An author at Tech Central Station writes about a video game that even I would enjoy:
The fourth entry in the acclaimed Civilization series is based on the same premise as its three predecessors: you are a small, nomadic tribe in 4000 B.C. Your goal: rise to pre-eminence over all other tribes during the course of history. You will build cities, muster armies, conquer science, discover religions, implement economic and social policies, and even build spaceships.
Civilization IV offers endless choices: will you become an introspective, paranoid fascist state? A freewheeling free market republic? A Christian monarchy? An agrarian slave empire? Will you conquer through military force? Cultural supremacy? Economic might? Civilization IV allows your tribe to win by achieving mastery in any one of six different categories, based on your preferred strategy. And I haven't even scratched the surface of the game's myriad features. Great prophets? Competing religions? Wonders of the world? Transportation grids? Espionage? Diplomacy? It's all in the game, and more besides. Civilization IV also allows players to personalize their experiences. You can choose from one of eighteen tribes, and select your leader (Queen Victoria? George Washington? Caesar?) from one of twenty-six historical eminences, each with unique strengths and abilities. . . .
Sounds great, though, based on the following, the game has its cosmic problems:
But as much as I love Civilization, I can't embrace many of the historical assumptions that the designers coded into the game. A Whiggish progressivism permeates the game's outlook; civilizations invariably grow and flourish unless outside forces stunt or destroy them. Governments and religions have only utilitarian value; freedom and decency are not uniquely useful in Civilization IV. The superiority of the modern to the medieval is everywhere assumed, and the atomization and ennui of contemporary life is thoroughly ignored. To be sure, the game takes cognizance of unhappy citizens and social unrest, but civil wars, religious schisms, and collapses into barbarism simply don't happen in Civilization IV. These absences make for a smoother and more entertaining game, but not a more realistic one.
Civilization IV is highly modifiable; amateur programmers can easily adjust the rules and database to create unique variants on the core game. Some programming genius needs to write a conservative Civilization variant, one in which virtue is as prized as much as science, art, and industry. We need a game in which players must confront the declining birth rates and eroding religious convictions that tend to accompany the spread of literacy and modern labor. We need a game in which bored, affluent citizens can descend into decadence, selfishness, and contempt for the social and economic mechanisms that make their affluence possible. We need a game in which advanced civilizations can defeat themselves.
In the great Civilization IV game that is the modern world, the West is in no danger of losing to an outside civilization. Osama bin Laden will not beat us to Alpha Centauri. China will not acquire cultural hegemony over the world with its thrilling movies and catchy pop tunes. Africa will not send tank columns to capture our capital cities. But the West may lose to its own self-disgust. Our appetite for wealth outpaces our willingness to produce it; our sense of justice grows ever more rarefied even as our capacity for self-discipline declines; and our achievements cannot keep pace with the speed with which we forget our own history.
Link.
