DAY 5: Digging Deeper into the Game

DAY 5: Digging Deeper into the Game

Miranda wanted to build a bigger civilization and she was very interested in maximizing her use of resources so that her cities would grow. I showed Miranda the effects of irrigation and roads on cities’ production. We compared one of her cities which was along the Rio Grande with one in the jungle and examined their food production. Next we consulted her domestic advisor and looked at her budget. Eventually, Miranda decided that she needed to disband her warriors to get her budget back under control. Over the second half of class, Miranda spent most of her time trading with other civilizations in an effort to gain money. She was especially interested in meeting and negotiating with the historical characters, and she said that Joan of Arc was her favorite. Miranda facilely navigated through the different game systems, examining the effects of her economy on her civilization, anticipating how her city might grow, and weighing the advice of advisors. The problem space of the game was becoming increasingly complex for Miranda, who was using strategies across different systems to achieve her goal of building a formidable civilization.

Vicky also focused on building a civilization, but her primary goal was “to make her people happy.” Vicky was very protective of her people, and she built walls around each of her cities before anything else. I asked Vicky to explain this, and she said, “security for my people.” Caring for her little people seemed to be a primary motivation for Vicky. In the post interviews, Vicky explained her favorite parts of the game as “getting to build cities, make friends, and go to war Vicky also built workers to mine gold so that her people would be happy. All of this happy-making drove Vicky to read the Civilopedia, carefully consider what improvements to build, and study geography to locate resources for her people.

Simpler Goals, Simpler Problems

Amy (Iroquois) was still wresting with basic game functions: battling barbarians and preventing civil unrest. Her goal was to build more settlers and hence more cities. Amy had several questions about the governments, so I explained the social systems of the Middle Ages, tying in game concepts of feudalism and monarchy. I was not sure if she grasped the differences between despotisms and monarchies. Although the game gave students a good framework for understanding relationships between government and religion, the lack of specific cases, such as the English crown, makes all of these concepts abstracted from their historical antecedents. In the post-interviews, Amy did recall some basic information about governments, stating that a “monarchy is when you have a king or queen and republic is when you elect a ruler.” In regards to historical concepts, the game was a good introduction to technological concepts for Amy, and helped her make some connections between historical concepts which could be useful in later studies, but did not produce deep understandings. Amy engaged in little recursive play. Because her goal was simply to last as long as possible and she was in contact with no other civilizations, she experienced no failure. She had no reason to stop, analyze her game, and try new strategies.

Sandy was losing frequently, and began restarting her game more frequently, but rarely did she analyze the causes of her failures and try to build new strategies. At one point, Sandy had three cities in Egypt, but was attacked by the Greeks and lost her game. I showed Sandy how to reload her saved game, which she liked because it meant that she could keep in the “race to last the longest”. As Sandy’s game reloaded, I gave her, Vicky, and Miranda the same just-in-time lecture about feudalism and monarchy that I gave to Amy. Sandy paid relatively little attention, as she read the causes of her failure as of making the wrong decision (i.e., going to war / not going to war, trading technology / not trading technology). Like Amy, her goal was to make it as long as possible, so she had no incentive to restart her game and try different strategies.

Using Game Resources

Marvin was enthralled with nearly every aspect of the game. The early part of the day Marvin struggled with barbarians who attacked his workers continuously. Next, it was the other civilizations. He was at war with Egypt and building political alliances in an attempt to survive. “I want to build alliances so they won’t kill me,” Marvin explained. I showed him the technology tree (to show him what new technologies he could research), which he then read through them in some detail. He seemed very interested in nearly every aspect of the game and spent a lot of time reading the Civilopedia. In the post interviews, Marvin recalled what he learned through playing the game, drawing on information in the Civilopedia.

Interviewer: Did playing the game teach you about history?

Marvin: In a way it does. For instance, it shows you the date or year where they wheel was made or the alphabet was discovered. I didn’t know that the alphabet was discovered around BC. I forgot what year, but I remember it’s like 2000 BC. I thought it was like the 1500 or around the (the age of) knights and kings.

Interviewer: Who do you think invented the alphabet before you played this game?

Marvin: The English, because back then they were the classiest and smartest.

Interviewer: Now who do you think invented the alphabet?

Marvin: Probably the Egyptians with the hieroglyphics. It was the first writing to be done.

Marvin took a generally intellectually curious approach to the game, which often manifested itself in observations in game and comparisons to history, such as in what year the alphabet was discovered. Most students got a general sense of these dates, but Marvin, who read through the Civilopedia and technology tree closely explored these facts more deeply and made connections between these facts and his game. For Marvin, who enjoyed reading the game as a simulation of history, reading the Civilopedia and learning about different inventions was part of the fun. The game created a context for Marvin to ask questions such as in what year was the alphabet invented and think about the flow of knowledge across cultures.

