DAY 3: Social Gaming and Recursive Play

DAY 3: Social Gaming and Recursive Play

I asked what strategies they had for winning the game and students called out ideas: “Keep people happy, make food, use entertainers, keep two military in every city, build warriors, use spearmen for defense, build temples and cathedrals, built forts and armies.”⁴⁷ I wrote these items on the board under their respective categories. I then reviewed the differences between workers and settlers and explained how settlers build cities and workers build roads, irrigate fields, and mine hills. Nadya observed that roads increased trade by two, a close observation which surprised me. These students had more or less mastered basic game strategies and could solve common game problems. New questions cropped up as they delved deeper into the game.

After this fifteen minute review, students began playing. A number of students had questions, but Miranda (Aztecs) monopolized the researcher’s attention through a barrage of questions: What is a galley? What is a barracks? What is American despotism? What do the 5.5.0 symbols next to American despotism mean? What is the difference between workers and settlers? Miranda tended to grab the researchers as soon as she could and was eager to talk about her game for as long as they would listen. I explained all of these concepts, although I was a little concerned that Miranda, who seemed to understand the game as well as anyone did not know the difference between workers and settlers (a relatively elementary game concept).

Kevin (Russia, 430 AD) was still being overrun by barbarians and losing money because he was only attending to one or two variables rather than addressing game challenges systemically. Kevin realized that one problem was that his cities were not growing quickly enough (because he was building cities in hilly and forested regions rather than near river valleys and grasslands). I helped Kevin decide where to build cities, showing him how to place cities near waterways and natural resources. I suggested that Kevin build roads to luxuries to help his economy. By the end of class, Kevin’s treasury was “dangerously low,” which created some anxiety. Unlike Miranda or Marvin, Kevin did not reflect much on his play. He was unable to solve even basic game problems (such as what locations are good for building cities) without assistance.

Self-sufficient Play

A number of other students were becoming self-sufficient players; they developed goals in the game, understood how to solve basic game problems, and perhaps most importantly, were willing to work through problems independently. Vicky (Egypt), for example, played quietly most of the class. Vicky played thoughtfully and purposefully, carefully reading the dialog boxes while following word by word with her mouse. Vicky’s civilization was quite advanced; she scouted areas for their natural resources, strategically placed cities on the map, built mines and colonies to access natural resources, connected her cities with roads and strategically place defensive units in mountains to defend against barbarian and encroaching civilizations. In post interviews, Vicky described in detail where Romans, Bantu, and Nubian (barbarian) civilizations were on the map. Vicky analyzed patterns in her game, noticing what cities were growing quickly and which ones were not. Vicky optimized resources by using cities that were production centers to build defensive units which Vicky used to defend her civilization.

Marvin (760 AD, French) was also self-sufficient, although he spent the first two days at war with other civilizations which impeded his progress. Midway through the day, the English began conquering Marvin’s cities, and he hoped to build a “getaway boat” to sail to Africa. Within minutes, Marvin had lost the game and restarted again. This time, he focused on building his infrastructure. He built mines, roads, and colonies, but was still attacked by other civilizations. Marvin’s computer was very slow, so he used the down time to talk with other students, monitor other games, or ask the researchers questions. At one point, Marvin saw that Sandy had 230 gold and called out, “Look, she has 230 Gold! How did you do that?” Sandy and Marvin talked more about their games for several minutes, although we were unable to catch the details of the conversation. In fact, Marvin spent about half of his time walking around the room, and a researcher easily could have been busy just following Marvin. For Marvin, the game was a very social experience, and he enjoyed watching others play and learning from their different play styles.

Social Play

Marvin spent much of the class moving from game to game, watching game unfold between his turns (like Tony in the MEDIA case). About midway through class, Miranda and Sandy started playing collaboratively. They looked at each other’s cities, switching from computer to computer. Marvin became interested in their talking and listened for a few minutes before joining Kevin and watching his game. Kevin explained that he was Egypt and Egypt was powerful. Marvin asked, “How do you know?” Marvin was skeptical as he thought that military power was historically determined (as opposed to the result of a simulation), and that the Romans were the most powerful, the Greeks were the second most powerful, and the Egyptians were even less powerful, because the Romans conquered all three civilizations. This pattern was holding true across all of the games that Marvin was watching, as well. Marvin was also studying the Romans in school and was eager to expound upon the many virtues of Roman civilization – particularly Roman legions and Roman military strategy. Marvin told Kevin that when his computer restarted, he was going to play the Romans because in his opinion, they were the most powerful civilization in the game.

Now that they understood the basics of the game, several students started new games today. Amy (Iroquois) started over so that she could build more settlers, scouts, and colonies. Amy had a good understanding of the game; she could recall her civilization, year, and the functions of settlers and workers. Later in class, Amy lost again. Amy restarted for a third time, vowing to build a better defense. She explained that she lost her other games because barbarians attacked and she was not prepared. Her plan was to exploit the luxuries near her, including silk, ivory, and gems to support a stronger military. Amy announced, “This time, I have more in the city. My city is bigger.” Like Marvin and Vicky, Amy was able to make connections between class discussions and her game. When Amy lost, she reflected on why, developing causual inferences and then developing new plans to rectify the situation. The ease with which Amy restarted her games suggests that she was quickly learning the interface. In post-interviews, Amy commented that she liked the game because she “liked that you played in the world and you could change history.”

Late in the day, Miranda lost a game she had been working on for a few days because she could not appease a rival civilization. Miranda complained, “They keep attacking my cities. I made a peace treaty but then a couple of minutes later they went to war.” Miranda was visibly frustrated, but not dejected. Miranda went back to another saved game and made it to 1700 AD. This experience only further cemented in Miranda’s mind the importance of careful negotiations. For Miranda, losing had become a necessary part of the game play and learning, and she used failure as an opportunity to learn about the game system, altering her concept of the game system and then trying new strategies.

By the time the researcher visited Nadya (France), she had already lost one game. Nadya explained how she lost her first game: “I had to abandon Paris. I had to lose. I couldn’t make workers because my population was not growing.” Apparently, Nadya had been reading a fair amount of the on screen text. In fact, Nadya also had a good grasp of the game; she was creating warriors and knew of the functions that workers and settlers performed.⁴⁸ Nadya did struggle with the common problems of an unbalanced economy and civil disorder. I showed her how to adjust her tax and luxury rates, and she continued playing.

We gave the two teaching assistants tasks to do today (loading games, etc.). Half way through class, Monique started playing the game herself. Monique, who an 18 year old high school drop out who worked for the YWCA was immediately engrossed in the game and read through the text on the different civilizations very carefully and took the game very seriously. Monique explained that she read each description because she likes to read, and chose England because they had the wheel and the alphabet. By the second researcher’s suggestion, Monique shared with the class what she found out about different civilizations and encouraged students to read through the Civilopedia.

The class ended with a quick debriefing about the day’s events, and we focused discussion on commonly experienced problems, such as balancing budgets and building strong economies. After two hours of playing, the students all looked fairly spent. Only Marvin really participated in the discussion, and even he was distracted. The researcher noted that I spent the most time today with Marvin and Miranda. The two most vocal students, Marvin and Miranda both had dozens of questions for whomever would listen and were eager to share their feelings about their games, tell stories about their game or share theories of history.