DAY 8: “This game isn’t so bad”: Frustration, Failure and Eventual Appropriation of Civilization III

DAY 8: “This game isn’t so bad”: Frustration, Failure and Eventual Appropriation of Civilization III

Unfortunately, the students were punchy after a week of testing. Immediately, Takia was kicked out of class for sitting on Bill’s lap. A “Do Now” on the board asked students to review their log sheets. Most students played on their computers, not paying attention to the assignment at all. I reminded them that their log sheets were their “tickets out of here” today. The students laughed, either because I said “ticket out of here” rather than the school lingo “Ticket to Leave” or because they knew that they could leave whenever they wanted and had no intention of filling it out. A few students questioned if they had to play the game if they elected to withdraw from the study. Others had problems starting the game due to technology failures. Lara, for example, wanted to play, but the game had been uninstalled from her machine. She sat alone, waiting for help, but I was caught helping other students. After a few minutes, she slumped in her chair; technology issues had killed her slight curiosity. Meanwhile, I went from student to student answering questions. Students needed help getting their cities out of civil disorder. Other students had forgotten how to load their saved game files. Finally, I realized that the H: drive, the networked disk drive that held students’ saved games, had crashed. Within a minute, all of the computers froze. Rebooting the computers took about five minutes and by 2:40 several students no longer showed any interest in playing. Others did homework or passed notes.

These technology failures had a significant impact on class morale. Sandy and Lisa pulled five girls (Lara, Takia, Jenny, Sheila, and Anna) out of eighteen students in the class who had been visibly disengaged for a conference after class. Each student had different issues. Jenny just had a baby. Lara slept most days. Sheila was frequently absent. Takia seemed hostile from the beginning. Anna was confused by the game and was writing notes in class. Interestingly, most of these girls were friends and an agreement had emerged among them that playing Civilization III was boring. Sandy reported that the five students were unhappy in the unit and wanted to withdraw. She agreed to allow the students to withdraw if they wrote a one page letter about their experiences in the unit addressed to me. I agreed that this seemed fair.

The hand-written letters were each about a half-page in length. All of the five letters said that the game was not interesting, too complicated, or too frustrating. I tried to interview Takia on why she did not like the game but she was quiet and withdrawn, answering, “I don’t’ know” to most of the questions. In the post interviews, I talked with Andrea who was friends with many of the girls who withdrew from the study. She gave her perception of what happened.

(At first) I wasn’t interested because I didn’t know how to play the game. I think the only reason that I became interested because I learned how to play. I think that’s why a lot of people gave up on it. They were like “I don’t know what I’m doing I don’t want to play this no more.” But, since I had to be there anyway, I just learned how to play the game. It’s ok when you get used to it.
The consistency across these sources suggests that, for these students, the game held little immediate appeal, was frustrating, and complicated.

Debriefing

After class, Lisa said that she overheard three students talking about how much they enjoyed the unit. From Lisa’s perspective, the unit was going great. Many students who were not participating in their other courses were fully engaged in the unit. She commented, “For someone like Dwayne or Kent, this may be the only reason they even come to school. I noticed that they are both a little bit happier. There is at least one thing that they can look forward to in the day.”²⁸ Seeing my surprise, Lisa continued, “Keep in mind that most of these kids are flunking several classes. Some of them are flunking all of their classes. Remember that 9XY (this grade level in charter school) is all students who flunked ninth grade. We discussed the impact of teaching a class where every single person in the group – even those with obvious academic talents – had failed at least one course the previous year.” In this light, it was not surprising that they were resistant to education, adverse to failure, and so easily brought off task.

Indeed, most students were becoming more and more engaged with the game and the unit. Several students started their games over today, hoping to improve on their successes. Goals included building a thriving capital, building roads, gathering luxuries to create a strong economy, scouting the continent for resources, mapping out the geography surrounding their starting location, and meeting other civilizations.

Warring was a prominent feature in many games, but many students who had been defeated felt a bit trounced. Most students had mastered the basic game flow and now felt some control over the basic game steps. Bill (Bantu) wanted to start war with the Egyptians but, by the end of the day, he saw the effects of war on his civilization and changed his mind. On his daily log sheet, he noted, “I need to make peace with the foreign dudes.” Chris (Aztecs) was at war with the Iroquois and wanted to expand into the Mississippi River basin. Norman (Iroquois, 590 AD) fought the much less advanced Polypenesians.