The Costs of War

Marvin lost his war and then went back to an earlier saved game, determined to use his allies better (an example of recursive play). He created allegiances again, but unfortunately, these entangled allegiances got him into war again. For Marvin, much of the game was about politics and war. In post-interviews, Marvin shared with researchers how playing the game, particularly how experiencing the consequences of decisions, taught him about politics and war.

Interviewer: What else did you learn through playing the game?

Marvin: Inventions, the wheel, alphabet. Also that war isn’t always the way.

Interviewer: Why?

Marvin: Because it doesn’t…if you always wanted to win it wouldn’t be the outcome.

Interviewer: Why?

Marvin: Something will happen; it will turn on you. It’s like a strategy game. You have to know when you want to do a move. You have to think about it before you actually do it. I learned that the hard way.

Interviewer: Oh yeah, how did that happen?

Marvin: I went to war with the Aztecs, and they had a treaty with everyone against me.

Marvin: Did you start the war?

Interviewer: No. They did because they threatened me, and I said, “No take your threats somewhere else.”

Interviewer: Could you have signed a treaty with the Aztecs?

Marvin: No.

Interviewer: You had to go to war with them?

Marvin: Yeah. They were in a difficult position, but I thought I was going to win.

Interviewer: They made an alliance with everyone against me.

Marvin: What do you think about the United States being in wars? Does it change your views?

Marvin: Yeah. In modern times if you become strongest nation out there…they should always be peace.

Interviewer: Why?

Marvin: War always leads to destruction and lost armies.

Interviewer: You thought this before the game?

Marvin: No. afterwards.

Interviewer: You lost a lot right?

Marvin: Yes (sadly).

For Marvin, the political components of the game taught him about the responsibilities of political power. The Aztecs were a warring tribe and much more powerful than his civilization. They threatened him for strategic resources or political gains, which frustrated him Soon he learned that he could not compete with the Aztecs who were backed by global political alliances. Marvin saw his game in terms of complex interacting variables and systems, but also understood the interconnections among civilizations; (in his game at least), no one superpower could dominate the entire globe without allies. He saw connections between the political power of the Aztecs and the contemporary United States and, playing as an underpowered civilization, drew a lesson from this experience, specifically that war leads to destruction and loss and that strong nations have an obligation to maintain peace.

Jordan had watched Marvin’s game closely and was now afraid of the barbarians. He wanted to learn from Marvin’s mistakes, so I suggested that Marvin give him tips. Marvin explained that you should have two spearmen in every city and also use spearmen to protect workers. Jordan asked about luxuries, and Marvin explained them as well. Marvin and Jordan were learning from one another, using each other’s games as contrasting cases for understanding the underlying game system. Although Marvin and Jordan talked (and the girls frequently talked), there was much less sharing of information and comparisons across games in this case than in the MEDIA case. In the MEDIA case, every student followed at least one other game and most students watched at least two games. This cross-case analysis of games seemed to lead to deeper understandings about the game system and, potentially, about world history.

Attack of the Barbarians, Failure and Frustration

Ricky (China) struggled with starving cities and invading barbarians. I tried to help Ricky, but I could barely get in a word edgewise, as he interrupted me with more questions. Ricky was more frustrated with the game than any student I had seen up to this point. While frustration due to losing occasionally motivated students, today, it was obviously getting the best of Ricky. I was a little surprised that Ricky, the most experienced gamer in the group was having the most difficult time dealing with game challenges, although the amount of reading in the game and the complexity of game problems might have favored stronger students. Still, the fact that Ricky was not a strong student but identified himself as a gamer may have made these losses all the more painful. Most girls in the class were finding more success than him.

Ricky started complaining to me, “I like faster games. This is too slow.” I empathized with him. “It’s frustrating when you have to sit back and watch yourself getting attacked, isn’t it?” He agreed. Wave after wave of barbarian continued to come after Ricky. At one point, 60 barbarians were attacking. They came from Russia, Thailand, central Asia, everywhere. I explained to Ricky how the Mongolian horde wreaked havoc on most of the world after the turn of the century, but he was not impressed with how the game faithfully modeled the barbarian attacks. Adding to his frustration was that he became locked in a race for control over Thailand and Cambodia but the Indians settled there before him. Over and over again, Ricky narrowly missed achieving his goals because the computer AI built a settler before him or a group of barbarians attacked him before he could defend himself. As Ricky struggled more and more with the game, his identity as a gamer became at odds with his failure, and he began resisting the game, suggesting that it was too slow, essentially not a real game.

