a tool for reflecting on their own.

Figure 4.3: Screenshot from Dan’s Game

In the post-test interviews, I asked Dan several questions about the colonization of the Americas to probe how the game might have mediated his understanding of history. He described the causes behind European colonization as an amalgam of forces yet privileged the peacefulness of Native American culture as the primary reason that Native Americans did not colonize Europe.

Interviewer: After Columbus reached the new world, the Europeans colonized the Americas as opposed to the other way around. Why do you think this is?

Dan: Because the Europeans had more than the Native Americans did. They weren’t as civilized. I’m not going to say as civilized. But they were pretty much peaceful. They were focusing in on their land for themselves not going around the world trying to focus on everything else… having everything nice and calm.

In discussing colonization, Dan’s immediate response was largely uninformed by his game playing experiences. He did describe how the Native Americans were not as “civilized,” balking at the use of the term, but then quickly shifted his focus to European colonial greed and Native American pacifism. The interviewer probed this tension between cultural and philosophical readings of history further.

Interviewer: So were their reasons behind colonization more a matter of philosophy or geography?

Dan: Probably more of a philosophy thing. They didn’t want to go anywhere because they were happy with where they were. They didn’t have any troubles with any animals. They were killing them using them for fur or food or whatever. They had everything they needed, whereas Europe got overpopulated. So they needed more land.

Interviewer: Do you think that natural resources had anything to do with it as well? Horses, iron gold, diamonds?

Dan: It probably does. But, like I said the Native Americans probably didn’t pay any attention to it because they were happy. They didn’t have anything to worry about. They were pretty much peaceful. The only people they had to worry about were enemy tribes. No disease, nothing like that.
Here, the interviewer introduces a concept central to Civilization III – the role of natural resources in the success of a civilization – to see how these might affect Dan’s reading of history after playing the game. Dan holds on to a largely cultural interpretation of history, however, describing Native Americans as a singular, largely peaceful, people, although he also mentions the lack of diseases in Native American tribes, perhaps drawing from earlier discussions in the unit of the role of smallpox in colonial conquests. Next, the interviewer introduces the notion of Asian colonization of the Americas to probe how Dan compares Chinese civilization with the Europeans.

Interviewer: Why do you think it is that an Asian country like China didn’t settle North America first?

Dan: I have no idea. I was going to say the same thing I said for Native Americans then I thought about it but they were probably just not prepared to actually settle somewhere else?
Considering the case of China posed a problem for Dan. Dan’s only explanations so far for colonization were population density and cultural pacifism. The Chinese did not fit either condition, leaving him with little basis for theorizing why the Chinese would not have colonized the Americas, so he speculates that the Chinese perhaps were not “prepared” for explorations.

Dan’s interpretation of historical forces was complex. At times he draws from earlier readings of history, particularly descriptions of Native American as peaceful peoples. At other times, he uses more materialist, geographical concepts. Several interacting variables are captured in Dan’s conceptual model of the colonization of America but their relationships are unclear. It is also curious that Dan did not cite the lack of technological innovation as a major cause, given that this was a source of his own demise when playing a Native American civilization. The lack of pretest data makes it difficult to argue what parts of his conceptual model come from game play and what parts were already there, but clearly Dan did not buy into the game’s materialist, geographically-based logic wholesale. Rather, he had specific ways of reading the game in terms of history. For Dan, the game was a useful simulation for material processes but less so for cultural ones. This finding should give educators some encouragement that game playing students do not necessarily buy into one particular model wholesale, but, in this instance at least, use existing understandings to think about their game play and vice versa. Perhaps further extension activities, particularly a more diverse range of game experiences, would have better prepared Dan for understanding the complexity of colonization.

Norman encountered the Europeans next (in 1836). By day 15, he had crossed paths both the Romans and Celts who sailed to the New World, built outposts on islands, and declared war on his Iroquois. We speculated as to just how far behind he was in technology and what he might do to catch up. I suggested he send explorers to find civilizations to trade technologies with, explaining how, although he was currently technologically behind, he could use his furs and negotiation strategies to catch up.

