DAY 4: Civ III as a Simulation

DAY 4: Civ III as a Simulation

Marvin (Rome) tried to use history as a guide for his game and believed that lessons he was learning in social studies class could be directly applied to the events on his screen. He had four cities packed closely together because, he explained, “Rome fell because it had spread out too far.” Marvin also kept huge cash reserves. As I was interviewing him, a list of “top civilizations” popped up and Marvin cheered excitedly because Roman civilization was the strongest in the world. “See that!” His goal for the day was to expand his cultural influence and create more religious structures. He explained, “That always helps out,” but would not get any more specific. Marvin’s game play continued to be mediated by history, which led Marvin to keeping strong borders, maintaining a strong economy, and attending to people’s happiness.

Later, Marvin (Roman, 400 AD) called out excitedly. “I lost 300 men in war so far, but I’m doing good. Taking it over little by little.” Marvin, who wanted to see each individual soldier represented visually on the game board, thought of each military unit as representing hundreds of men, and insisted on referring to his units that way. “Oh my God! Germans, Greeks, Iroquois, America… all about to attack me! The Aztecs are saving me.” These civilizations all surrounded him, effectively creating a buffer between him and the other civilizations. Marvin explained that his strategy was to try to convince Egypt to join his side and then hopefully chip away at the forces allied against him. “I need to build more cities, too,” he added as he instructed his science advisor to research the code of laws. Marvin approached the game systemically, attending to nearly every aspect of the game, ranging from military to economics to foreign negotiations. As he learned that it was impossible to take on the world alone, he became fascinated by negotiating.

Ricky (China, 1 AD) struggled to expand his civilization beyond two or three cities and to fend off the barbarians who attacked him from the North. Every time he tried to build roads to access the dyes and horses around his cities, barbarians would attack. As a result, his civilization was militarily overmatched, economically stagnant, and domestically in shambles (constant civil disorder). I showed him how to protect his cities and colonies against barbarians and helped him devise a strategy for expansion. Later (920 AD), Ricky shouted in frustration as hordes of barbarians surrounded his city and ransacked his capital. He carefully showed me where each one of the five barbarian uprisings originated on his map. He felt that being stormed by barbarians was unfair, saying, “Where do they all come from? Do they have cities? And how do they discover horseback riding and have horses when I don’t?” Ricky pointed to his civilization. “I have roads, I have cities. How do they get 15 horsemen without any cities?”

Ricky and I discussed whether or not it was “fair” that the barbarians had advanced technologies such as horseback riding or whether it was a flaw in the game logic. We discussed the differences between barbarians and civilizations (the former nomads, the latter living in settlements) and how it might be possible that nomads develop horseback riding. I explained how some barbarian groups in reality were quite rich and powerful and that, in about 600 AD, barbarians did in fact invade China, even ransacking its capital. I pointed to Ricky’s map, showing him how barbarian tribes came from the north and the west in his game, just like in history. Ricky nodded, although the historical accuracy of the scenario was little solace for the fact that his civilization had been nearly overtaken by barbarians. Here, I am encouraging Ricky to see connections between his game and history, encouraging him to examine his game play as historical simulation. Unlike Marvin, who took delight in this relationship and turned to maps and eventually history books as resources, Ricky was more just interested in beating the game.

Whenever I walked by Ricky’s desk, I was barraged with questions. For example, at one point he asked,

“What does pillage mean? And why do they keep telling me what the other civilizations are doing? I don’t care what the French are building. And how do we know what age we’re in? I heard you telling Miranda that she was in the Iron Age. How do you know that?”

I showed him how to open up the technology tree– a tool that became quite important at the Media school – to see what era he was in, as well as what technologies he needed to enter the next era. Although still frustrated about his failing game, he was perfectly willing to discuss what was happening with whoever would listen.

