Will Civilization 7 be the Most Unrealistic Realistic Game?
Before I begin, this is not a criticism of Civilization 7 or any of the games within the Civilization series. I have been playing Civilization since the second installment and have been a fan of Civilization ever since. This is also not a critique of how Civilization 7, or any of the games it inspired, should change and/or evolve.
But, my motive for this article is to compare how games such as Civilization and Civilization-like games allow players to construct their civilizations and how civilizations are actually created. This led to an internal debate on whether the games in the Civilization series are the Most Unrealistic Realistic games or the Most Realistic Unrealistic games.
In this analysis, we will examine some civilizations from the games and compare to them their real-life counterpart. When we do this, we will see examples of how the Civilization series diverge from actual history. These differences stem from a core mechanic of a Civilization game; this mechanic is the top-down control a player has over their civilization.
This top-down control reduces the resistance the political elite faces from the populace and makes a civilization united throughout the game as if it were a nation-state. Comparing Greece will be the first step to see a significant difference.
In the Civilization series, the (non-fictional) leaders of the Greek Civilization were Alexander the Great, Pericles, and Gorgo. None of these leaders would consider themselves a leader of a Greek civilization. While Pericles and Gorgo were certainly Greek, Alexander the Great was Macedonian. Both contemporaries of Alexander and historians debate whether other Greeks considered Macedonians as Greeks, barbarians, or something-in-between.
Despite their heritage, neither Pericles nor Gorgo ruled a “Greek state” as Pericles was in charge of Athens and Gorgo was a ruler of Sparta. So, to think of ancient Greece as a united civilization would be wrong as it was divided amongst itself into many city-states. The only times the ancient Greeks were united were when they were under the rule of Macedonia or Rome. But, Greece is not the only civilization that was never united.
India and the Holy Roman Empire are two other great examples. Before India existed as a state in 1947, the subcontinent was divided between many powers except in three cases; the Maurya Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the British Empire. The Maurya Empire and Mughal Empire either collapsed or were overtaken by a foreign power within a century. For most of Indian history, it was a subcontinent divided by rivals.
This was true for the Holy Roman Empire, and Europe as a whole, as well. While the early emperors may have had a large swath of power, by the middle of the 2nd millennium they reigned over a Holy Roman Empire that was “neither holy, roman, nor an empire” (Voltaire).
Not only was the idea of the nation-state (from the Treaty of Westphalia) created in part of the lack of centralization within the Holy Roman Empire but the importance of the Holy Roman Empire would eventually be eclipsed by its strongest powers. These major countries, Prussia and Austria would form the major powers before World War I of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
This is not to say that some civilizations have not functionally been a single “state” for thousands of years. The civilizations that come to mind are Persia, China, and Japan. While the term state is used loosely as governments have come and gone, the foundation of these cultures remained in place. While Persia has been conquered by foreign powers throughout its history, the foreigners ruled the land as rules of a new Persian Empire rather than a far-flung empire that incorporated Persia.
While China has less history of foreign invasion and conquest, when it was conquered by the Mongolians, the Mongolians ruled as a new Chinese Emperor rather than a foreign Khan. But even when we analyze these civilizations without considering the impact of foreign powers, we do not see a unitary state without domestic turmoil. We see cases when centralization breaks down and regional powers fight for control in anarchic periods.
Perhaps the most famous examples would be the period leading up to the Three Kingdoms in China and the Sengoku period in Japan. The Chinese dynasties show an example of cyclical patterns of great centralization under a dynasty, followed by a breakdown of civilization, war and anarchy, and then finally the return of great centralization under a new dynasty. This division even in civilizations we may consider “unified” shows us the fallacy of a civilization that is always stable and unified.
It also shows us the weakness of believing that a civilization can be run as a top-down operation without any resistance. In the game, the civilization runs as a top-down operation where there is no input from the masses. This mechanic gives the players power as they see fit, but it does not resemble real life. In ancient Rome, we could see how tensions between the elite and the plebians led to the fall of the republic and its civil wars.
In Civilization, rarely is this tension felt or, when felt, impactful in any meaningful way. This should be an impactful measurement, especially for democracies and republics. Having the populace swing in public opinion should either hinder or aid the goal of the player. Trying to get the people on your side should be a priority in these types of governments. While in autocratic regimes this is less important, if the civilization is not well run or disaster strikes, then the people could vent their opposition in other methods outside the ballot box. In real life, the political elite must always concern themselves with the potential mob.
In Civilization, such concern is not warranted. We can even include capitalism within this critique as well. Having an economy that is planned or mercantilist can give the player, or government, greater control and power but risks inefficiency. A capitalist economy would produce the greatest yield but reduces a government’s control and power. In Civilization, a player does not have to balance any of these concerns; in history, these concerns were fundamental to not only the ruling parties but the merchant/bourgeois class as well.
Instead, a concern for players that is not realistic is expanding an empire through settlers. Making a settler and then sending them out to the empty world is a core mechanic of Civilization, but not of history. For at least thousands of years, every parcel of land was owned by someone or some entity except for land that was inhospitable; but even in these unhospitable lands, there was likely someone brave enough to stake their claim.
To put it in perspective, when the Greeks sent their citizens to make colonies, they did so knowing that there would be other peoples near their new settlements. When the Spanish, British, and others went across the Atlantic, did they land on shores empty of mankind? While some of these lands may have been sparsely populated (Guglielmello 2023), they were not empty and would have been claimed by someone.
Again, this is not a criticism of Firaxis Games or the Civilization series. This is not a call to drastically alter their game based on this article. Not only would the fans of Civilization surely riot, but the game as it is currently made has stood the test of time. But rather if they were to make a new game or a new series that was more realistic, this is how it should be approached.
Instead of focusing on running a civilization, it would be focused on a group of people. At first, it would be decentralized, desolate, and starting not from the Stone Age but rather after a collapse of a bygone era.*
From this starting point, the goal should be centralization of authority, organization of peoples, and consolidation of power. So over time, an unorganized mass of people should be pushed to reside in cities, then pushed to either a unified empire, republic, or league of cities, then pushed into a civilization, and then pushed into a nation.
But at each point, there should be resistance if not outright hostility. While this process is happening, the player should be trying to accomplish the concurring goal of expanding the population through internal improvements, culturally, economically, and (if desired) militarily. If initially successful, then the player may have the power to unilaterally push their goals through.
However, if they ignore the people, they risk rebellion, civil war, anarchy and decentralization. If the player grows the civilization to include many different groups of people, they must be able to assimilate the populations or face the consequences of discontent of nearly everyone and every group.
In simple, there is a give-and-take the player must make with its civilization. There is the national/civilizational good, there is the people’s good, and there are special interests’ good that a player must navigate; especially when there are conflicting interests.
If we study history, we do not see a government with full control governing by its will and only its will. We would rather see a history where when the people are happy and fed, the government has more authority. When the people are angry and hungry, we see the mob breaking out a pitchfork.
Running a civilization for thousands of years should be akin to riding a tiger. It should be orchestrated wherein a civilization could progress without creating the ire of the people. A player, if successful, should be a maestro playing a tune wherein everyone is singing and dancing along. But what happens when the music stops?
*An example of a collapse of an era includes, but is not limited to, the Bronze Age collapse, the Classic Maya collapse, and the Fall of Rome.
