Three Fundamental Conditions of Human Existence

The three fundamental conditions of human existence are

1. Humans in all places and times interact with the natural environment
2. Humans in all places and times interact with one another 
3. Humans in all places and times develop and act upon ideas

Does the game reflect these fundamentals? If so, how so? Also use this post to reflect on your overall experience with the game. Does it effectively portray the nature of historical change? 


The game reflects these three fundamental conditions in various aspects.

#1 Humans in all places and times interact with the natural environment

To start, humans interacting with the natural environment connects with several themes. It connects with Patterns of Population, Economics and Networks of Exchange Technology and the Environment, and Spiritual Life and Moral Codes.

Patterns of Population is not exclusive to the first fundamental condition. With regards to humans interaction with the environment, population growth depends on where the player's civilization starts (near a body of water) and luxury resources around it. You can create farms out of deserts (seems unrealistic), but the food production effects how large a population can become. The more cities in a civilization, the longer it takes for a population to expand (more mouths to feed).

Economic and Networks of Exchange theme treats the first fundamental condition through resources. If the player's civilization does not have a resource, you can trade with other civilizations/city-states to acquire it. Also, your workers can manipulate the environment to acquire more gold (building a mine on a mountain).

Technology and the Environment is self-explanatory. The technology a civilization develops is dependent on the resources located near a civilization's starting point. As I discussed previously in the sixth theme, it would be in the player's best interest to consider technologies that benefit a civilization based on geographical location.

Spiritual Life and Moral Codes, expressed through the first condition, can manipulate religion. Discovering a world wonder (such as Mt. Fuji) can create faith and inspire people. Building faith points benefits religion and culture.

#2 Humans in all places and times interact with one another


The second fundamental condition, humans interaction with one another, is the base of the game. Civilization V is a constant balance of interaction with other civilizations. Without connect historical significance to the game, it would be a great simulation for human's reliance on society. In order to survive as a species, we must be social. Without interactions with each other, we would easily go extinct. This condition is the most important aspect to human's survival. The themes that represent this one is Patterns of Population, Economics and Networks of Exchange, Politics and Power, Society and Its Categories, and Spiritual Life and Moral Codes.

Patterns of Population is not well addressed with this fundamental condition I think. There is no interaction between cities in a civilization (like SimCity). Humans couldn't exist if the leader, the player, did not control how the civilization will grow. The population in the game is decided with how the leader interacts with his/her civilization.

Economics and Networks of Exchange is also self-explanatory like technology and the environment. By trading with other civilizations/city-states, you increased the survival rate of your civilization. Trading with multiple civilizations increased culture, science, and even production within your civilization. The more interactions, the better.

Politics and Power is expressed through the leader's diplomatic relationships with the other leaders and military power. This interaction is almost counter-intuitive to economics, but a balance of it ensures a victory. Without power, the other civilizations can claim victory and dominate your civilization.

Society and Its Categories is almost non-existent in this game. Leaders can have some Gender Role, but it stretches the idea. No familial ties, kinship, or interactions in the civilizations you control. The theme is directly connected to the second fundamental condition, but not expressed in the game.

Spiritual Life and Moral Codes identifies with religion in the game. Religion is HEAVILY dependent on human interaction. With no other civilizations, religion can not spread. Missionaries and Great Prophets would have no purpose if there was no one else to interact with. 

#3 Humans in all places and times develop and act upon ideas

This last fundamental condition can be found in all the themes. Without the ideas of humans, the themes could not exist. We are the ones creating the categories and figuring how we should fit one thing in another.

Technology shapes how a civilization will look and become. The stylistic approach (artistic endeavors) is how their technology operates compared to another. Even if two civilizations reach an era, they may not have the same stylistic approaches to their architecture and units. The leaders (politics and power) come up with strategies or ideas in order to dominate other civilizations if they pursue victory within the game. As a game progresses, a civilization will build faith and can create a religion. Creation process of a religion relies on the ideas of humans.

Economically, a civilization must come up with a plan in order to become financially successful enough to support their civilization. This requires scouting and tactical diplomacy in order to access certain luxury resources that the civilization may not have. Populations grow through the ideas of the leader. Leader can focus on food production, production, cultural production, or even gold production.

All of these themes are connected with the fundamental condition. Ideas is what separates us from the other primates.
Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change. - Stephen Covey

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Spiritual Life and Moral Codes

Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Spodek approach to studying world religions in two different ways. Much like them, the game also presents world religion in a unique way that does not follow history.