Tony (Iroquois, 1818) planned to catch up by mimicking Chris’s voyage to Asia across the Bering Strait³⁴ in the hope of making contact with other civilizations and trading technologies and perhaps even luxuries. His attitude was “if they are not going to come to me, then I’m going to them.” Tony now had over a dozen cities and was very excited about expanding his map. In between turns (which now took about 20 seconds each as slow computers calculated moves for ten different civilizations or more), Tony hopped out of his chair and checked Bill’s, Chris’s, and Dan’s games. He compared his progress to the others’ and appropriated their strategies from his own game. The down time between turns combined with the relevancy of other students’ games to his own gave Tony a strong incentive for studying other game play. He was interested in meeting other civilizations, which seemed to spark his imagination. When asked about his favorite part of the game, Tony replied, “My favorite part of playing the game would have to be getting in first contact with other civilizations and exploring (when) I found new stuff.”

By day 16, Tony had made it to Asia. He scouted the eastern coast but found only barbarian hordes. Tony talked to other students, researchers, teachers, and even himself as he played, commenting on geographical features. As Tony sailed to Asia, he, Chris, and I speculated about where he was on the map and discussed where the Chinese civilization may have settled. Based on what we knew about the model, we tried to predict how China might have evolved, but we still could not track them down. Debates arose about whether or not we³⁵ were in fact in China given the prominent geographical features and then what other civilizations we might find in Southeast Asia. I suggested that he unload an explorer and cut across Asia in search of Russia. We all figured that someone must have colonized Asia unless it had been overrun by barbarians (placed in the Mongolian Highlands to simulate Genghis Khan and the Mongolian horde). I myself was curious about how the other civilizations developed in the simulation.

Tony did not find any civilizations, but he did discover navigation, which meant that he could sail his galleys across the open waters and trade resources (namely horses) at ports, assuming he could find a friendly one. In the meantime, back in the Americas, Tony’ explorers in South America encountered the Polynesians. Tony again decided to “integrate the Polynesians into his civilization.” He enjoyed their newly created euphemism, continuing on for several minutes about his “moral obligation to share his standard of living with them.”³⁶ By the end of the week, back on the Asian front, Tony’s galley (Iroquois, 1858) had finally met the Chinese. They had little to trade, but at least they were behind Tony’ Iroquois. He was disappointed, however, that he could not get horses from them to use against the hypothesized (thanks to Dan’s game) incoming and more advanced Celts.

Some students began asking questions about specific aspects of the simulation. On Day 17, Chris, who had switched to Egypt because he thought that Native American civilizations were too isolated and therefore doomed to failure, asked me, “What happens if you irrigate?” I was surprised to hear Chris ask about such a seemingly basic concept, but it turned out that he wanted to know in detail how irrigation affected the game economies. Chris, like most students, had already developed a very general sense of how the game systems worked (e.g. irrigation causes more food); he was now beginning to decipher how these rules fit together (e.g. plains generate 2 food without irrigation, which is enough to support one citizen). After playing the game for a few weeks, Chris became interested in actually examining the conceptual relationships among variables. It was no longer sufficient to know a trick or useful rule of thumb (i.e. build roads everywhere); rather, he now wanted to better understand more complex properties of the simulation. Because Chris had played as the Iroquois, who were isolated, he had little experience trading with other civilizations, so I showed him how to buy and sell technologies. He then spent considerable time exploring the negotiation aspects of the game. I had not anticipated that students playing civilizations in the Americas would have little opportunity to engage with trade; in future iterations of this simulation, I would strengthen other tribes native to the Americas in order to ensure students who choose to play such groups a broader range of gaming experiences.