DAY 6: Social Play

Overall, students were just eager to play the game and rejected this activity as interfering with their game play. Students appropriated Civilization III as a tool for several different purposes. The encompassing camp activity system gave students this freedom; students goals and intentions of playing the game were in line with the rules of the camp, and students knew that they could continue playing by their own goals. For some students (Marvin, Vicky, and Miranda) this contradiction was not problematic at all; in the case of Marvin his play was about reading the game off of history, a goal that was producing desirable practices and (as I will argue later) useful understandings. Vicky’s goal of making her people happy forced her to consider several interrelating systems of game play and consider geographic issues (i.e. where are luxuries located) and game issues (is Monarchy good for her people) in order to fulfill her fantasies of pleasing her people. Miranda’s game play was also complex, as her desire to build a civilization meant that she had to juggle several game systems in building a defense, an infrastructure, and an economy. For students’ with simpler goals, who were not wrestling with the complexities of the game systems and treating game systems as simple, single solution problems, learning was much simpler, typically confined to algorithmic solutions to dealing with problems rather than generating deep understandings of inter-related game systems.

Marvin, Vicky and Miranda all were comfortable with the game concepts and achieving success. Marvin’s game (Rome, 50 AD) was going much better than last time and his plan for the day was to not make the same mistakes again. He described those mistakes as trading away horses to his enemies and going to war. Marvin’s next plan was to support religion, which would make his people happier. I asked Marvin why religion was important to people; he answered, “I don’t know.” He now had 14 cities, and had built harbors in each seaside city. Marvin maneuvered his archers to maintain a defense, counting the total number of archers he had and multiplying that number by 100 so that he could imagine how many troops there were. Next, Marvin wanted to build the Great Wall for even more protection. I explained that he needed to discover construction to build it, and that he ought to invest in science and technology if he wanted to stay globally competitive. Later, Marvin explained to the second researcher that he was building libraries in every city. “I did what he told me. I’m not holding back on science.” Marvin was convinced that staying out of war was the key to victory, and eager to build a civilization that mixed happiness, military power, technological advanced and culturally superior.

Vicky’s game (Egypt, 1375 AD, Monarchy) also began to take off, which caused Miranda to take notice. Vicky had only five cities, but her economy was booming (1571 gold +15 per turn), and she was even about to discover the Republic. I explained to Vicky the differences between Republic and Monarchy. “In Republics, people elect a Senate who represent them. They started in Greece and Rome. Only free men could vote, though. But for those people, they had more political power than under a Monarchy, where there was an all powerful king.” Vicky listened attentively, nodded, and declared that she would research Republic to make her people happy. Vicky used the Histiograph to gauge her progress compared to other civilizations. In the post-interviews (which occurred the following week), the researcher asked Vicky about governments.

Interviewer: What is despotism?

Vicky: It’s like kind of a government that you are.

Interviewer: Would you want to live under despotism?

Vicky: No. I think I had despotism though. I’d rather have monarchy.

Interviewer: Why?

Vicky: You only have one God. And people are saying that it’s good.

Interviewer: Do you know what a monarchy is?

Vicky: It’s like almost like you get to rule better and people look at you as a God.
Vicky was somewhat familiar with concepts such as despotism and monarchy, offering monarchy as a more preferably type of government to despotism. Vicky also made general associations for the features of these governments, such as linking divine rule with monotheism.

Miranda (1300 AD, Aztecs) moved her chair over to watch Vicky’s game. In the race to the future, Vicky was in 2^nd place. Miranda was in a despotism and decided to study The Republic after hearing my talk with Vicky. She had five cities, and was building up her infrastructure to better balance her economy, religion, technology, and military. Like Marvin, Miranda wanted to build a balanced civilization. This goal of building a balanced civilization situated Miranda in a deeper problem-solving space than the other girls, who simply wanted success along one axis (such as longevity). As a result, Miranda engaged in deeper analysis and problem solving than these other girls.

Sandy (Egypt, 1465 AD) took more and more interest in the game itself. For the first time she sought out help from the researchers. She asked about geographical features, such as iron, or why it took so many turns to build palaces. Sandy was still technologically quite primitive, but she was experiencing some success and talking-up her peers and the researchers. She began asking researchers questions about game systems such as production, and began building libraries and city walls in her cities. Sandy even started reading the Civilopedia, which pleased us because Sandy was not as strong a reader as some students, and frequently struggled to pronounce game terms such as despotism. Sandy started the unit disinterested in the game, but appeared to continue with the unit in order to be a part of a social group. She continued to ask Nadya and Miranda what years their games were in and make random announcements such as, “I have so many warriors I am going to make barracks!” (which was particularly interesting because barracks served no such function). Being part of this group was a central component of Sandy’s play throughout the unit and she continued to push social play, but more and more aspects of the game itself struck Sandy’s curiosity.

After a few days of frustration, Ricky finally held off the barbarians, located their camps, and chased them from the Mongolian highlands. As he discovered new lands, he “right mouse clicked” on the land to learn more about its carrying capacities. In between turns, Ricky slid over to watch Miranda and Vicky’s games; in fact, he spent a lot of time with Vicky and Miranda today. They talked about their games, gathered around Vicky and Miranda’s computers. Vicky and Miranda showed off their games, and this group demanded a lot of attention. Ricky’s participation in this group was striking, if for no other reason than he was acknowledging that he had things to learn from other students (girls).

