Civilization IV

Civilization 4 is a turn-based strategy game on a strategic scale which attempts to provide a simplified and abstracted version of the growth of many societies throughout human history. The player takes the role of the undying emperor and guides a people from barely more than a tribe to a world-conquering empire. This victory can be achieved through military force, cultural influence, winning the space race, or diplomatic unity.

Civilization presents a wide variety of choices for how your society progresses, all of which are based around real world developments. Discovering bronze working allows for your society to adapt slavery, for example. And the multiple paths to victory allow for replayabiltiy and flexibility in the games message. One of the most important aspects of CivIV is this flexibility towards your goal. You may choose a peaceful resolution, even if building up a stack of tanks and utterly crushing all those in your path is oftentimes easier (and more cathartic). Interesting choices, like these, are one of the key ideas covered in the reading and are very important to CivIV’s qualifications as a “philosophical game”.

The relative difficulty of the game’s many paths could be a messages in themselves: Victories without bloodshed are the most infrequent. Early feuds with other nations being neigh irreconcilable in the late game. Communism being a useful tool for supreme dictator for eternity. These salient points of gameplay are representations or simulations of real-world conflicts, perhaps one of the most important aspects of a “philosophical game”.

The early game is an Edenic landscape of unmolested treelines, coasts and herds of wil. By the final stages, each state is a sprawling mass of roads, cities, mines, silos and other constructs that blots out nearly every edifice of natural life. Rather than an intentional statement, the game inadvertently illustrates what we all know to be: we are growing, and we can't stop.

An example of said "late-game," where Rome's military conquest became muddied by diplomatic ties. The game has turned into a huge stalemate, leaving Rome unable to attack anyone but the punching bag England. Not pictured: the island sieges of York and several other cities. My own personal lack of focus towards a single goal (I chose peace in diplomacy but built up a mighty military) caused the game to react poorly, bogging me down. But unlike the real world, in which a vision-less leader like myself would be beheaded and replaced, the game progressed down it's bumpy old road.

Telling? Perhaps.