Jason, whose civilization was now in the 1700s, could not believe that no one had sailed across the Atlantic yet to colonize the new world. This historical inaccuracy concerned him and he began to question the validity of the game. I explained that Civilization III is a simulation based on initial conditions plus a set of rules. I emphasized that no events are scripted; rather, the game works more like a top that is wound up and then let free to go. Eager for action, he decided to try to sail to Europe across Greenland. Earlier I had explained how the Vikings probably sailed to North America along the Southern shore of Greenland and into Newfoundland. Jason had decided “Why not just reverse the direction of travel?” He then began peppering me with questions about Greenland: “Is there oil in Greenland? Are there other resources there? Do people live there now? How many?” A strategic question in the game, “Is there oil in Greenland” led to a series of questions about the history of Greenland. Knowledge of Greenland (not something covered in many classes) became something very important for Jason to put to immediate use in his game play.

Jason then began using his own prior knowledge of history as a tool for understanding his game. He began outlining the reasoning behind his questions. He knew that there were valuable oil reserves in Alaska (which he would soon colonize); perhaps, he reasoned, Greenland contained similar resources. He knew that the United States purchase of Alaska from Russia was one of the best land deals ever made (referring to Seward’s Folly). Therefore, he explained, he planned to replay history by claiming Alaska first and then using its oil for global industrial domination hundreds of years later. Whether or not Jason’s line of reasoning regarding his strategy within the game in turn enabled him to elaborate his understanding of real history outside of it is an open question, but the fact that he was now drawing connections between history in the game and history as he understood it was encouraging.

By day 16, Jason gave up on the Iroquois and started playing as the Egyptians. He was amazed at the differences between playing as the Iroquois, who started in a woodland forest, and playing as the Egyptians, who were in the Nile River valley. “Look how fast they cities grow!” he remarked. I asked him if he knew why. He commented, “Well, yes, the Nile River Valley.” He went on, “Before, I didn’t like the Egyptians because they got all trapped up here,” pointing to the Mediterranean, the Sahara, and the Red Sea. Renewed with the possibility of building a thriving civilization, Jason became nearly obsessed with the elegant expansion of his civilization, plotting carefully how to maximize the production of each city by strategically placing it in the optimal location, much as a mathematician might enjoy elegant mathematical solutions. He was also learning some of the subtler concepts in the game. He read through the technology advances in the Civilopedia and decided to become a Republic in order to “get more technology and more people are happy.” Now that Jason understood the game basics, he was able to use the Civilopedia to answer his questions about the game.

Jason was developing a strong working knowledge of the game system. He seem to enjoy exploring how to exploit its properties and then critiquing emergent behavior where he found it unrealistic. Jason’s plans were complex. He decided to build three cities in the Upper Nile to gather incense in the region. He would build one on the coast of the Red Sea to take advantage of the horses that inhabit the foothills of modern Kenya and then use this city as an outpost against the Nubian barbarian tribes. Then, he would gradually build cities up and down the Nile to take advantage of gold deposits. He was giddy with the possibilities and had many questions. “Why are there so many barbarians? Have you beat the game before? Why can’t I build huge armies?” Jason’s critiqued the game’s portrayal of barbarians as unrealistic and wanted to see barbarians portrayed as “minor tribes,” to more accurately describe their settlements. He argued that the game marginalized nomadic peoples and did not sufficiently model how such populations interact with “civilized” peoples and eventually form civilizations. Critiquing the game reversed Jason’s relationship to historical texts, placing him in a position of authority. In this way, the game gave him space to critique established views and develop his own theories of history.

Unfortunately, the Greeks built a city in the western half of Egypt. Jason asked me if he should go to war. I suggested that he might ally with them, trading technologies and avoiding the difficulties he had as the Iroquois: “It’s like you split up the work with the Greeks. You discover one, they discover one, then you trade.” Ever the protectionist, Jason commented, “No way, I’m not giving them horseback riding.” I explained the likelihood that they would learn horseback riding through trading with other civilizations, but Jason was concerned about giving away military technology to a civilization making a foothold so close to his capital.