Amy (Iroquois) sat in a relatively isolated corner of the room, playing her game quietly. Occasionally she would chat with the other girls. Amy explained that her goal was to “make it into the 2000s,” a goal that we may have seeded by emphasizing how far along she was in the game. I asked her what strategies she had for making it into the 21^st century. She replied, “Making money, keep the people happy, build a defense.” She did not mention researching technology or science. In terms of allocating her civilization’s resources, Amy’s primary focus was on military instead of urban development, luxury goods, and economic infrastructure. As a result, she had only three cities, and was far behind other civilizations in the game. For Amy, the point of the game was to last as long as possible, so she only addressed issues which she saw as having an impact on her immediate survival. Each problem was treatable by affecting only one or two variables at a time. In part, Amy may have failed to realize that she was falling behind other civilizations because her civilization was isolated in North America and she had no opportunities to trade with other civilizations. Unwittingly, her geographic isolation had led to less feedback on the consequences of her decisions, since little competition was nearby to take advantage of weaknesses inherent in her civilization’s development. Despite her civilization’s geographic isolation (or perhaps because of it) Amy sent out a settler on a boat to find other civilizations and explore distant areas to see if she could “see something interesting.” For the first time, I realized that students playing in more populated areas receive more immediate and ongoing feedback on the consequences of their decisions. Without the capacity for failure, it seemed, students received less feedback and therefore predictably held onto less-than-ideal strategies (and perhaps less-than-accurate understandings) longer than others.

Students began investing in their own goals within the game. For example, the primary goal for Nadya and the other girls was to see who could survive the longest. Like Ricky, Nadya was attacked by Mongolian barbarians on horseback. She asked for help making horsemen so that she could fight back. She also asked why the Chinese were not listed as one of the largest countries in the world when the list of “top civilizations” appears. This omission concerned her because, if the Chinese were the biggest civilization in the world, she thought that the game should portray that accurately. I explained that the game did not necessarily represent history exactly but rather modeled some of the underlying factors behind it. So, playing as China, she might grow one of the largest civilizations in the world because of plentiful river valleys and China’s large natural borders. She struggled to understand what I was trying to say about rule-based simulations and emergent properties.

By mid-class, most of the students in the room had established personal goals for themselves within the game, understood the basic mechanics, and were well on their way toward achieving their aims. Miranda (Aztecs, 990 AD) had become particularly adept with the controls, navigation, and various windows. She read through screens and made decisions very quickly. In fact, I had to slow her down to follow what thought processes and game activities she was engaging in. Miranda had been fighting barbarians for the better part of the first few days and, in response, had decided to build up a horde of warriors to defend her cities. Her economy was now in shambles because she could not afford to pay all of her warriors. Earlier, I showed her how to build more roads and marketplaces to expand her economy. She recalled the strategy and tried it out, but it failed, so she decided to disband warriors for money. Driven by her desire (she was failing) to build a strong economy, Miranda was now trying several game strategies, examining the relationships between different systems (i.e. building an infrastructure and military spending) trying different strategies and even bucking researcher advice, when Miranda believed that her civilization could not support a large military.

A few concepts in the game caused students confusion. Vicky (Egypt 1200 AD) discovered monarchy and was confused as to whether or not she should “revolt,” stating that she “likes her people” and did not want to have a revolution. I explained that despots ruled through force and fear, whereas monarchies ruled by the general populace’s belief in her divine right to govern, meaning that her civilization would be happier and more efficient under a monarchy. She decided to revolt. Amy (Iroquois Republic, 1765 AD) struggled to manage her economy with cities that were frequently in disorder. Some students’ confusion arose from bad interface or confusing terminology, others were from misunderstandings related to game play. As in the MEDIA case, I spent considerable time helping students. In many cases, this help was in analyzing and understanding how they were not reaching their goals, whether it was making money, generating research, keeping their citizens happy, or generating a defense. In these instances, students lacked the conceptual tools to understand their game play, and I was a tool for analyzing events and creating explanations for what happened.

Sandy, Vicky, Miranda, and to a lesser extent Amy, spent the second half of the day playing separate games but developing strategies collaboratively. It began with Vicky getting up to take a look at Sandy’s game in the middle of class. She wanted to see how Sandy, who was also the Egyptians, was doing. When Vicky came back, she decided that her cities are too crowded and she needed more. Vicky had packed each of her three cities along the lower Nile, and was convinced that building cities further apart would help because some of her citizens were unhappy because the cities were “too crowded.” In reality, Vicky’s people were unhappy because the city was growing in size and social classes were emerging. I explained the difference to her, but then also emphasized that spreading out was a good idea so that she could take better advantage of natural resources. I suggested that she expand into the Arabian Peninsula to take advantage of the incense and horses and perhaps gain control of the Red Sea. I briefly explained the historical importance of the Suez Canal and showed how whoever controlled the Canal would control the Red Sea. As I left, Vicky opened up her Civilopedia and started reading about horses and chariots. She explained that she’s “interested in horses” and would like to get some. This experience altered Vicky’s game somewhat; she had little interest in military strategy or controlling territory, but she was motivated to protect her civilization through horses and bring them more luxuries. As a result, she refocused her game on settling the Upper Nile Valley.

