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.