Civilization games blend history and fiction, raising questions about their educational value. Senior historian Dr. Andrew Johnson believes the games spark interest in history, potentially leading players to further exploration. While the game takes liberties with historical accuracy, Johnson sees it as a 'gateway drug' to learning more about history.
(Image credit: Firaxis) The Civilization games are full of historical information, but it's mixed together and cut with fantastical contrivances that make it fun to play—which is how I recently went toe-to-toe with Harriet Tubman as Han Dynasty emperor Niccolò Machiavelli when I played Civilization 7 for. The games aren't history tutors, but Firaxis senior historian Dr.
Andrew Johnson, who's also an associate professor at Stockholm University's Department of Social Anthropology, hopes the studio's passion for history inspires some of us to pick up a book. It's the whole reason he does the job. 'I teach undergraduates in my other life, and my God, man, they don't read,' Johnson told me on a call in November.'And trying to get them interested in history—if somebody plays Machiavelli, they might get really kind of interested. Machiavelli maybe has enough name recognition already, but like Amina , or, 'OK, so this is the Ming Dynasty, how is that different from the Han Dynasty?' If that can provoke somebody into an interest in history, that is what's important here. This is not the textbook. This is the gateway drug into the textbook. If textbooks were drugs.' For Civilization 7, Firaxis has loosened up its criteria for leaders, hence why Machiavelli can rule ancient China, although it's hard to say this is some new turn away from historicity given that the series has always been about rewriting the past, often with silly consequences. For Johnson, the problems that arise when trying to represent history in a grand strategy game are more academic. For example, borders in Southeast Asia have a different character than borders in other parts of the world, says Johnson:'There's overlapping zones of sovereignty. Somebody can be both a part of the Cambodian state and part of the Thai state, part of the Laotian state, pay tribute to all, or none. But that doesn't work in a game where you need direct lines on the map. So that's fin
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