The log sheets were a mixed success. Students perceived them as busy work and most needed to be cajoled into filling them out. As a formative assessment tool, however, they were effective in that they revealed gaps in students’ understandings. For example, they made clear that none of the students had ever heard of despotism and only a few could determine what year they were in. A few students had even forgotten what civilization they were playing. For example, as Bill began filling out his log sheet, he asked the second researcher, “Who is my civilization again?”

At the end of class, the second researcher interviewed students to gauge their progress given the hectic day. She asked students what civilization they were, what year they were in, and what their government was. About half of the students still could not answer these questions. Kathy, Bill, Jenny, and Deborah did not know how to determine their government type and year, which was surprising given their prominence on the screen (See Figure 4.2). We decided to make the practice of polling the class on the basic facts of their games a regular research and instructional strategy.

Figure 4.2: Screenshot from a Typical (Chris’) game

By day 9, the five female students who had opted out of playing the game were no longer in the room and immediately the class ran more smoothly. Thirteen students participated for the remainder of the unit, and Sandy was in the room far less frequently. For the rest of the unit, students loaded games and were playing within the first five minutes of class. They seemed much more committed to trying to learn the game and by now they had all developed their own goals within the game. For many students, the motivation to play Civilization III was, in large part, social. Dwayne, who was charismatic and popular with many of the boys, was by far the most successful student and completely absorbed in the game. Bill, Kent, and Chris constantly compared their games with Dwayne’s and simply liked being around him. Meanwhile, Dan, Shirley, and Sheila socialized amongst themselves. Students’ decision to stay in the class was undoubtedly the result of many overlapping factors but both researchers agreed that the social interactions surrounding the game were as least as important as the game itself in engaging (or disengaging) players.

Several game playing clusters emerged over the next few days few days based, it seemed, on a combination of game playing goals and existing social networks. Teasing out whether these clusters were a result of game goals, social relationships, or even the arrangement of the room was difficult as social groups and gaming goals emerged in tandem and tended to mutually reinforce one another. Those students interested in geography tended to be friends, sit together, and play as Native America tribes, whereas students interested in warring tended to play as Egyptians. These patterns reinforced one another and emergent social groupings persisted through the rest of the unit (and indeed through most of the camp). There was very little knowledge flows between these groups, but extensive knowledge flow within them.

Building Civilizations in the Americas

Tony, Jason, Norman, and Chris, all located in the new world, focused game play on expanding their civilizations to exploit natural resources and trying to find ways to trade with the old world. Each player was comfortable with the basic game mechanics (food, production, and commerce), had eliminated the barbarian threat, and was now expanding his civilization. Game play consisted of analyzing the map to identify natural resources and then planning how to expand their civilization to best utilize these resources. Next, they built roads between cities, irrigated plains, and mined natural resources. They scouted South America to meet tribes, map the terrain, and hopefully, meet another civilization.

Tony, Jason, and Chris discussed strategies in between turns. Tony watched his territory grow from three to six cities, now filling most of the Eastern United States. In between turns (which were now taking 30-40 seconds), he walked about the room and observed others playing, particularly Chris and Jason who also played in North America. Jason explained to Tony my advice about settling in central Michigan to take advantage of its lumber and then growing up into the Upper Peninsula for its ore deposits. Tony saw that other players were advancing more quickly than he was, so he restarted his game to better utilize such resources. This time, he started building roads to bring wine and gems to his people. In post interviews, Tony described what he learned from losing: “Playing the game forces you to learn about the material. It actually forces you to learn about other civilizations in order to survive.” Similarly, Jason (Iroquois 2230 BC) restarted his game because he was not satisfied with his cities’ development. He asked Tony what technology he should pursue first and Tony suggested the alphabet. Throughout the day, these three used the time between turns to analyze one another’s games, offer advice, and learn from one another’s mistakes.

Jason was very interested in maximizing resources. He discussed his civilization’s infrastructure with me in detail. I explained how to maximize each city’s production by noting natural resources, creating cities to serve as production centers (much the way that Kansas City was a cattle hub), and then building specific city improvements to capitalize on those goods. He also asked about core concepts and city improvements, such as aqueducts, libraries, and temples, which I explained.²⁹ Jason’s favorite class with mathematics, and he, more than any other student tried to mathematically optimize his game play and master the formal game system.

