Repurposing old writing

Found something I wrote several years ago while teaching English composition. It's a writing sample for an assignment to describe a hobby. I updated the links. This could serve as a brief introduction to Freeciv for real beginners. :)

Freeciv 101: Essentials of World Conquest

On lazy Saturday afternoons (when was the last time these came along?), I like to while away the time building pyramids, researching advanced military technologies, building libraries and universities in dozens of cities, and conquering nations. Yes, my favorite hobby is ruling the world.

Okay, it's just a computer simulation, but I'm quite content being an armchair emperor. For a wannabe Napoleon Bonaparte or Julius Caesar with grand ambitions but no real opportunities to stretch his wings, Freeciv is truly a godsend.

Freeciv is the name of a free multiplayer computer game that simulates the advance and clash of civilizations from the dawn of history to modern times. As many as thirty players can join a game, via the Internet or a local area network. It can also be played alone, against AI opponents.

As the (seemingly immortal) leader of a civilization, the player's goal is to ensure the survival and prosperity of that civilization. With the right diplomatic, economic, scientific, and military decisions -- and a little bit of luck -- the puny tribes of Stone Age settlers eventually grow to become powerful, sprawling nations capable of discovering a cure for cancer, waging war with cruise missiles and stealth bombers, and even launching colony spaceships to the nearest star system. Some poorly managed civilizations, however, simply fade away.

I have a few tips for you in case you ever feel an itch to embark on world conquest:

• Explore and expand. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. If you don't claim a piece of land, somebody else will.
• Don't be a Saddam Hussein. People generally hate despots. Corruption is often rampant under totalitarianism. Research a different government type early and go for a revolution as soon as you can. Rule as a monarch or consul, or even a president. Keep your people happy, no matter how you rule. They will be more productive that way.
• Continue to establish new trade routes to distant cities. More trade equals more tax dollars, more money for scientific research, and more cash for the war chest.
• Make allies and sign treaties. Talk to other players online, share maps, and trade technologies. Diplomacy is a useful art to master, whether your secret desire is world peace or world conquest.
• Clean up the environment. If pollution starts to rear its ugly head in overcrowded cities, be sure to build recycling centers and mass transits. Go for cleaner energy sources like hydroelectric power, whenever possible.
• Make good use of the extensive in-game help system. Every available technology, unit, terrain type, city improvement, and wonder of the world is explained in great detail.

Victory is yours if you are the most powerful civilization in the world by 2000 A.D., if you eliminate all other civilizations, or if you win the space race by being the first to send a ship to Alpha Centauri.

Freeciv can be played on just about any operating system in existence. Download it now and give it a try! When you're ready to test your mettle, drop me a line, and we can explore the world together -- occasionally sacking each other's cities and shaking hands afterward. It will all be good fun for one lazy Saturday afternoon.

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Freeciv homepage:
http://www.freeciv.org
Freeciv for Windows XP, 2000, NT:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freeciv/Freeciv-2.0.5-win32-gtk2-setup.exe?download
Freeciv for Windows 95, 98:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freeciv/Freeciv-2.0.5-win32-setup.exe?download

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.

Test run #1 (cont'd)

Created a 7.5-minute screen capture video showing how to log in to Freeciv, pick a nation, and start playing. Demonstrated the basics of movement, settlement, and goal establishment. Embedded the video in one of the introductory PowerPoint presentations.

We continued the first exploratory game from a couple of days ago and played a few more hours today. Looks like a lot of effort really needs to be invested in learning the game mechanics before any knowledge about international relations in the real world can be imparted effectively.

T said she forgot all about what she was trying to do with her cities and units, and brought up the idea of writing down her strategies and objectives. That's great! In fact, that's one writing activity I've wanted to implement from the very beginning. In my notes several months back when I first envisioned teaching ESL writing using Freeciv, I scribbled:

Each turn, each player writes a sentence, paragraph, article, or even a poem, song lyrics, etc. summarizing important events that took place in regard to that player's civilization that turn, including technological discoveries, founding of new cities, commissioning of new military units, construction of new city improvements, battles and wars with other civilizations, treaties signed or broken, verbal agreements between leaders, inauguration of new bridges and railroads, establishment of trade routes, annexation of new territories, establishment of new governments, setting of new research goals, formulation of new security/diplomatic/development strategies, new fiscal policies, new high in government revenue, demographic figures, etc.

Ten-round strategic review articles or commentaries can also be written from the perspective of historians, scholars, policymakers, or journalists.

We've got a long way to go yet.

Test run #1

A trial run was conducted today with the help of T and PP. First, I ran two introductory PowerPoint presentations, one showing Freeciv screenshots and another showing game objectives and learning objectives. The first one was well-received because of all the graphics, but the second one was too long and offered too much information that made little sense to present so early in the process.

After the presentations, we jumped right into an exploratory game that lasted almost four hours, with frequent interruptions including lunch. (G)oto was easy to teach. (B)uild City was also straightforward enough. Setting technology goals and switching city production to settlers turned out to be more difficult to explain because they involved also learning about the technology tree, grand objectives, and food surpluses. Techtree v3.0 by David W. Pfitzner proved to be most useful in helping T and PP visualize the technology tree and long-range goals.

Preliminary research (objectives)

1. To assess the difficulty of teaching Freeciv to non-gamers

2. To assess the potential of Freeciv as a teaching tool in studying

• strategy
• international relations
• intelligence analysis
• governance
• security
• diplomacy
• negotiation
• history of technology
• journalistic writing

3. To leverage knowledge gained from #1 into the development of an effective and easy-to-follow tutorial package that includes at least

• a video introduction
• a PowerPoint introduction
• a game manual
• a strategy guide

4. To leverage knowledge gained from #2 into the development of an effective and easy-to-follow content guide for some or all of the listed disciplines