FFA follows a horizontal integration approach with world religion. Horizontal integration meaning he looks how the religions are connected to each other across space and time. In the early parts of chapter nine, he examined the early rise of world religions. The three main religions he focused on were Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. 

Spodek took a much different approach. He focused on six different themes that apply to all world religions. He even included Hinduism. His six themes were the santifications of time, space, language and literature, artistic and cultural creativity, family and ancestors, and religious organizations.

Religion is a feature reintroduced in the Civilization V: Gods & Kings expansion pack. If you do not have this expansion, you are missing out. Just as in the real world, Religion consists of a series of beliefs, defining the religion's ideas and goals. In the game environment this is represented through a system of bonuses, which have a diverse set of possible effects. Bonuses can include +1 to culture, +2 to science, faster production, and even happiness.

Religion doesn't start at the beginning of the game (4000 BC). Much like the views of FFA and Spodek, the common world religions today didn't start with the beginning of man. The religions did not begin momentum until 1000 C.E. The one stat you must collect in order to begin a religion is faith. Faith is accumulated through buildings like shrines or terrain features and Religious City-States.

Once enough faith is collected, you can create a pantheon. A Pantheon is a belief in a certain God pertaining to a certain civilization. The civilization chooses which Pantheon they want (this is were the bonuses come in handy). 

Click image for more detail

I tend to pick my pantheon depending on my environment. If I am located next to the see and I know my border growth will eventually lead me to the resources, I'll pick a pantheon favoring the sea. If I know my resources can make use of camps, I'll pick a god that favors hunting. This is where Technology and the Environment and Religious and Moral Code themes overlap. The religion is shaped by the environment. Pantheons are shaped by the will of the people. They will worship and sacrifice for a god that is specific to their environment.

After you have founded a pantheon, a Great Prophet will eventually appear (through further Faith accumulation, or from completing Wonders). He has the special ability to "Found a Religion." There are eleven religions to choose from with Gods & Kings expansion, thirteen with Brave New World.

Click image for more detail

The "finding" the religion stays within a historical context because they list world religions that can be found relevant today. The neat thing about the simulator is you can choose whatever religion. French civilization can be Buddhist. Chinese civilization can become Islamic. This in my opinion, is the fun thing about the game. Free reign to go against societies organized religions.  

I personally never bothered with religion in my experience because I was too busy dominating. I know there are bonuses for fighting, but my domination victory is all about rushing and less about creating religion. Much like in real life, if you want your religion to survive, you have to spread it. It requires missionaries and prophets travelling to different civilizations and city-states preaching the word of your religion. Without this, your religion will not succeed and you run the risk of being dominated by another religion.

Click image for more detail

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Episode #3-6

I have updated more videos. I have released episodes #3 through #6. They are updated on my menu as well (hover over Videos and go down to My Gameplay). My Recent Videos are automatically updated as I upload videos on YouTube.

I recommend watching the videos in either 720p or 1080p. I do not record on the best settings (unfortunately). 

Sad part, it is only turns 60-133. Barely over 60 turns and it turns into four episodes. Oh well, it is expected. Civilization V is a long game. I plan on uploading more when I record more video. I'm getting in a groove editing these videos.

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Technology and the Environment

Technology and the Environment is used in every aspect of the game. To start, Technology is the running drive for the video game. By upgrading technologies in the tree, you can advance your civilization further. The further your civilization, the more advantages the player will have. I have seen games where I've achieved two eras before the person advanced one era. This is all based around technology.

Click here to see the image in full detail.

Technologies are the scientific advancements of your Empire. Each technology unlocks certain Buildings, Units or other advancements. It costs science points in order to advance in the technology. It is another resource that the user must build in order to advance (in addition with culture, money, food, faith). Here is the icon for science points.

As we discussed in class, societies collapse based on five factors. 

1. Human impacts on the environment.
2. Climate change.
3. Relations with friendly neighboring societies
4. Relations with hostile neighboring societies
5. Political/economic/social/cultural factors

These factors are mostly environmental factors. Environment in the game depends on the resources you can find and collect within your city or society. I will sometimes create a settler to travel to an obscure location on the map just to collect a difficult resource (I'm looking at you iron).

This is in direct correlation with item #1. 