As students began sharing strategies within their gaming groups, “taken-as-shared understandings” began emerging, particularly in regards to imperialist colonization. Norman, Chris, and Tony all met the Polynesian civilization and struggled with whether to ally or conquer them. On one hand, each was eager to trade technologies and goods with other civilizations in order to keep up with old world civilizations. On the other, conquering rival civilizations was tempting and possibly just as productive.

For example, Norman invented a language of colonial imperialism to justify conquering smaller countries, which was later taken up by Chris, and then a few days later, Tony. Norman met the Polynesians, a small, weak civilization who were exploring South America. Norman realized that they had neither technology nor money and decided to conquer their settlements. He explained, “It is for their own good, really. Look how much more I have. They will be happier living as Iroquois.” Chris and Tony laughed at this rationalization for imperialist behavior. I offered, “It’s up to you, Norman. They might be more good to you as a separate civilization, if you could ally and trade technologies.” Norman shrugged and attacked anyway. Seeing this, Chris, using Norman’s game as a tool for thinking about his game, was curious if his game would replicate similar findings. Chris immediately sent warriors in his game to where the Polynesians were in Norman’s game to see if an exploring Polynesian civilization emerged in his game as well. Chris found them and was shocked at how “uncivilized” they were. Building off of Norman’s joke, Chris decided that he too should do them the “honor” of conquering their civilization. Chris made this knowledge public, adopting Chris’s rhetoric as he moved to conquer the Polynesians.

A few days later, Tony, just like Norman, also met the Polynesians and decided to “help” them by taking over their cities and privileging them to life as Iroquois citizens. Briefly, Tony did try to help the Polynesians by trading them technologies and sending them military units. However, he decided that it was “safer” for him just to take over their city and defend their people as a benevolent imperialist force. Tony used Norman’s rhetoric in describing his game and took delight at appropriating colonial rhetoric in the service of Native American domination. I smiled at Tony’s mock concern for the Polynesian citizens and joked that he had a firm intuitive grasp of American foreign policy.

Chris (Aztecs, Republic, 1700 AD) was more interested in exploring new worlds than in building his civilization and used his knowledge of geography, particularly of the Bering Strait, to attempt to settle Asia. In post-interviews, Chris reported that “conquering all the other lands and civilizations and finding where resources were on specific continents” were his favorite aspects of the game. Chris had but a few cities and roads, yet he did have two galleys that he sailed about the Americas, looking for barbarians to conquer or civilizations to trade with.³⁰ For Chris, it was now really just a waiting game, preparing for contact with the new world. He was shocked that no Europeans had made contact with him even though it was already 1814 AD in his game. I suggested that he send a galley up across the Bering Strait toward Asia. I explained, “See, you have the advantage of knowing what is over there. The Aztecs probably would not have tried that because – why would you row all the way to Alaska through all of that cold water if you don’t even know what is on the other side? But, you know that China’s over there.”

About twenty minutes later, in 1840 AD, Chris discovered the “old world” by sailing a galley across the Bering Strait and into Siberia. He called over to me excitedly, “Kurt, I found it. I’m in Asia. There’s no one here though.” I rushed over, trying to generate some attention for Chris and to advertise to others that they too could use their knowledge of geography to “cheat” the game. Tony, Kent, and a few others looked over. I suggested that, as bizarre as it seems, it was theoretically possible. After all, the Vikings rowed over to America from Norway. I reemphasized that the most unrealistic part was probably that Chris had a reason for rowing across the Bering Strait. If someone tried to row to Alaska from Mexico without any prior knowledge of what was on the other side or clear incentive for doing so, they would probably be seen as crazy. Twice before I had seeded discussion with the idea of using real history as a strategy for game play, but no one had taken the bait until now.

