A Few of my Favorite Things

In my understanding, the more apparent accuracies of the game to real life:

1. The importance of roads, the the cut in travel time that ensues after developing them

2. The tracks to the game. ie. developing gunpowder leads to further nuclear research, moving from a slave society to a democracy, developing hinduism before paganism before freedom of religion.

3. The way they change clothes according to the era. The big switch being to the Industrial Era, I think, because thats the most noticable change in the workers' clothes.

4. The leaders' personalities. It makes so much sense the leaders that are more pushy than others if you know a little history about each of them.

5. The guns vs. butter dilemma... should I build the Hagia Sofia, or another musketmen? should I feed this town well, or should their production rate be really good instead?

6. The interplay of culture, religion, military, science and how the choices you make about those disciplines affect your civilization




If I had to change the game to tailor it more to our economics class, I would have the economics play a more integral role to the game. For example, I have yet to notice any large changes in anything when I adopt currency. and I would add events like "The Great Depression" in according to the year of the game, even though (as heilbroner suggests) the exact cause of it was unknown, it would still be a reality the player should have to overcome.

Science of Strategy

For my next experiment with Civ, I decided to create a military power and win the game with my hordes of soldiers and experience in conquerization.

In setting up my cities, I stumbled across the age old guns-and-butter dilemma first introduced to us early on in class. In my history class on Hitler and Nazi Germany, we learned that Hitler also faced a guns-and-butter dilemma (verbatim, guns-and-butter) but much more extreme. They had a choice between complete military mobilization or feeding their people. They chose military mobilization, and a few weeks later had control of both Czechoslovakia and Austria, countries which provided them with the resources they needed to feed the people.


My game was difficult in the beginning, but I kept my core cities down to four so that I would focus on speeding production in those cities to turn out a considerable army early on. I decided to develop almost exclusively the discipline of science as it would help me gain important military advantages. (ex. nuclear research to develop the atomic bomb. gunpowder. etc)

In games past, I have always preferred to develop culturally, because I like building the Hagia Sofia and the Great Pyramids, so it was different to exclude that discipline in developing my country. Also, I didn't explore much in the area of religion, until it was absolutely necessary. And then, I didn't worry about it too much- hindus or buddhists or christians, makes no difference in the game.

My strategy worked to a certain extent. Sure, my people weren't the happiest, but I was playing in a lower skill level of the game anyways, so no one up and left. So far I have taken over all of Africa and most of Europe. By the time the game is over, I hope to have completely dominated the globe... unless those pesky Americans get in the way.

Squabbling and the Alphabet

From having played Civilization on the "continent" setting and now from having played on the "world" setting, I've come to the conclusion that the major difference between the two is in amount of conflict among the other leaders.

I haven't gone a good three turns into the Industrial Era when this leader is fighting with this one, he wants me to cancel deals with her, she's demanding technologies from me, he wants to go to war...

The amount of effort required to stay on good terms with the neighbors and important allies gets to be ridiculous. I must have given 3 different civilizations the alphabet to make up for not canceling my open borders with the others!

But anyways, I've been working on developing my technology because I want to be the first to develop guns, as Diamond really stresses the importance of them in dominating civilizations. Since I am playing on a lower experience level, I am leaps and bounds ahead of everybody in developing anything, so I am going to wait until I have all the great advancements of gunpowder and maybe airplanes before I start a war for more land.

Heilbroner lauded the invention of automobiles as the spark of America's development, but I figure even Africa could use the mobilization.

Currency Confusion

After a recent hiatus from playing Civ, I dived right into a game starting as the Egyptians. I thought it would put me in a prime location as they originated from around the Fertile Crescent, an area Diamond stated as being geographically advantaged.

I built my cities, developed everything, and I am well on my way to having all of Africa mine.

My confusion lies with my money, however. The fluctuation of my budget confuses me. One turn I am making +16 in gold. 3 turns later and I'm -4.

To counterbalance, I have my workers create a lot of hamlets, and other structures that claim to provide gold. Still, I have yet to reach a consistent output (input?) of money. This is very frustrating to me, especially since I want to go to war soon. and I'm so above doing things the American way, which would be to go to war anyways and just run up the national debt.

Any suggestions for stabilization?