The “+3 Unhappiness per new city” requirement is not a serious claim about one cause of civic discontent - it’s intended to allow small empires of high-population cities to be competitive with civilizations built on many, low-population cities. Of course, it’s not fair to subject Civilization V to this kind of criticism. That the discovery of new natural wonders will alleviate that discontent is somewhat more problematic. Do more “traditional” historical studies corroborate these claims? Yes and no - that an empire built on occupation will experience more civil unrest appears to be is a strong argument. If we take Civilization V at face value, the game argues that the foundation of new settlements, overpopulation, and the occupation of foreign cities are the primary causes of civil unrest. Modeling historical phenomena like cultural diffusion, civic dissent, and the spread of religion, all of which appear in Civilization V, entails making assumptions about the causes and effects of these phenomena. The methods by which history is written - or coded - are inherently ideological. Yet whether or not they intend to, games like Civilization constitute a form of what academics call historiography - the study of the writing of history. Historically speaking, this is, of course, bullshit. From this example, one might conclude that had Rome simply gone on the offensive, we might still be speaking Latin. The “Fall of Rome” scenario vividly illustrates one of the many difficulties of making games that take history as their subject. If only the Romans had known that their crumbling empire could have been saved had they simply abused the terrible programming of their enemies’ archers. Victory, unexpectedly, is most easily achieved by gathering what little forces remain and marching into barbarian lands. Historical wisdom does the player no good: abandoning Rome’s outer colonies in Spain, Gaul, and North Africa, prioritizing defensive structures, and defending at the few mountain passes of the southern Alps will only prolong an agonizing defeat. “The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + and ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.” - David Mitchell, Cloud Atlasīy common consensus, Civilization V’s “Fall of Rome” scenario is the most challenging of the twelve historical scenarios bundled with the game’s complete edition.
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