Exploring the world was also a hook for Dan and Tony, and gradually it drew Shirley into the game as well. Shirley (Egypt in 2670 BC) enjoyed exploring continents and spent most of her first few weeks of the unit exploring Africa and Asia with her warriors. She defined her goal as “to explore the world,” and, sure enough, she spent nearly all of her time producing warriors and exploring in order to accomplish this. Unfortunately, as a result, she did not manage her cities’ production, worry about which technologies to discover, build an infrastructure, or negotiate with other civilizations. In fact, on day 9, Shirley still did not know where to find her civilization’s year or government on the screen, indicating that she had little interest in anything other than exploring and that she probably was not drawing strong connections between her game and history. By day 10, however she readily recalled this information for researchers, indicating that she was learning the game interface and even paying attention to interacting variables, namely, her technologies and economy. Over the next few days, Shirley started attending to more than one or two variables, realizing that, in order to support a large army of workers, she would need to build a stronger economy. “I don’t get why I don’t have more money,” she complained. “I have a servant. Look at him digging and digging.” I laughed, agreeing that Shirley’s “servants” (workers) seemed to be working hard. I explained that she would need to generate more commerce if she wanted to have such a large army and showed her how to optimize food, trade, and industrial production by strategically locating cities near resources. By Day 12, Shirley was very invested in the game. She told researchers, “I want to take home my saved game and play it. I think a friend of mine has a copy of the game.” Shirley’s interest in Civilization III grew out of an interest in geography, and within three days, she became so interested in the game that she wanted to take home a copy.

Dan, more than any other student, was intrigued by the idea of trying to “rewrite history”. His goal was to build a strong military for defense against new world colonists so that Native Americans held on to their own lands. When asked his goals for the game, he became very animated, saying, “I’m going to build a huge empire and hold off all those Europeans. Bring it on!” Dan and I discussed the challenges of trying to make new discoveries when there was no one for the Iroquois to trade technologies with. I explained that the Egyptians were probably making discoveries much more quickly since they could trade with the Romans, Babylonians, Bantu, and Carthaginians. He looked at me worriedly, realizing that his fate may rest not just in his ability to build a defense but to also keep up in the technology race. However, in post-interviews, an interviewer asked Dan about the historical forces behind colonization, and Dan attributed colonization to population density and cultural issues, omitting the issue of technology altogether when explaining the forces behind colonization.

Over the next several days, Dan’s primary struggle was figuring out how to support an army large enough to hold off European colonists while also building an economic infrastructure. He hoped to control North and South America before the Europeans come to colonize the Americas. When they arrived, he tried to quickly trade for horses to eliminate the colonists’ military advantage. At that moment, one of his friends walked into the classroom and asked what him was doing. Dan responded, “Changing the course of history.”

Waging War

Simply waging war was a motivator for a few students. Dwayne (Japan, unrealistic map³¹, 1200 AD) wanted help generating more income to compete with the Chinese. This was the first time that he had asked for help all term. I could not figure out what the problem was, noting that Dwayne was much wealthier than most students. Dwayne had built roads, irrigation, and mines across the entire civilization and was using his resources to their maximum efficiency. He explained that he used money to buy technologies from other civilizations rather than trading. His strategy was to ally with the Chinese against the English. He used the Chinese to weaken the English. In the meantime, he would build reserves near the Chinese boarder. When the Chinese were also weakened, he would enter a peace treaty with the English and ally against the Chinese, his ultimate enemies. Everyone within earshot marveled at his Machiavellian instincts. Dwayne bragged how he had been reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which he found helpful for the game. For the first time in the unit, a student had used history as a tool for understanding his game play without my prompting.

Soon, Dwayne had built trading and military outposts across the globe. I commented on how this strategy was similar to 20^th century U.S. military strategy in the South Pacific, providing him an inroad for using the game to think about history and modeling other ways that real history could be used as a tool for game play. He updated me on his delicately balanced alliance with the English, Indians, and Chinese, shaky global alliances that kept leading to war. I compared this to the “entangling alliances” that historians cite as a cause of World War I. Dwayne rubbed his chin and said that maybe he could a similar strategy to get back at China. Dwayne was scrutinizing history for causal patterns in order to achieve his game goals – namely to lead the English into war against China.

Dwayne’s game play soon became a tool for other players. Bill, Kent, Chris, and Tony periodically came over to watch his game, particularly when there was an event, such as Dwayne’s capital city celebrating “We love the King Day” or his civilization entering a “Golden Age”³². Tony and Chris listened as Dwayne and I discussed the benefits of Golden Ages. Dwayne explained how he stayed ahead of other civilizations by trading away older, non-militaristic technologies such as astronomy to the Germans before the other civilizations did. “See, I buy technology off of China and then sell it to the Greeks. Or, I conquer an English city, gain their incense, and then sell it to the Chinese.” He then explained how he was going to war with England for dyes and fur in order to “control the luxuries and make my people happy.” I joked, “It’s interesting that you’ve decided to go to war for luxuries, for natural resources. You guys really are American.” Tony, Chris, and Dwayne laughed. I had drawn a direct comparison between real history and the game and the students had understood it, evidenced by their laughter.