There is no climate change within the game (I think they miss out in several other themes such as patterns of population with weather). There are no weather effects, severe storms, disasters, or any type of impact on the environment. I don't think it is fair to judge the creators of this game to not include weather. Weather effects in games takes a toll on the resources used by the video card and memory. Unless a game's code is polished (doubtful within the short time frame developers are granted), weather effects are cut from the list.

Relations with friendly or hostile neighboring societies is a fundamental element to the gameplay. How your civilization interacts with other civilizations and city-states determines your game and victory. Inaction or action, both determine the outcome of your social relationships. For example, I allied with the Mongolians. They were war-mongering civilizations and it put me in hot water as well. Other civilizations warned me if I allied with Mongolians, they would not hesitate to attack me. In one swoop, allying with certain civilizations can lead to instant hostile civilizations.

Political, cultural, economic, and social factors are another driving force within the game. It is defined with an accumulation of certain points such as cultural, science, happiness, and gold points. Political and social and intertwined in this game because the lack of social interaction within your capitals and cities. Political/social factors are related to friendly/hostile neighboring societies. Cultural and economic are approaches to the game (cultural being cultural victory) that determine if you win or lose. Economic is influenced by the amount of gold and production a civilization has. Enough gold can purchase buildings for multiple cities, units for military, and gifts for city-states. The gifts raise the reputation with the city-states.

In my opinion, Technology and Environment is THE most important theme in Civilization V. The environment shapes your civilization and technology. If you start building cities next to an ocean, it would be in the player's best interest to pick maritime type technologies. If you are next to cattle and horses, it is a good idea to build units that use horses and technologies that grant extra happiness from those resources. As Jared Diamond has stated in his book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies:

“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves”

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YouTube Problems and Future Episodes

As some of you guys (for those that are out there?) know, I'm uploading my video gameplay to YouTube and posting it to this blog. Well, YouTube has recently become more of a problem as the end of 2013. YouTube is sending out more copyright notices to YouTube content creators (even beginners like me). These copyright notices are flagged when their automated system determines that the file uploaded may contain music or footage claimed under a copyright. For both of my episodes, they have both received notices.

You can see where it says "Matched third party content"

What is ironic and funny about my videos is the "flagged" portion of the video is the soundtrack from the game. Yes, the game's music is flagging itself. It recognizes it as a soundtrack created from someone else (probably the same people who participated in the development of the game).


What’s likely happening is that YouTube or Google have implemented some sort of new algorithm which is detecting this stuff automatically, and issuing notices accordingly.

Despite all these annoying issues, I have more footage for four more episodes. I'm aiming close to 15 minutes per episode.

Well that is the update for now.

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Artistic Endeavors

Zhong Zeduan (1085-1145)
Spring Festival Along the River

What do you think about when you read the word 'Art'? Do you think paintings, statues, or expression? Here is the definition of art:


art
/ärt/

the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

For me, it is not easy to define art. First thing that comes to mind with art is paintings such as Picasso's work or Mona Lisa. Art, in regards with the game, does tackle these common ideas of art.

Art in the game is expressed in the architecture (specific to each civilization) and in the Great Works of the people a civilization can spawn.

Below is a collection of three civilizations; China, France, and America. If you look closely at the images, you can tell an architectural difference in the cities. Each civilization has a certain "style" to their building designs (much like in real life). To me, the different styles is an artistic approach.

China

France

America

Architecture in the game can also be represented by the buildings or wonders you construct. Any civilization can construct the Great Wall of China or Hanging Gardens. A few of these wonders are architectural achievements, artistic monuments. Much like the film we watched in class discussing human form. Human form can take the shape of statues. One that comes to mind (in the game) is Statue of Zeus. His human form is unrealistic (portrayed as a god) and appeals as a wonder for the people. It raises happiness levels and improves culture for the civilization.

Another note-worthy feature from the game is great works. These are NOT culture specific. China (in theory) can have Jean Clouet - Portrait of Francois I or Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night. Artists are not restricted to their specific culture (Note: Great Works are only features from Brave New World).



According to Civilization V Wikia,  They represent exceptional achievements of the culture of your civilization, capable of spreading its fame all over the globe. Unlike general Culture, which consists of, say regular theater presentations, novel writing, or the occasional inauguration of a new Monument, etc. Great Works contribute to the 'external' pressure your civilization exerts to the other civilizations, represented by the stat Tourism.