Shaka’s Got New Clothes: Fashion as a Sign of Social Progress

Sandy initiated some of the most interesting game talk of the unit when she made connections between the leaders’ dress and social progress. Sandy noted that Hammurabi dressed a lot like Lincoln and developed a theory that the more advanced civilizations had more advanced clothing. Sandy looked at her screen and pointed to Greece: “See, it’s because this other guy changed…and Shaka Zulu…and Joan of Arc. Maybe they have more technology and stuff.” Sandy, Miranda, and Vicky looked at the pictures of their advisors, comparing their outfits with those of the other leaders. The girls were very intrigued by the differences in outfits between leaders and spent several minutes debating as to what it might mean. They realized that there were connections between trade, technology, and attire, and eventually realized that entering new eras caused changes in outfits.

Soon, Marvin joined in the conversation, asking, “When am I finally going to get to change clothes?” Marvin was hoping to enter the industrial era and excited about the prospect of changing his clothing as well. This class paid attention to the leaders’ outfits, both as a sign of progress and as an intrinsically exciting aspect of the game. Indeed, in post interviews Miranda commented that if there was one thing she would change about the game, she would like to be able to change the color of her leader’s clothes. It is not so surprising that a girl, Sandy observed that the game represented social advancement through fashion, given how fashion and clothing are usually associated with girls’ play. Perhaps more surprisingly, Marvin was equally intrigued by the changing of the clothes.⁴⁹ This interaction suggests that using fashion creatively – such as to show progress or status could be a way of drawing a more diverse range of players to gaming.

Querying the Researchers and Fighting for Attention.

Vicky, Marvin, Ricky, and Miranda enjoyed showing off their civilizations to researchers and frequently seemed to be asking questions about their game just to strike up conversations. Vicky (1070 AD) also had several questions for the researcher, some of which seemed obvious, such as “What does the load button do (to load into ships)? Others may have been more functional (i.e. Will you help me decide where to place cities?”). But most of the time, she wanted to share her work with the researchers. She enjoyed giving tours of her cities, showing off the different structures such as aqueducts using the “eye view.” At one point, Miranda pulled the researcher aside to announce that she built two more cities and was now up to five. This mildly competitive play seemed to engage the girls by adding an extra layer to the game experience, a meta-game by which they discussed their games.

By the time I came to Ricky (China, 1030 AD), he had several questions, such as why could he not build the Great Library. He read that he needed aqueducts for his cities to grow, and his plan was to explore Asia and meet other civilizations to trade with. Thus far he had not explored much beyond China’s borders (due to the barbarian threat). He had horsemen exploring Europe and India, but he had not explored Indonesia, Africa, or the other continents. Curiously, this isolation mirrored China’s own cultural isolation for thousands of years. Similarly, Ricky was building a road to connect his cities through central China and connect up his silk and dye resources which closely mirrored the silk road that was built in real life for just that reason. We discussed these features of his game in depth, which Ricky found interesting, although these facts did not reappear in any discussions or post-interviews. He also had a lot of questions: Why do some cities grow so slowly (they were surrounded by tundra)? Why can horses only move one square per turn (they are in the mountains)? Ricky seemed almost hungry for information now – a stark contrast to earlier in the unit when he was quiet and despondent. Now that he had some successes, he was much more open to the researchers and the unit in general. It could be said that Ricky had now appropriated the researchers as a tool for game play.

Game Challenges and Language and Literacy

Nadya (1675 BC, China) came in at 3:15 and was still very quiet. Recalling that Ricky had a lot of problems with barbarians in China, I asked Nadya if she had problems with Barbarians; she answered yes. I asked her who the barbarians were and she responded, “Indians.” She showed increased awareness of several game concepts; she knew the date of her civilization, the technologies she was studying, and her type of government. Tammy, who sat with Nadya most of the time, asked Nadya if she would like to do this in History class. Nadya said, “Yes.” Later, Nadya went to Sandy’s desk to see how she was doing, signs that Nadya was engaging in social play and desiring to learn more about the game. Of all the students, Nadya was perhaps the most difficult to pin down. As a native French speaker, Nadya struggled with much of the language in the game. At times, it was difficult to know if she was paying attention to the game at all; at others, she made intriguing insights about the game.

