I had heard of Civilization 6 for a long time before utilizing it in this course. Personally, I do not choose to play real-time strategy games in my everyday life. However, after playing this game for several hours, I see the protentional in using it in an educational setting.
To begin, I would start any lesson utilizing Civilization with a comprehensive overview of the function of the game. I found tutorials of the game over an hour-long, and that seems completely appropriate given what I have seen of the game so far. In my first session playing the game, I was completely discouraged because I couldn’t figure out most of the functions. For example, I didn’t understand the turns, so I was just moving my screen around, not knowing what to do. I also didn’t know that you could set any character to move multiple moves ahead of time, so for the first part of the game, I moved each character every single turn. This took a long time and meant that I did not make it very far into the game. I also did not have a good sense of if I was doing well at any moment in the game. It was all just kind of confusing, especially that first day.
If these problems were to arise with a high school student while experiencing the game, I think it would be detrimental to that lesson. I feel like a student would easily become discouraged if these problems arose with their games.
Though not set in a particular period, the game does provide important accurate historical content in some areas. These areas are the ones that I believe would be ideal for expansion in the classrooms. The main areas that incorporate historical information are the leaders of nations, which appear with biographical information in the game, and perks, which all have some basis in reality or mythos surrounding the civilizations.
For example, my Civilization was England. My leader was Queen Victoria. My perks included one concerning the British Museum and another concerning the naval power of my country. All of these have a basis in reality that could be expanded upon within a class. Queen Victoria was a real person and assessing her character biography and in-game personality as a foe could make for an interesting activity. This could be done with all the leaders, and assessing why certain leaders were chosen over others, and what they represent.
I claimed on Wednesday that the Mayan Leader in the game, Lady Six Sky, was a fictional character, I was mistaken. She was real and very impressive.
A similar assessment could be made by students in the case of the perks. In the England example, both perks point to historical concepts; England’s history as an imperialist nation, and its history as the major naval power in the world for much of its history.
The gameplay elements are also important for providing historical context to the games. Though less of a direct historical connection than the perks and leaders, they do provide important information on the near-universal elements that contribute to the building of civilization. Some of these elements include culture, industry, and religion. These are similar to the “Social, economic, and political” elements of societies that I was taught to recognize when in high school.
I was not a fan of the idea of searching for inaccuracies while playing the game. I just did not think that this was a productive line of reasoning while playing the game. Obviously, the civilizations did not exist at the same time. A certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy it, like all historical media. However, I do believe that examining the elements of society and how they differ from reality. Religions can differ, the industry can easily differ, technologies can differ. I think that examining this could be productive.
My one criticism of Civilization is that it seems to trivialize elements of how cultures form. Making it seem as though things like the development of religion is a conscience choice is inaccurate. This is one of the criticisms that we read about in the Chapman article, and I don’t completely disagree with this. However, in the classroom, we could use this as a good jumping-off point for discussing how and why religion actually forms.
I think that Civilization could be a good starting point for incorporating video games into the classroom. Unlike other games, Civilization wears its biggest historical inaccuracy on its sleeve. I think that this could be a turn-off for some people, but getting over that, Civilization provides an interesting simulation of how modern society was formed.