After Dwayne, Andrea was the only student who spent most of the time fighting wars. Andrea (Egypt, 925 BC) was at war with the Babylonians, Romans, Greeks, and Carthaginians. As I walked by, she shouted, “Someone plopped a city in my territory!” (The Romans had built a city in what is now western Egypt). Immediately, Andrea sent two warriors and a spearmen unit to capture the city.

“What are you doing, Andrea?” I asked.

“They can’t just come in here” she said, with a hint of swagger.

I laughed, “No wonder you’re always at war.”

You’ve got that right. You don’t mess with me.”

Andrea was worried that the Romans would take over her capital. I advised her to think about building a stronger economy through settling the upper Nile. She finally explored the rest of the Nile and found fertile river valleys, plentiful gold deposits, and ample horses and incense, but was concerned about defending her civilization. We discussed how to balance the competing needs of expansion versus defense. Andrea was protective of her peoples and hostile toward whoever threatened them, but she still was not considering relationships among geography, economics, and politics. Although clearly invested in the game, she was preoccupied with defending her civilization against invaders instead of examining the multiple interacting variables that crucially shaped the growth of her civilization.

By day 11, Andrea (Egypt, c. 970 AD), had realized the importance of these major variables. She began to realize that her infrastructure was weak because she had spent all of her resources over the past 4000 years at war. She had only discovered mathematics by 1000 AD, putting her far behind other civilizations in technology. Andrea was down to three cities, her economic infrastructure had collapsed, and her cities were in civil disorder. I suggested that keeping her cities from rioting might be worthwhile. On day 12, Andrea attempted one last attack on the Romans and then finally gave up her war-trodden game to start over. During this subsequent game, Andrea asked me for regular advice. I showed her how to manage her city production and citizen happiness for the third time. She began asking me about concepts such as map-making, harbors, and galleys. It was the first time that Andrea had shown any interest in learning historical game concepts, reading the Civilopedia or building city improvements. Finally, these concepts had become tools for her to solve a problem that she cared about, namely, protecting her people.

Socially-Mediated Play

Both Kent and Bill played their games in relation to other players more explicitly than any other students. Bill (Bantu 775, BC) noted that Dwayne was doing much better than him and asked how to get an empire like Dwayne’s. Dwayne, who was something of a loner, was far too engaged in his game to notice Bill, let alone help him. I gave Bill several mini-lessons that described the concept of luxuries and suggested that he look for other luxuries when choosing where to build cities. I showed him how to build roads to bring dye back to his city, which would make people happy and increase trade. I gave him hints on defending his civilization. He was at war with the Russians, Egypt, Germans, and Romans, but now had created peace and was building more cities. By Day 10, he learned to strengthen his infrastructure, build roads, and gather dyes in order to “expand his empire to be more like Dwayne’s.” As I left class, Bill commented to me, “You know, I didn’t really like it at first, but now that I get it, this game is pretty cool.” In post interviews, Bill explained what he learned playing as the Bantu:

Interviewer: What did you learn about starting in Africa?

Bill: That it (colonization) wasn’t just luxuries. Everything was there (in Africa). Egypt had like the horses and my people just traveled on foot. It wasn’t like horse and carriage or something like that.

Interviewer: What were the challenges to starting in Africa?

Bill: I had to stay in this little peninsula (sub-Saharan Africa). I wanted to go across the water. Going across the water. I wanted to go past stuff but I couldn’t. We had not boats or nothing like that.

Kent spent much of the class helping other students, advising them on what technologies to pursue despite the fact that he was not one of the stronger players in class. Kent was particularly fond of acquiring mathematics technology because it led to catapults and engineering. At one point, Kent stumbled over the word “contemptible.” He asked Dwayne “What does contemptible mean? Russia thinks my peace terms are contemptible.” Dwayne responded, “That means they don’t like it.” Other times Kent asked questions, made comments, or analyzed different strategies for playing the game while watching Dwayne. For Kent much of the fun was getting to collaborate with friends.

Chris, Dwayne, and Bill stayed after school to play Civilization III. I stayed behind as a supervisor, observing games and giving advice. Obviously, we had come a long way since the first few days of the unit when students were largely unwilling to even play the game. Now, students had clear game goals and were using me as a tool for game play. Chris asked what strategy I would use to avoid wars on multiple fronts. I showed him how he could be more efficient by balancing his cities’ production and more productive by building an infrastructure of mines and roads. I drew historical analogies to the economic and military impact of superhighways in Germany and the United States.