The example of Nadya is instructive in that it points to the challenges in playing Civilization III for such a young student, particularly the reading demands that the game places on students. Whereas students in the MEDIA case had been exposed to many game concepts (some repeatedly), most of the 233 different concepts were new. These students had some familiarity with the concept of Egypt, China, or Rome, as evidenced by their comfort in selecting these civilizations. Basic military units (i.e. warriors) and basic technologies (iron working, mathematics) were also graspable and about within their reading level. But consider some of the other early concepts that students confronted in the military: hopilite (Greek warrior), legionary, musketman, catapult), in technology: Ceremonial burial, masonry, mysticism, construction, currency, philosophy, literature, polytheism, code of laws, in government: despotism. Again, what was most demanding about these concepts was that success in the game demanded that students not just recognize these terms, but understand their meanings, and anticipate their consequences to students’ games. In game resources designed to support game play are all textually-based. Consider the following entry for “warriors”:

The warrior is late Stone Age infantry, armed with stone axes and clubs. The earliest military forces were simply the citizens of the city, armed with whatever implements they could use as weapons. Although a militia made up of warriors was inexpensive, they were no match for organized armies. Warriors were usually used as stopgap measures while waiting for superior units to be trained, or to defend a city that had been temporarily cut off from military support. In a crisis situation, an assembly of warriors is better than no defense at all.

And this passage suggests the potential obstacles just in the Civilopedia and basic game moves. Consider the main map, city, advisor, and negotiation screens. In the map screen, students’ government, year, cities (and foreign cities), and technologies are represented textually. On the city screens, city improvements and items under construction are represented through text, as are the headers for the different game systems (luxuries, strategic resources, production, food, commerce, pollution, and garrison). Consider the negotiation screen (Figure 6-1, which includes the foreign advisor). Obviously, the items up for trade are all represented through text. The advisor gives different facial expressions, signaling the general tenor, but more specific information is conveyed through text, as when in the MEDIA case, Kent asked Dwayne what “reprehensible” meant. Perhaps most importantly, feedback from the other civilizations are conveyed through text, as is the general status of the relationship (polite). In post-interviews, Marvin, Miranda and Vicky recalled these terms specifically. Game-critical information is revealed both through visual icons and through text and success in the game demanded that students read and interpret complex texts.

These students employed diverse strategies for inferring meaning from the game and generating game strategies. Everyone learned some through trial and error and through querying researchers. Most everyone turned to the Civilopedia at least periodically, skimming the text or even reading it thoroughly. Students inferred meaning through context or tone, as well. The second researcher, a trained reading teacher, was most impressed at how game play recruited complex reading practices, as students wrestled with new vocabulary, negotiated meaning with peers, and compared text with meanings from game play. For these students, reading and interpreting texts were common, challenging practices that had a big impact on game play, and there was a direct relationship between those students’ reading skills and game success.

Tammy and Monique, both of whom were high school students with stronger reading skills were both totally caught up in the game today. Monique tried playing as several civilizations, including India, Rome, Egypt and France. Monique lost again for the third time, but kept playing. More than any of the younger students, Monique read through the full text information, trying to make decisions on all the civilizations. She enjoyed reading through the Civilopedia and using it as a resource for game play. Seeing Monique’s success in the game and fascination with its complexity reminded the researchers that the language and reading demands of the game were significant, and that the game’s complexity frequently appeals to adults as much as middle school students.

I started class today with a discussion of culture points and religion. I tried to address students' questions or problem areas. Marvin, Jamal and Jordan were very attentive, Marvin especially. I explained how in previous versions of the game, culture, religion, and the arts were entirely left out of the game and that the game designers added the variable of “cultural influence” to model how emerging cultures exert influence over an area. I explained how the game represents cultural influence through the size of the border around their cities and how cultural influence increases the chances that other cities would join your civilization. Next I explained the role of temples and religion in making citizens happy and the effects of building temples, oracles, and cathedrals on city happiness. Students listened and were attentive, but aware that this was their last day to play, students were more interested achieving their specific game goals.

For Sandy (Egypt, 1766 AD), who had two cities, the game was a race to see if she could last as long as Miranda and Amy. She noticed that she had less money, less technology, and fewer luxuries than her peers but was very pleased when she met other civilizations, announcing to the class when she met Joan of Arc or Alexander of the Greeks. Unfortunately, Sandy eventually lost a city to the Greeks and another to the Babylonians, leaving her with no gold and only one city left. After another 30 minutes of struggling with her one remaining city, Sandy lost and restarted her game. This time, Sandy “let the Greeks come over if they wanted.” Sandy, who was publicly competing with other students to last as long as possible into the future chose to frame the question as a relatively simple one of an enemy attacking. How Sandy was engaged by the game (as a context for social play) had a direct impact on how she responded to losing. Whereas losing sent Miranda or Marvin into recursive play cycles of problem analysis and experimentation, it simply motivated Sandy to click on something different.

