Achievements in Civilization V

Being a fairly complex game, Civilization V incorporates a variety of rewards to keep players motivated and focused. A variety of short term and long term goals are in play constantly, which creates a steep learning curve at first.

As my gameplay has continued, I have noticed myself becoming more involved in the different decisions needed to make progress. This week was my first experience with losing track of time while playing the game. I believe this is in part due to the variety of rewards provided by longer gameplay.

Measurement Achievements

The first component of game play that Civilization introduces is a complex panel of metrics to help you keep track of your progress leading (and expanding) your civilization. At the top of the screen you can find measurements related to happiness, gold, religious piety, and other aspects of your society.

At the top of the screen you can keep track of a variety of metrics.

The quantity of gold is constantly grabbing at my attention, as it feels like the most concrete and relevant metric on each turn. However, due to a variety of long term choices, my civilization has become more religious. I have seen a big change in this metric during my game play (the icon with a dove). The motivates me to continue to make improvements to the religious identities of my cities by constructing religious buildings, sending out missionaries, and building monuments.

Unexpected Achievements

On nearly every other turn Civilization V greets you with a surprise achievement such as the one below.

What? I have to keep track of yet another metric?

Though I do not feel Kapp was so clear on this point, based on my understanding of this term I think Civilization tries to reduce the learning curve at the beginning by staging surprise rewards to entice players to explore a new component of game play. These achievements are separate from the conscious decisions I am asked to make during the game.

In the case of tourism, this was the first time I had heard of this metric so I chose to click on the prompts to read a little about this aspect of the game from the Civilization V Encyclopedia.

Incremental

Research is the aspect of Civilization V that has the largest progress interval. During regular game play you start in an ancient era of human history and lead your civilization through time in a series of game turns. At the beginning of the game you are asked to choose an area of research to develop relevant to the time period. After one completes, you are presented with an achievement banner like the one below.

Incremental achievements are announced by banners like these, which introduce new game elements your progress has unlocked.

These choices become more complex as the world your civilization shares also advances in research and human knowledge. By this time in my game play my research decisions have branched in several directions depending on the natural resources near my cities, my relationships with neighbors, and my curiosity about what different investments may unlock.

Because this research is sequential, these complex decisions are simplified, which helps to make them relevant to the player’s short term goals. After hundreds of terms it is surprising to go back and review these development paths.

Effectiveness

I concede that over time these achievements have helped me work through many of my initial confusions and criticisms about the game. However, I do not think these elements make up for the perpetuation of stereotypes, focus on war, and omission of certain aspects of human history.