Periodically Jason would go back to his Iroquois game to see how it ended. He ran an experiment befriending the Polynesians, giving them technologies to see if he could build them up as an ally. We discussed how he might discover technologies twice as quickly through trading with the Polynesians than he might otherwise. Perhaps, he reasoned, they could ally one another in the event of (the presumed impeding) war with the Celts (as seen in Dan’s game).

Dwayne was one of the few students who stayed competitive in the game through the middle ages. Like Andrea, Dwayne was frequently at war yet was the only student to successfully conquer a major superpower. The other students looked on respectfully as Dwayne defeated England. Even so, winning the war had been too costly for him and he restarted his game, asking me if he could try playing as the Bantu. He wanted to see what it is like playing in Africa and whether or not the Africans could conquer the world. He loaded the game and started playing as the Bantu on an accurate map this time. Given Dwayne’s resistance to formal schooling, school-based history, and African-American background, it is reasonable to guess that Civilization III became a context for Dwayne to explore identity issues.

By the second day, Dwayne (Bantu) made it to 790 AD. He had quickly mapped Africa and sent emissaries as far North as Germany. I asked him about his plans, and he explained that he was going to build cities along the shores of Africa, taking advantage of its rich resources. His stratagem was to establish his borders along each corner of sub-Saharan Africa and then build an African empire that would rival the other great empires in history.

I complimented Dwayne on his strategy. Playing as the Bantu was particularly difficult: The capital city was surrounded by jungle leaving no real farmland, the Sahara Desert cut off any expansion to the North, and the South brought more jungle, the Kalahari Desert, and plenty of rival tribes. Dwayne had avoided each of these pitfalls by planning for his empire to span across the entire continent from the beginning, tapping into Africa’s broad resources.

“Wow,” I commented. “It really makes you wonder what history would have been like had Africa been unified.”

Dwayne quietly said, “Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?”

This question, of course, presumes an historical hindsight, as well as several unlikely historical scenarios. However, given these caveats, the question itself was an interesting one to many of the students as well as myself – one that emerged through watching Dwayne’s game play.

On day 16, Dwayne called me over with several questions, still a relatively unusual event for Dwayne who rarely acknowledged needing help. He explained that he wanted to discover iron working before the other civilizations and use his military superiority as a leveraging point in negotiations for technologies, luxuries, and money. More than any other student, Dwayne traded with other civilizations, using the negotiation screens as a way of getting feedback on his game. If other civilizations had technology that he did not, he knew he was falling behind. Also unlike other students, Dwayne preferred to buy technologies when possible. He explained that gold was not as valuable as knowledge. Without a doubt, Dwayne had the fullest mastery of the political components of the game. I asked him where he learned these skills and he reminded me that he read Sun Tzu’s text, Art of War.

By the end of his penultimate day, Dwayne had made it to 1350 AD and had built up the interior of Africa successfully. Kent, Bill, and others watched as Dwayne showed off his empire. I suggested that he build more libraries to increase his rate of technological discovery.³⁷ At the end of class, I noticed that Dwayne, now in the year 1545, had discovered navigation and had sent a galley to colonize South American in order to establish access to its rich resources. I called Tony, Dan and a few others to take a look.

Dwayne was successfully replaying history in broad sweeps. He held back a smile as he bragged about how he was going to make the Americas African. I suggested that the other students look at Dwayne’s game and analyze how he had built his infrastructure. Sandy, who had lived in Mozambique in real life, was eager to use the game as a way to talk with Dwayne about African civilizations. Dwayne described how developing technologies, unifying Africa, and exploiting its resources now positioned him to dominate the world. He was the first student to cross the Atlantic and make a permanent settlement and was proud of his Bantu civilization, which was now making the Americas African and stood a strong chance of winning the game.

