Civilization and its Discontents
133
Secretary-General of a United Nations), cultural superiority, or by obtaining a
“historiographical score.” Thus, even in Civilization III, the game player’s success
is dependant upon the abihty to initially dominate a frontier, and eventually turn
that domination into some form of hegemonic control over the rest of the simulation.
Civilization does more than simply allow the game player to exist within
the trope of American frontier ideology, however. An integral part of the game
playing experience is the manipulation of this trope, in ways that both allow the
player to alter this simulated history, and simultaneously reify it. While it remains
possible for the game player to manipulate various aspects of the simulation, from
the very basic such as where to build new cities or what to build in those cities, to
the more complex, in the end the basic requirement of success in the game is
progress. And, “in each stage of its development, the Myth of the Frontier relates
the achievement of ‘progress’ to .. .violent action” (Slotkin, Gunfighter, 11). Within
the American mythopoetic structure hegemony, however defined, is hnked to
progress and, eventually, to violence over other cultures. The same is true of
Civilization. The player of this interactive historical simulacrum must control a
simulated world, achieve hegemonic status over other cultures, and emerge
victorious in the attempt to “build an empire that will stand the test of time.” To
accomphsh this it is necessary to use the mythological structure of the American
frontier, to accept that mythology as a necessary aspect of historical change, and,
in the end, to reify that ideology through the play of the game. The success of
Civilization over the last decade is testament to excellent game design. But it is
also a declaration of the continued importance of this unique American mythological
structure in the popular mind of American consumers.
University of Michigan-Dearbom
Matthew Kapell
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
See “The Best 10 Games o f All Time,” and “The 15 Most Significant Games o f All Time” in PC
Gamer as well as “The 150 Best Games of All Time” in Computer Gaming World for placement
o f Civilization in the “canon” o f computer games. It has placed among the “best” computer games
ever in repeated articles.
Quite simply, there are far too many games that offer game play based, in one way or another, on
concepts originally found in the first Civilization. One need only enter the games section o f any
computer store to find titles such as Caesar, Caesar II, Empire Earth, various takes on the “tycoon”
aspects o f Railway Tycoon, and many others.
It is obvious that an entire paper based on Colonialist and postcolonialist criticism is possible of
many Sid Meier games. Here I quite literally attempt to ignore such narratives in favor o f the
Turner hypothesis, thinking that a synthesis between the two critical positions would be, simply,
disorienting for the reader.
The “civilizations” o f Civilization are numerous, and increasingly more so in later versions of the
game. Without listing each, however, it should be noted that generally there is a tendency toward
Eurocentrism in the choice of “civilizations”, and non-European groups tend to be more reified.
For example, a player may choose between Germany, France, Russia and England in Europe, but