Amy (Iroquois, 1912 AD, Republic) was easily the furthest along in the game. She built a galley and was exploring South America. The boat made it to Brazil before sinking. Amy built another one and resumed exploring. Her goal was to map out all of South America. Eventually, the long turns and lack of other civilizations to interact with frustrated Amy. Amy pulled Moby Dick out of her bag and read in between turns. She paid little attention to her four cities and made no effort to strengthen her civilization in order to stand up the Europeans. Although she built a cathedral in one city, she more or less ignored her cities and civilization, using cities to build more warriors and spearmen. After a few turns, several of Amy’s cities were rioting or in disarray, but Amy did not seem to care. Amy’s responses in post interviews reveal to what extent this goal of surviving to the end mediated Amy’s game play.

Interviewer: What it would have been like to play as China?

Amy: I’d have more luxuries. I would have lasted longer.

Interviewer: Was that the main goal of yours? To last long?

Amy: Yes, I wanted to make it to the future.
For Amy, the game play was almost exclusively about preserving her civilization until the 21^st century, to see if she could build a Native American civilization that survived into the future. Because she had no contact with other civilizations, she stopped worrying about her economy or domestic infrastructure. Whereas before Amy read through screens carefully and weighed the importance of decisions, she now just clicked through screens haphazardly.

Finally, the Celts landed in Nova Scotia in 1968, and Amy immediately started trading with them. The Celts were much, much more advanced than Amy’s Iroquois. They had battleships and tanks and quickly began colonizing North America. Amy did not seem bothered by this in class, but in interviews, described how she felt. The interviewer read the quotation critiquing the United States abuse of power in American foreign policy.⁵⁰

Amy: A lot of people did gang up on me and I didn’t do anything to them. I just walked through their territory because I had to get to one of my cities. When the Celts came over they had battleships. I felt scared because I didn’t want my people to die.

Interviewer: Do you think they could have killed you at any point?

Amy: Yeah.

Interviewer: How did you react?

Amy: I put people and along the shorelines so they couldn’t get people in. Then they ended up killing everyone on the shorelines. So then I put a lot of people inside my cities to defend them.

As Amy described, soon the Celts attacked her Iroquois nation. Amy felt scared for her people, and sad that there was nothing she could do to intervene. We were surprised to see this reaction – particularly in response to the reading on American foreign policy. While I anticipated that some students would draw connections between power and their games, we did not anticipate that students would be shaken up by the experience.

Later in the interview, the interviewer probed Amy further to understand to what causes she attributed this disparity between the Iroquois and the Celts.

Interviewer: Why did the Celts colonize North American instead of the Iroquois colonize Europe?

Amy: Because they could get different inventions from the Romans, Chinese, and different people so they could make a boat to sail across. I had only myself to get the inventions…I couldn’t discover things fast enough. Then, I did keep discovering things and they wouldn’t trade with me. They wouldn’t take my money.

Interviewer: Did you meet anyone else?

Amy: Persia. I think that’s it. And the Aztecs.

Interviewer: Why didn’t someone like China come over?

Amy: Because they (the Celts) are greedy. They had a big army and were strong. And they thought they could wipe me out.
Because Amy had such little feedback during the game, she had little idea how far behind she was in her game. She had no other students to compare games with (as students did in the Media School) and as a result, was literally shocked when the Celts settled North America with battleships. Not until it was too late did Amy see that she was behind in technology, and perhaps even worse, she did not see any way that she could catch up. By saving and restarting her game, Amy did hang in the game until 2012, meaning that she reached her goal of making it to the future. Perhaps not surprisingly, Amy recalled the exact ending date of her game in the post-interviews.

Miranda (Aztecs, 1530) withdrew from the race to last the longest and now sought to “make her people happy.” She had seven cities and was planning to build an eighth on Cuba. Her civilization was thriving; she just discovered engineering and had 1200 gold. She explained that her primary goal was to make her people happy. Miranda had several questions around game concepts such as “engineering” and vocabulary such as “convey.” Quietly, Miranda withdrew from the main social group and became more invested in her civilization. She took great pride in what she had created and enjoyed showing it to researchers. Miranda’s game play was much more complex than most students, and this game play evolved in reciprocal relation with her game goals.

Jamal started up a new game and, after hearing my discussion of religion in the beginning of class, decided to study ceremonial burial first. Jamal and Marvin wanted to know what polytheism and monotheism were, so I went to the chalkboard. I broke down the words monotheism and polytheism into their root words and explained the meaning of mono and poly. We then brainstormed which civilizations we thought belonged in each category. I reiterated how religion played a part of a civilization’s “cultural influence” and citizens’ happiness. Students were struggling with some of these concepts but they had a stake in understanding these concepts and their impact on game play given their game goals. After missing several days, Jamal had difficulty with some basic game concepts and asked questions about unit strength or changing cities’ production. He had only two cities, one of which was rioting, but he did not seem to mind as he was caught up in a battle with the Romans. Although it was late in the unit, students were still interested in learning about these concepts and enjoyed using the game as a context for learning historical concepts.