Bill, seated next to Dwayne, looked frustrated. Tired of losing, he did some research on civilizations in the Civilopedia and settled on the Persians as a good civilization to play. However, he was soon at war with Egypt and the Babylonians over control of the Arabian Peninsula. Bill focused all of his resources in military production and taxing income, investing nothing in his domestic infrastructure or scientific research. As a result, his civilization was falling behind neighboring ones, especially those in Europe. Bill watched Dwayne play with increasing frustration with the fact that he could not build a similarly successful empire. Yet, he did not understand the game system and was much less knowledgeable about geography than Dwayne; whereas Dwayne could talk about different geographical features, Bill was lucky to even know the names of the civilizations he was warring. Post-interviews confirmed this: Bill could not locate Egypt on a map. Whether or not better geographical knowledge would have helped his game is difficult to discern, but it was clear that he was much less reflective and brought fewer conceptual tools to bear in his game play.

Chris had mastered most game controls and was fairly successful as the Iroquois, but playing as the Egyptians presented new challenges. He was repeatedly attacked and restarted his game several times throughout the last few days. Playing as Egypt, he quickly found out when he fell behind in technology, finances, or military because he was overrun by other civilizations. Chris rushed through the game more than other students, spending less time observing other students’ games or reading the Civilopedia.

Introducing Concepts Through Game Play

Over the last three days, several students asked questions about monotheism, theology, and polytheism – all new concepts to them. In order to unpack how the game addressed religion and art, I led a class discussion on how the game models religion.³⁸ I acknowledged that simulating religion into a part of human societies is problematic and then explained the basic terminology of the game. I asked students what their first religious discovery (or technology) was.

Jason answered “Mysticism?”

“Close,” I answered. “Ceremonial Burial. What do you think ceremonial burial is?” Perhaps recalling earlier conversations with Lisa, someone explained how it was burying your dead to prevent the spread of disease. Someone else added that it was the belief in spirits. I explained how ceremonial burial naturally led to mysticism, which, in Civilization III, is defined as the set of beliefs connecting nature, divinity, and the spirit. I explained how, as these belief systems became more formalized, they evolved into monotheism and polytheism. I wrote both terms on the board and asked if they notice similarities between the words.

Tony called out, “Theism.”

“Exactly,” I explained. “Any guesses as to what it means?”

Tony called out again, “Religion?”

I then walked them through the meanings of “mono” and “poly,” both of which they knew from math class. My sense was that they were listening more out of kindness (i.e., humoring me), than any real interest. While many had encountered these concepts, understanding them was not crucial to game play. The effects of religion was basically the same regardless of type (i.e., each religious discovery builds on the last and makes new wonders possible), so students showed little interest in their distinction. In my journal, I admitted that, when I first started playing the game, I treated these distinctions in a similar manner. The game throws so much at you that you could not really learn it all the first time around. In some respects, however, the lecture achieved its goal: to reinforce the importance of religion in the game and emphasize that it should be considered in any model of culture or society.

By the close of the unit, each student created their own personal goals for playing the game – from meeting other people to expanding their civilization – and everyone but Kathy was pursuing these objectives with little outside help. Even though the pace of the game was slower later in the unit, students were just as enthralled. The less frenetic pace gave more opportunities for introducing just-in-time lectures, and it finally felt like I could introduce extension activities, such as mapping exercises or timelines. As with the discussion of resources in students’ games would suggest, activities that fed directly into students’ game play, that produced knowledge that students could immediately use as tools or strategies within for their games, held their interest. Providing background geographical information on rival civilizations, discussing historically important technologies which might help their game play, or telling just-in-time lectures about historical events which could help them play were productive.

Over the next two days, the researcher and I interviewed four students who could not participate in the Media camp due to other commitments (Dan, Andrea, Jason, and Deborah)³⁹. Common themes in the interviews were that playing the game (1) required students to pay closer attention, read closer, and think harder than in typical classes; (2) led to geographical background information about where their civilizations started, the prominent geographical features of the region, and where competing tribes originated; (3) helped them understand how geography has an impact on why some civilizations developed more quickly or last longer than others; (4) provided background information about technologies and civilizations; (5) produced general understandings in ordinal relations among time, history, and technologies; (6) was unrealistic in portraying students ability to lead a civilization. Consistent with observations of students’ behaviors, Deborah commented, “playing the game made you pay attention and read everything.” Students were frequently observed carefully reading passages, asking students for help understanding passages, and in particular, discussing the potential meanings of passages in negotiation.