Dwayne asked me, “What do you hope people learn through this?”

Bill interjected, “It is better than reading books.”

Recognizing that students were going out on a limb for me, giving the game a chance and now staying after school to play, I met them half way, explaining my goals for the unit. I tried to make my next example one that would make a direct link between success in the game and learning about history. “Well, for example, those of you who played in America, were there horses in North America?” Students looked at their maps and realized there were no horses indigenous to the Americas. I asked them to imagine that they were the Iroquois or Aztecs, who have no horses, and imagine how much slower exploration would be and how much weaker their military would be. I described the historical importance of cavalry, using the examples of Spanish conquistadors battling the Incans. “One thing I think you’ll get from the game,” I explained, “is a real appreciation for the impact of geography on history.”

Next I showed them the technology chart in the Civilopedia that shows how all of the technologies are linked together. I explained that grasping the broad flow of technological discoveries is difficult and that, hopefully, the game could help them tie together such concepts. I added that playing Civilization III might give them a framework for understanding when and where, for example, the Egyptians lived and how they compared to the Greeks or the Romans. Although I was doing all of the reflection here, I thought that modeling how the game could be used both to stimulate questions about history and to provide a tool for thinking through world history issues.

Dwayne was no longer paying attention, so I focused on Bill’s game more specifically. I gave an example that I thought might intrigue Dwayne as well, testing my emerging hypothesis that students would listen to information if it direct pertained to their game play. “Take your game as the Bantu, Bill. One thing you will have to deal with is the geographic isolationism of the Bantu. There is no one for you trade with. Where are you going to grow? On the North, you have the Sahara Desert to contend with. It takes forever to walk across there.” Using the game as a communication device, I scrolled across Africa, noting the size of the Sahara and the natural resources in Africa. “Now, one thing that is unrealistic about the game is that you, as the player, can learn from history. You know that there are other civilizations out there to keep up with in technology. You know that Europeans or other Africans might colonize your lands if you don’t build up your civilization.” I paused a moment, giving them a chance to think it over. Then I pointed out that thinking about these issues might just be a pretty good way to learn geography.

Bill went back to his game. He told Dwayne that he “struck peace with the Cleopatra lady (Egyptians) and discovered the ‘technology with the curtain’” (literature, represented by an icon of a curtain). I began to realize how little most students integrated game vocabulary into their conversations without my prompting. They talked about discoveries that they were already familiar with but were far less likely to use words such as despotism, monarchy, or literature. Whether this was a matter of not understanding the underlying concept or just not knowing the term was ambiguous, but a goal of mine was to enable students to develop a familiarity with these terms, and it was clear that students were not taking up such a vocabulary very readily.

I used the last five minutes of class to give just-in-time lectures based on the day’s events. Noticing that students paid little attention to lectures decontextualized from their gaming activities, I tried to base my comments on events that I saw happening in students’ current games. On day 12, I gave a mini-lecture on the importance of resources and geography in game play. I drew a chart on the board listing students’ civilizations and several key factors, such as available luxuries, access to horses (y/n), and technologies being discovered. I polled students as they played, filling in the chart with data from four games (2 Egypt, 2 Iroquois). Six people turned around and gave me their attention at the board – a record for this unit. I asked them what they noticed about the chart. Kent called out, “Egypt is the only one that has horses.” I asked the class, “People playing the Iroquois, do any of you see horses in North or South America?” Tony and Chris answered, “No.” We used these aggregated game statistics (See Table 4.1) to identify patterns in game play. My goal was to give students a broader data set to make inferences from.

I continued, “How do you think this will affect your game?” Jason answered that they will develop more slowly. Dan mentioned that it would make fending off the Europeans more difficult. Tony observed that the Iroquois are located near great iron deposits. Dan, Jason, and Tony all mentioned that the biggest difference playing the Iroquois was that they were severed from the global trade of Africa, Europe, and Asia.