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Society and Its Categories

Society and Its Categories is not easily defined into Eras, compared to the other themes. Rather, I think it is more important to list the types of categories people can be associated with. These categories include the following:

• Kinship
• Familial
• Gender
• Age
• Class
• Political
• Religion
• Race

Throughout history, people categorize other humans for the sake of organization. I think it is human nature, across the globe, to put people into categories.

Most of my anthropological undergraduate classes poke fun at this idea on occasion. Another way to look at society and its categories is with Culture and Personality and Neo-evolutionism. This involves culture's effect on personality in regards to socialization, culture's effect on human nature, and the progression of different civilizations based on the technoenvironmental situations (similar to the ideas of Jarred Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel).

I digress. The actual connections between society and its categories pertaining to Civilization V is few. To start, we discussed women throughout global history. My ruler, Wu Zetian, is an actual topics for discussion in class.

Actual Portrait

Empress Wu Zetian in Civilization V

Most of the game does not deal with categories with the people. If the game was designed similar to Sim City, with functionality within the capitals and cities, then society and category theme would apply.  The only categories I would associate with it political, gender, and religion.  There is no class structure, familial and kinship ties, race issues, nor age (rulers are immortal) organization.

Political category goes with the Civilization you chose and its affiliates. Either choosing to gain positive or negative reputation from city-states or other civilizations the player interacts with.

Gender category is divided early in the game with the leader of the civilization. As stated, my ruler is female (one of very few in history). There are a total of 8 female rulers.

Of the 9 European civilizations, England, Spain, Portugal, France, Dutch, Austria, Germany, Russia, and Venice, 5 have female leaders. You'd think medieval Europe was a bastion of gender equality, or even discrimination against men!

Religious category is interesting to say the least. First, it is re-introduced with the God and Kings expansion. There are eleven religions to chose from (13 with Brave New World). The interesting part is you pick the religion you want. You do not have to follow history. I can be Chinese with Christianity and spread my prophet and beliefs around the world.  Religion doesn't exist at the start of a game (unlike Culture and Science, which start developing immediately after settling the Capital). It has to be created, first, and the path to this depends on the new stat -
Faith.

Religion works to influence others. This grants benefits for you such as the following:

When a City-State shares your Religion, your Influence with it diminishes 25% slower.

Sharing Religion with another nation nets you a 25% bonus to Tourism.

You can designate a Religion to be the official World Religion via the World Congress, by successfully passing the respective resolution. Once enacted, this religion spreads 25% faster than others (conversion is 25% faster, but still in the same distance), its Holy City receives a 50% Tourism bonus, and all nations following this religion will receive two additional congress delegates.

(Tourism only applies to Brave New World expansion)

I don't think this theme had has many connections compared to the rest. I think the next theme, Artistic Endeavors, will have more solid connections between the game and real life.

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Politics and Power

*Late Submission

Politics and Power has very interesting connections, and I'm making between three different things. Also, I'll attempt to answer these questions: What roles do politics play within your civilization? What roles does diplomacy play? How are power struggles represented in the game? First, let's look at the three connections.

1. Politics and power of modern day China
2. Politics and power in Civilization V with China
3. Comparing and contrasting the two using class lectures

Modern day China, also known as the People's Republic of China, is a single-party socialist state. State power is controlled by the Communist Party of PRoC and provincial/local authorities. The parts that make up the state's power include National People's Congress (NPC), President, and State Council.

These are classified as state organs instead of administrative post. A little bit of linguist analysis here says the difference between state organ and administration means they are trying to get close to a functionality of government, using words that connect each other rather than responsibilities. 

President is elected by the NPC. NPC members (2,987 total) are elected by provincial people's assemblies, who are elected by lower level assemblies, in a system of electorates. The State Council is nominated by the Premier and appointed by the President.

Very complicated system of politics; a system foreign to me. 


Politics within Civilization V thankfully are much simpler to understand (since they appeal to universals).

Civilization V starts by naming politics and power into Social Policies.

Within two of the social policies, Tradition and Liberty, there are five identifiable political policies. They are Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Legalism, Monarchy, and Republic.

Aristocracy - +15%  Production when building Wonders and +1  Happiness for every 10  Citizens in a City. 
Oligarchy - Garrisoned units cost no maintenance and cities with a garrison gain +50% Ranged Combat Strength.
Legalism - Provides a free culture building in your first 4 cities.
Monarchy - +1  Gold and -1  Unhappiness for every 2  Citizens in the  Capital.
Republic - +1  Production in every City and +5%  Production in cities when constructing Buildings.