Sandy’s (Egypt, 1305 AD) goals were to create new cities and stay alive, but unfortunately, she lost her game. As she reloaded her game, Sandy yelled out across the room, “Amy, what year are you in?” Amy was in 1765, the furthest of any students. Sandy kept a running tab on everyone’s games, reacting to their progress vocally. This discussion spurred a competition among the three girls to see who could last the longest in the game. Sandy competed with Miranda and Amy, monitoring their games and reacting to their progress.

Miranda frequently initiated conversations by asking questions, at times as a way of comparing her progress to others (and perhaps showing off a bit). After founding a new city, she asked how many cities Sandy had (she had six). After entering a “Golden Age,” she publicly (and with a proud display) asked what that was. She queried other girls for game facts, such as what an aqueduct was or if any other girls had the code of laws rather than simply look up the information in the Civilopedia. Overhearing the conversation, Nadya rolled her chair over to the other girls so that she could “get some tips” from them. Amy sat to the side, spinning in circles. The girls joked and laughed. The tone of this emergent competition was generally friendly, and rather subtle; most of the boys had little sense that this competition was occurring. It did however have a powerful effect on students’ games. Amy became increasingly concerned with only making it to the 21^st century and Sandy’s play became about keeping up with the other girls. This shift made the activity about competing with one another rather than with the game system itself, reshaping game practices away from mastering the game system and toward adopting whatever practices would most quickly advance them in years.

Miranda was less affected by this competition, as she effectively reframed the terms of the competition in order to make it winnable. At one point, Sandy tried bragging about her game. “I get horseback riding in three turns,” Sandy said.

Miranda answered, “So, I get 26 per turn.”

“26 what?” Sandy asked, as she rolled her chair over to Miranda’s desk (It was 26 gold per turn). They both looked at Miranda’s game and then scooted over one more seat to look at Vicky’s game as well, as they were now curious about Vicky’s game. Vicky showed Sandy and Nadya her civilization, highlighting how she had planned and organized her cities so that her people were happy. Vicky was supposed to leave early but became so engrossed in the game that she forgot all about it. Later, Sandy lost her game. As she waited for it to reload, she asked Miranda, “What are you working on?”

Miranda immediately responded, “Code of Laws. Great library.” Sandy then decided to play as the Aztecs, perhaps influenced by Miranda’s success as the Aztecs, which Sandy often made public with other students.

Amy (Iroquois 1804 AD) went back to her chair and continued playing. She explained her game to the researcher. “I’m down in Mexico right now. I went all the way around South America (via a galley).” Her goals were to explore the rest of the Earth and find a passage to Africa or Europe by boat. Because Amy did not have any other civilizations to trade with, the game was primarily about exploring. Amy’s goal was to simply last as long as possible, and as a result did not see value in building a larger network of cities for scientific research or additional production. Without being forced to fail and start over, Amy did not have to grapple with multiple aspects of the game system.

Debriefing

The teaching assistants, Tammy and Monique, spent the day helping students and playing the game. Tammy played Civilization III most of the period while Monique watched. Occasionally, Tammy asked questions, such as what “automating” meant; I explained it to her. In the last ten minutes of class, we broke for discussion. I wanted to help students draw connections between their game events and history, so I drew a timeline on the board going from 4000 BC to 1835 AD. Ricky had asked about the ancient and middle ages, so I then added them to the board. Sandy and Miranda volunteered that they were in the Middle Ages. I wrote in 1 AD to reinforce the BC / AD distinction. I asked students clarifying questions on topics that seemed to confuse them or areas of the game where they were confronting continuous failure. Ricky explained his barbarian problems. Miranda joined the discussion, adding that she had problems trading technologies. This discussion showed how students were frequently willing to share frustrating failures, and that whole group discussions (in this case) could be used to support learning the game.