Students performed best on tasks that covered information required to succeed in their games, most of which is useful background information (some of which are core) in studying world history. Each student discussed a handful of concepts (unique to each student) that were important to their games. Andrea’s were primarily military, as she discussed the catapult, war chariots, musketmen, and aqueducts. Dan’s were the strategic importance of horses and the Republic, and Jason’s (who spent a lot of time reading the Civilopedia) ranged from mathematics to atomic theory. Students also all identified where civilizations and tribes started (including competing civilizations). Success in the game meant identifying who rival civilizations were and where they were located on the map, and this knowledge developed easily for most students. All of the students discussed how geography had an impact on their games and on civilizations more generally, particularly in regards to colonization. Again, Jason had the most robust explanations for historical events; Jason explained how colonization was affected by European trade with global trade networks, the production capabilities of European cities, and open sea-going technologies. Andrea discussed the difficulties of playing in an archipelago (a game concept): The archipelago setting was more difficult. You were really closed in until you discovered things…until you had certain knowledge or information. Pangea was easier because you wouldn’t have to cross over rivers or water or anything to get what you wanted.” Importantly, Students also all described how their games were unrealistic in that there was no historical analog for their activity; each described in detail how they micro-managed their civilization in ways that kings, republics, or presidents never would.

Students were less uniformly adept on tasks that were not central to game play. Jason and Dan could describe despotism, monarchy, and how each affected their civilization, while Deborah and Andrea had partial explanations for each. Students were also less uniformly adept at drawing connections between geographical features and their games. Students such as Jason drew many direct comparisons between their games and geography (and history), and they freely discussed the importance of oil in Alaska, or the geography of Greenland, the latter of which was a particularly novel understanding. Andrea on the other hand was not sure how her game compared with history, and expressed confusion at how her borders would have compared with historical borders of Egypt.⁴⁰ On timeline exercises, students showed a wide range of understandings; most knew that mathematics, bronze working and the alphabet were ancient technologies, and many could pin down ancient wonders (i.e. the Pyramids to ancient eras). However, most were confused about more recent technologies.

Over the last few days, students’ game play became more reflective, students’ questions became more complex, and students began displaying a curiosity about making connections between their games and world history. Students started building models of how the game system worked, and most students started experimenting with different strategies (such as trading away technologies to allies) as they developed more robust understandings of the game system. Chris’s game became a virtual simulation of the impact of geography on civilizations. Students were interested in the role that religion played in the game and wanted to know more about the these terms they were learning. Unfortunately, the class did not hit this rhythm until the second to last day of the unit. Several students asked if they could play the game in social studies next year and had their own suggestions for how it could be integrated into courses. We decided to invite those students who were available the following week for “Media Week” to do a unit with me playing Civilization III. Our goal was to leverage these emerging understandings of the game system as a basis for drawing connections to world history.

As the class ended, I thanked the students for participating in the study, and said that they could take home a copy of the game. Few students had home computers capable of playing Civilization III, but most of the students understood how to play and wanted a copy to take with them regardless.

Chapter V. Civilization III Camp Case Study

At the end of the unit on civilizations in the Media School, the teachers asked me if I would like to hold a weeklong camp using Civilization III taking a subset of students from the previous unit as a part of the school-wide “media week” program. Media week takes place the week after school lets out and gives students hands-on opportunities to work with media technologies. The teachers and I thought that the camp would allow students interested in the game to continue playing and allow me to experiment with some different instructional strategies given the smaller group size. Five students – Kent, Dwayne, Chris, Tony, and Norman – signed up for the camp. Several other students – Andrea, Dan, and Jason – also wanted to be in the Civilization III camp but were already committed to participating in a youth peace leadership camp off-campus.