Fun Fact: China used to practice Legalism during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC).

Picking one of these social policies grants bonuses in the game. Some of them require you to pick a certain social policy before you can advance to the next one such as Monarchy requiring Legalism.

If I compare both the game and modern day China, I can see some similarities, but mostly differences. Similarities can be things such as Legalism used to be a political policy in the Qin Dynasty. Also, the ruler (Wu Zetian) decides what kind of social policies the state will use. In this case, a single-party state, determines what kind of social policies they will chose as well.

Differences between the two is the way government is conducted. The officials are elected by provincial level electorates, not included within the game. There is no President (even when you ascend into the Modern Era), State Council, or National People's Congress. It would be very interesting if the political powers evolve as you progress technologically. When you reach the Renaissance Era, you can found the World Congress. In a sense, it works like United Nations in which people from other governments vote on resolutions, repelling or enacting them.

The roles politics play within my civilization is through city-states and other civilizations. When I come into contact with another civilization, we usually exchange embassies with each other to located each other on the map. Then we extensively trade our resources with something they may have (or provide a bonus for the "We Love the King Day") We can also trade with other city states and build stronger relationships (Friends and Allies). This can benefit the player because they will attack other civilizations if you declare war on them. They will also defend your civilization if you were declared war against. Sometimes they even supply you with additional units.

This leads into the next part, diplomacy.Diplomacy is very complicated and cumbersome. As someone in class mentioned, very difficult to achieve a victory with diplomacy alone. It consists of giving gold, luxury resources, and units away to city states and other civilizations.

This is a direct quote about diplomacy from Civilopedia:

"You can accomplish a lot through diplomacy. You can gain allies and isolate your enemies. You can create defensive and offensive pacts. You can increase your technology through cooperative research ventures. You can end wars that are going badly for you. You can bluff the credulous and bully the timid."

Power struggles within the game consists of domination based tactics. I can attack/declare war on other civilizations and control their territory and land. This will boost my luxury resources (which increase my happiness), but also increase unhappiness from population generated and razing cities during the process. City-states, to me, present no challenge. They are only beneficial when allied with them, but no threat. I build up faster armies than they can  generate. 

Overall, the progress of the game is going smooth. I have played four games so far (to also get the right recording) and only reached to the future era during one of my games. Hopefully with my new recording software, I will present a game that reaches future era.

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Episode #2

I just released Episode #2. I will try to release as many as I can during the course of the semester. I'll keep account of how many turns I've made for the future posts.

Here is my game:

Civilization: China (Wu Zetian)
Map Type: Earth
Map Size: Huge - 12 players and 24 city states
Difficulty: Prince (Normal)
Game Pace: Standard

The civilizations that I am fighting against I have picked.
They are as follows: 

1. Japan
2. England
3. Germany
4. America
5. France
6. Korea
7. The Netherlands
8. Russia
9. Denmark
10. Arabia
11. Portugal

I chose these civilizations because they have been important in shaping the mankind's history and I wanted to relate this blog to real life situations. The point of this blog was to make connections between the real world and this video game and analyze it.

I've turned off Time and Science victories because Science victory is easy to obtain for every civilization. Time victories (unfamiliar with) isn't my goal, so I didn't bother. Domination all the way.

Here is the YouTube video.

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Episode #1 and Technical Difficulties

Episode #1 is out on YouTube. You can check it out on the front page by clicking Videos -> My Gameplay -> Episode #1. I will upload more as I capture more footage and upload it to YouTube.

I had a lot of difficulty these past couple of days trying to A) Capture the gameplay and B) Edit the footage.

I am using Mirillis Action! to record PC gameplay. Up until the newest released version (1.18), I couldn't record any of the footage. It wouldn't recognize the game at all. At first, I thought maybe Steam was causing the interference, but I think it was a bug on the previous release (1.17).

When I actually was able to record, I had trouble editing. I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10.0 software that came with my Sony VAIO laptop. When I rendered the video file, it would for some reason add borders around my box and shrink my image. After watching several how-to videos on YouTube, I finally was able to get the quality video I longed for.

And for those people that don't want to click on the front page for videos, here is the video.

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Culture, Culture Everywhere

As I've stated before, this blog is for a college class. We have a choice between doing a blog or traditional paper. In our classroom, there is 7 other students that are doing blogs. In our last post, we had to choose what kind of victory we want to aim for in Civilization V. After going through everyone's blogs, I've noticed something. Everyone* is going for cultural victory.

