Test run #3

Started a new game with T and PP. I went back to playing the role of full-time observer and adviser. Only four AI nations. Easier for beginners. Progress still slow, but understandably so. Looking up help files along the way. Also gave tips and strategy guidance.

Here's a screenshot of the game circa 975 B.C. Note the AI Filipino explorer trapped by T's Ryukyuan control of a choke point since about 3800 B.C.



Here's another screenshot of the same game, this time using a Japanese language interface. Note the legion and warriors controlling Singapore's mountainous border with the Quebecois. PP has been extremely cautious ever since her neighbor refused to accept an extended olive branch early in the game.



This is a screenshot of the game using the R-Hires! tileset, which is a work in progress and is based on the fun, cartoony, and also incomplete Worms tileset. When the Filipinos built San Fernando, T realized that her thus-far peaceful neighbor was dangerously in possession of access to a mobility corridor leading straight to Naha, so she immediately built Nago to seal off that access route. Kadena was also built to further secure her border. Note the absence of any border troops outside the cities. They are all fortified inside Nago, Kadena, and Yomitan -- look for the hoisted flag above the cities to determine if a city is defended. This was meant to make the Filipinos feel less nervous. After all, how would you feel if an obviously more powerful nation were to deploy its forces in plain sight of your border cities? Oh wait, isn't that what the world's only superpower is doing right now to China and North Korea? :)

Test run #2

Started a new game with T and PP. After conferring with them, I decided to take part in it as well, to show them by example how to play. Turned out to be a bad decision. I was unable to focus much attention on helping them out because I expanded so quickly that I drew the ire of all neighboring AI nations. Spending several centuries of game time waging warfare and fending off invaders, I did not realize until it was too late that T was in trouble because she chose two very food-deficient locations to build her first cities. PP, in the meantime, took a while to understand the differences between city workers (citizens) and worker units (crippled settlers that should probably be renamed laborers or something to avoid confusion).

Lessons learned:

• Teach the basics first and teach them well
• Don't assume players have read the most essential parts of the quick-start guide
• Reduce the number of AI nations to make the expansion phase easier for beginning players
• Be a full-time adviser instead of trying to "lead by example"

Preliminary research (more)

To assess the potential of using Freeciv as a teaching tool in studying international relations and various other subject matters, it is necessary to go beyond simply assessing the degree of difficulty involved in learning or teaching the game itself. One must also analyze how realistic the game truly is in regard to its treatment of government types, diplomacy, international trade, etc. Careful attention must also be paid to the values and beliefs endorsed by the game -- explicit and implicit -- so that such values and beliefs are not unconsciously internalized by students and deemed universal in a world of vastly different cultures and civilizations.

Some articles of interest:

• Poblocki, Kacper, "Becoming-state: The bio-cultural imperialism of Sid Meier's Civilization," Focaal - European Journal of Anthropology, No. 39, 2002, pp. 163-7. A compelling account of the ideological and cultural context of the Civilization series, and a new conceptualization of strategy games as virtual empowerment tools.
• Myers, D. (in press), "Bombs, barbarians, and backstories: Meaning-making within Sid Meier's Civilization," in M. Bittanti (Ed.), Ludologica: Videogames d'autore, Milan, Italy: Edizioni Unicopli. A counterclaim to culturalist arguments that gamers are likely to be indoctrinated by embedded cultural values, reasoning instead that play and replay serve as a deculturalization process because dedicated players are increasingly more likely to treat game elements exactly as such.
• Friedman, Ted (forthcoming), "Civilization and Its Discontents: Simulation, Subjectivity, and Space," in Greg Smith (Ed.), Discovering Discs: Transforming Space and Genre on CD-ROM, New York University Press. An acknowledgment of some "questionable ideological premises" of Civilization II that nonetheless argues that players can transcend those assumptions because repeated play forces gamers to focus instead on learning how the software is put together in order to win.