The following day I noted several students trading with other civilizations, so I led a group discussion about isolationism versus alliances. I wrote two columns on the board and had students call out the advantages of each. Students pointed out that trade had helped them gain technologies faster but had also left them at risk of being attacked with their own technologies. Isolationism, on the other hand, was safer in the short run but made it harder to stay ahead in technology. In Jason’s words, “Isolation is bad because you have to do everything yourself. You move very slowly.” Dan countered that “they can use your technologies against you if you trade.” Norman, Kathy, and Bill, all of whom had computer problems, left before the discussion ended, obviously frustrated with their games. I stayed after to help a few students (including Dan, Tony, Chris, and Dwayne). I noticed that the students who stayed late the previous day (Bill, Jason, Chris, Tony, and Dwayne) were much more comfortable with the game than their peers and were making greater progress. I offered to stay after school to help students on whatever days the lab was open and used the time to observe students’ games. Three or four students stayed after on most days, and soon others realized that those who played after school were progressing much more rapidly.

Technology Failures

Technical issues continued to create frustration for some students. However, there was perhaps one positive consequence of these technical failures: A few students who hadn’t taken up the practice of playing the game recursively on their own were now forced to do so, trying out strategies, seeing how they played out, and then retrying a new strategies. On the 13^th day, for example, Andrea and Bill each lost about 10 hours of work. Bill lost the better part of two days of game play which he had spent mapping out Africa, clearing jungle around Congo, and building a small infrastructure around four cities. When he realized that he had to start over again, he shouted in anger, “I’m about to hate this game!” I had noticed Bill struggling with his economy, so I showed him how to sell off technologies like Dwayne had. Bill recovered the following day, explaining that his goal for the day was to “do the same as yesterday….only better.” He added, “I’m thinking of declaring war on the Egyptians. I don’t like what they’re up to up there.” Bill showed me where the Egyptians are located on the map, noting their Southward progress into sub-Saharan Africa.

Jason (Egypt, 760 AD) also suffered from continual technical problems. When his computer crashed, he used this as an opportunity to change games. He oscillated between playing the Iroquois and Egypt, alternately giving up on the Iroquois because “being isolated in North America was too hard” and then the Egyptians because “fighting the other civilizations in Egypt was too difficult.” Today he returned to his Iroquois game (650 AD). Although he was still just researching mathematics, he was quite wealthy, but unaware that he was falling behind technologically. We discussed how his major challenge was that he had no one to trade technologies with: “Remember when you were the Egyptians. You could trade with other civilizations, gaining all kinds of technologies through trade. Imagine what is going to happen when your civilizations meet.”

Unpacking Realism

Jason was more concerned about the immediate threat posed by hordes of barbarians, who were coming down from Canada on horseback, than about his long-term survival. About 17 units appeared (an ungodly number), and we both agree that this was both unfair and probably unrealistic. I explained to Jason that the barbarians were meant to represent other Native American tribes, so the idea that they might attack his civilization was not totally unjustified; in fact, the scenario was designed to show this dynamic. However, that fact that these Native American populations had already obviously obtained horses was dubious. Later, I observed Jason studiously examining the technology tree, a concept map which depicts the history of technologies starting with the alphabet or bronze working and leading up to rocketry, lasers, and the cure for cancer. Jason’s interest in the technology tree was surprising, if only in that he was the first person in class to show any interest in reading it. Most veteran Civilization III players find the technology tree strategically useful and intellectually intriguing. I made a mental note to show the technology tree to more players.

Kathy and Miranda still struggled with the initial stages of game play, such as saving games or preventing civil disorder – game problems that other students mastered in the first few days. Miranda was frequently absent. At my request, Dwayne showed Miranda how to fix several of her problems. Kathy (Aztecs, 430 BC) attended class regularly but still wrestled with game problems, forgot how to build new cities, and did not know how to change cities’ production – all very basic procedures. Sandy, who helped Kathy on days when she could, handed her a real map and asked her where her civilization was on the map. Kathy did not know, but with prompting, guessed “North America?” and pointed to Venezuela. Her civilization was in Mexico. Sandy and Kathy went to the next room to look at a map more carefully. I tried making several connections between the game and social studies, for example, explaining how to generate more income by creating more commerce. I walked them through a thought experiment: “Imagine if Boston had no roads coming in or out, so that every time a farmer wanted to sell corn, pottery, or jewelry, she had to carry them in without any roads. Roads allow food to get in more quickly and create more trade.” I worked with Kathy for several days, but she sounded overwhelmed and tired. I asked Sandy about Kathy’s difficulties, and Sandy asserted that although Kathy performed relatively well in school, she was better at memorizing facts than thinking conceptually. Although Civilization III was a engaging for most students, it wasn’t for all. Finding ways of engaging Kathy would remain a challenge.