Marvin (Rome, 740 AD) entered a new era, the Middle Ages. He had begun being attacked by barbarians and was concerned that they might topple his empire. He brought his textbook in today and asked if he could use it. “Is this cheating?” Marvin asked. I said that no, it was acceptable for him to use a History textbook to help play the game. I asked him why he would use it and he explained that he wanted to see what the historical boundaries of the Roman Empire were and how he might avoid being destroyed by barbarians like the Romans were. He examined the map to see where different civilizations were located, how their borders evolved throughout history, and how he might use this information to improve his own game. Marvin planned to use mountain ranges as natural borders, and try to see where and when the Roman civilization became too spread out. In this instance, Marvin was using history as a tool for mediating his game play. That a student considered using a textbook (which most students have to be bribed or threatened to open) “cheating” in order to play a the computer game struck the researchers as quite ironic and suggests a potentially powerful way of using texts in the service of game play. Whereas many want to pit one media versus the other in the design of learning environments, this instance shows that the real power is in finding ways that they overlap and intersect, finding ways of engaging students in game play to a point where they want and need information stored in texts for solving problems.

Marvin turned back to his game and noticed that he was the “weakest” civilization on the list. He asked how to strengthen his civilization. I explained how he might try to build up his economic infrastructure rather than concentrating only on military. He became concerned that he was losing gold every turn. He built “wealth” to try and bolster his economy but noticed that he was falling further in debt despite it. He called me over to help. I showed him how to make marketplaces to build his infrastructure. I was surprised that Marvin, who seemed to understand most aspects of the game, had not yet learned about marketplaces. Later, Marvin explained to the researcher how his goal was to build more cities in order to build up his cultural influence and “take over other cities.” Marvin also had several questions about new game concepts such as legionnaires or Sun Tzu’s Art of War. The advisors were a useful form a of feedback to Marvin, encouraging him to reflect on his civilization and examine his game more closely. After learning that he was the weakest civilization, Marvin and I analyzed his military, saw that he needed a more robust economy to support a military, and then went about improving his economy. Thus the game feedback prompted Marvin to analyze his game systemically and identify patterns across systems.⁵¹ For Marvin, a bidirectional understanding between the game and history was emerging. In the post interview, Marvin expounded on this relationship.

Interviewer: What would help you learn more about social studies?

Marvin: Playing the game. At the top left corner there is an AA that stands for encyclopedia (Civilopedia), it shows you when things actually happened. Things that you never knew about or things you never think about. It tells you what wars and who discovered this.

Interviewer: Did you ever looked at it? I know some kids never did.

Marvin: I did. Because for construction I wanted to build a cathedral. Because if you build your culture, it will spread and become more great.

Ricky (China, 1630 AD) learned from his earlier mistakes with barbarians and was expanding his infrastructure as he grew. He now had five small cities, all linked by roads, and his goal was to make more cities and expand his empire. He sent a group of horsemen into the mountains of Mongolia to find the remaining barbarians. These horsemen eventually made it to Europe, and he began trading with the Romans at around 1645 AD. Once he met all of the other civilizations, he finally had a context for comparing his progress against other civilizations. He saw how behind he was in technology but also reasoned that at least now he could trade with other civilizations and perhaps catch up quickly. Meeting other civilizations made Ricky feel a part of the global trade network, and he now had feedback on his progress and felt clued into the greater game processes. Turns took almost 30 seconds to complete, so Ricky read a Gran Turismo game manual between turns.

Jordan (Egypt) returned today for the first time in weeks. He downloaded Civilization III from Kazaa (a file sharing program) and had stopped coming to camp so that he could play at home. He had hoped that by coming today he could get a free game. Jordan and I discussed some questions he had about the game, particularly about revolution and government. He suggested that Marvin attack the other civilizations more aggressively. “If you take them over right away, you do better.” Having been playing the game on his own, he had developed a different, more aggressive play style than the other players. Whereas students in the YWCA case played according to the “rules” of school, not aggressively, avoiding war, being kind to other civilizations, Jordan was fairly ruthless in his approach. Marvin, who was averse to going to war, decided to watch before trying this risky strategy. “Do it Joe, then I’ll watch.” Jordan attacked the Greeks, which caused the Babylonians to attack him as well. When Jordan tried to make peace, both civilizations refused to acknowledge his envoy. Even though Jordan was willing to give the Greeks his entire treasury to end the war, the Greeks refused. Jordan commented, “Uh Oh. I’m in trouble. They won’t even talk to me.” By 4:30, the Greeks had destroyed him. His computer promptly crashed, and Marvin said that he thought the computer was making a point. As discussed earlier, for Marvin, the biggest lesson learned from playing the game was that “war isn’t always the way.” Game play styles arose as an combination of several factors, including students’ ethics, goals, classroom culture, and the affordances of the game (particularly its balancing).