(*Only including those that have posted about it)

I think I'm going to switch to Domination victory JUST TO BE DIFFERENT. Yeah, that's right.. I said it. Plus, China gets perks to domination type victories anyway, so BOO YA.

Jokes aside, I might strive for an immortal or deity victory if I go domination. I've seen some YouTube videos of people achieving this. Once I've completed one, I'll have a Steam achievement to prove it. Screenshots of that will be uploaded to prove it.

Episode #1 of one of my games is going to be uploaded soon. I hope I'm victorious. (Playing on Prince difficulty btw)

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Economics and Networks of Exchange

China （中国）, also known as the People's Republic of China (or Republic of China if you want to debate the "real" China), is an important country in today's age. They lead the world in many aspects. They have the second largest military budget, world's largest population, ever expanding cultural influence around the globe with their networks of exchange, and striving for my scientific progress.

With this in mind, I think I want to take a different approach to a victory because of my experience with PC strategy games. I've played Warcraft III, Starcraft II, and Age of Empires II to name a few. I think it would be too easy for me to do a domination victory. Instead, I'm going to attempt a cultural victory. Here is a video (for those interested) to obtain a cultural victory in Civilization V.

I will play on normal and hard difficulty. I currently have played 25 hours since the semester started. I'd like to note that I have the Gold edition and Brave New World expansion pack. My information might be slightly different depending on which version of Civilization V you are playing.


Trade in this game depends on connections between the capital, cities, and other civilizations. Between your capital and other cities you may establish, you can link them with roads (and railroads later in the game). Harbors can increase the amount of trade by using the sea.

Once a trade route is established, the user can earn additional gold. If they so choose to, they can trade with cities they created and increase food, work, and science can be traded to increase the output of one selected.

Connecting this with the second theme, Economics and Networks of Exchange, China in Civilization V develops a dense network and hierarchies. Hierarchies in this case being the capital city (in which the user controls). The game allows flexibility between maritime and land type empires. I built a city with around 12 cities (conquering four other civilizations) and enjoyed hogging 90% of a continent. I had control over international trade, large military to help colonize, controlled large amounts of land and people, and developed technology to surpass my foes. 

My Chinese civilization is on the path to much like China is today. I had the world's largest population, advancing scientifically, and enough cultural influence on the rest of the world that all other civilizations envied me. Some of the success was due to large amounts of trading with other countries and spreading my religion and influence to citizens of their civilizations.

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Initial Experience and Patterns of Population

My first experience of the game (Civilization V) started at the beginning of this semester with this class. That being said, I am familiar with RTS (Real-Time Strategies) and PC games that are similar to this game (Command and Conquer, Age of Empires). The game's combat isn't intense compared to other games I played, but that is the point. Civilization V is an experience about building an empire through other means other than war (fresh new take). The turn based system works well with this as it gives you time to make many decisions within one turn. The only thing I find funny is how one turn can be several hundred years. My ruler is apparently immortal.

My civilization game (if you haven't already guessed) is China. I chose them because it ties in with several things. I am an Anthropology/Global Studies with a Chinese track major. I am also enrolled into Chinese history this semester, WH110.

Now, in regards to Patterns of Population, population doesn't have a tremendous effect in the game in the later stages. Early on, it is important for productivity. Since I played on Easy difficulty for my first game, I didn't run into a problem with my population starving. My population just continued to grow, so I didn't have too much control over my population. My first three cities expanded enough to fit PLENTY of people (more people than I could grow in a game to occupy all tiles).

That being said, compared to China's civilization history, there is a problem with overcrowdedness. In the game, I can just conquer other civilizations, take their cities, and my people can move to other places. China has done that in the past, but taken over other civilizations now wouldn't work (United Nations would step in). If anything, this game doesn't consider population within capitals of each city. There wasn't any famine, disease, or natural disaster to worry about with my population. They happily grew without worry.

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Beginning of Civilization Journey

This blog is about my experience with Sid Meier's Civilization V in connection with my college class, WH305 World Civilizations. The blog posts will be about connections between real civilizations and the one I play (just one civilization for the class). I will try to include gameplay video of my civilization, with highlights (one game can last 8+ hours).

This is my early experience with the game. The videos I make later will be highlights of the game (a Let's Play would take too long). I'm going to focus on one civilization, China.

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