I closed the unit by showing students how to retire from the game. I wanted to show them how the game projected key statistics about their civilizations. Marvin and Miranda were particularly interested in these statistics, such as their civilization’s literacy rate but most students had little clue what these statistics were or meant and the class ran out before I could explain them in any real depth. I thanked students for attending the unit and made arrangements to meet with them for post-interviews.

We conducted interviews over the following two days. Five students came to post-interviews (Marvin, Amy, Miranda, Vicky, and Ricky). As in the Media case, students, all developed understandings of where civilizations and barbarians originated. All of the students also discussed the importance of different kinds of geography in influencing the growth of their civilizations. As described in the case, students developed differing understandings of governments and technologies. Miranda, Vicky, and Marvin could discuss concepts such as monarchy, whereas Amy and Ricky had more impoverished understandings.

The interview with Miranda, a strong student who succeeded in the game was particularly telling.

Miranda: I don’t like social studies.

Interviewer: What in school would help you learn more and like it?

Miranda: Just have a different teacher. Other years I like it.

Interviewer. Are you good?

Miranda: Yes. I always take notes.

Interviewer: After Columbus reached America, European countries colonized America. Why did Europeans colonize America instead of Native Americans colonizing Europe?

Miranda: Because the Indians didn’t have the transportation…maybe they’re not good at making some kind of boat or something. Or they didn’t get along with the Europeans enough to ask them for a ride over to Europe.
This excerpt highlights just where some of these children were coming from. Just out of elementary school, liking school and learning were matters of having the right (nice) teacher. Of course, as middle school students, they were now expected to take notes, and good students were those who took the right notes in class. In terms of learning in school, Miranda was just entering a phase where the locus of learning was expected to be hers, and not just the teacher’s. Miranda’s response to the question about colonization shows both how her game was not about colonization, but also, just how playful her own ideas were. Miranda’s idea (and phrasing) of the Indians “didn’t get along with the Europeans enough to ask them for a ride to Europe” reminds us that these kids are, afterall, eleven and twelve years old.

Initially, Miranda reported “little” from the experience, as she was not taking notes or mastering facts, but she later came up with some things she learned through play. The later facts she recalls also reminds the reader of her age.

Interviewer: What were the most important discoveries in your game?

Miranda: Printing press, writing, and the alphabet and math. Because the printing press is writing a book. You didn’t have anything to stamp over and over so you had to keep writing over and over. With the alphabet you couldn’t write like words, and math you have to have measurements.

Interviewer: Where did you get these ideas? School?

Miranda: No, I asked Kurt for some of these.

Interviewer: Well what did you think? (As opposed to Kurt).

Miranda: I like the printing press.

Interviewer: What are the most important discoveries of all time, not just in your game?

Miranda: Ummm shoes. Clothes.

Interviewer: Any others, maybe 2 more.

Miranda: Maybe chairs, beds, TVs.

Chapter VII: Conclusions

The purpose of this study has been to examine (a) what practices emerge when Civilization III is brought into formal educational environments; (b) how Civilization III engages players when used in learning environments; (c) how learning occurs through playing Civilization III in different contexts; (d) the affordances of using games (specifically Civilization III) in world history education; and (e) how should we think about designing learning environments that include games. Importantly, this study does not try to argue for or against using Civilization III in any particular learning environment.⁵² Instead, I offer a framework for thinking about Civilization III as a tool for world history education. Admittedly, this framework is far-reaching, exploring the potentials for using games in formal learning environments, making connections between game play and the emerging discipline of world history and justifying a somewhat unusual approach to world history education. Previous chapters described the practices that emerged in three disparate contexts where Civilization III was used to support learning. In this chapter, I readdress the initial research questions and core theoretical issues, examining data from all three cases.

The following chapter is a cross-case analysis of the practices that emerged, the ways in which Civilization III engaged students (or didn’t), and how learning unfolded, in three learning environments.⁵³ The case narratives (Chapters IV, V, VI) detail the practices that emerge when Civilization III is used as a tool for learning history; conclusions about those practices run through each. However, the first two main conclusions of this chapter – discussions of how Civilization III was appropriated (or not) as a tool for understanding history and the socially and culturally mediated nature of game play – speak to this issue specifically. I argue that game play is not purely a human-computer interaction but rather one mediated by social relationships (particularly evident in how and why students appropriated Civilization III). Both of these issues are deeply tied to issues of engagement, which I also discuss in this chapter, highlighting it as a social phenomenon indelibly tied to appropriation and learning. Last, I discuss how domain learning unfolded across the cases, arguing that game play provided students background knowledge and, for some, a nascent systemic level understanding of world history. Civilization III was an effective instructional resource when it provided a context whereby geography and history could be used as tools for play. Learning world history through a simulation changed the way that some students viewed history in fundamental ways: By the end of the units, many saw history as emergent phenomena arising from an underlying rule set. Although most students could articulate that rule set at least in part, few understood the materialist and managerial biases of the game itself.