Play time: 2:00- 3:00pm

After the previous play session and the demise of my greatest civilization I have built, I resumed play from a previous session. In the beginning, things were going well. I was fortifying my city and building a new palace. And then…

I seemed to have gotten myself into a loop. My cities were not producing any new militiamen, so each turn became a short period of time in which I would stare at the map and wait for something to happen. And then, my city experience civil unrest. It was like deja vu. I was hoping that I would not have the same experience as I did during my last play session, and thankfully this was not the case. But I seemed to have dug myself farther into the loop. The navigation panel to the left kept telling me that my turn was over. My domestic advisor would warn me that the city is experiencing civil unrest and the mayor had fled in panic. Then navigation panel to the left told me my turn was over. I tried to used the menus on the top of the screen to see what I could possibly do to leave the loop. I saw no end in sight.

Finally, a German emissary approached one of my sentries and that released me from the loop. I sat in front of my screen for fifteen minutes just waiting and hoping that I was not getting some kind of virus or doing some damage to my game. But this became the least of my worries when I realized that one of the cities I had been fortifying was not my own city! I could have used those militiamen to fight off attacks from the Aztecs! But I am still questioning the loop that I was stuck in. Was this intentional from the designers’ perspective or a glitch? Or could it just be my cluelessness?

Play time: 5:00- 6:00pm

Now that I have gotten used to the controls, I feel like I have a better grasp of the game. I am still confused by the more detailed parts of the game, such as interacting with all of the advisors. But at this point, it’s like nothing matters anymore. Because the city that I was finally confident in, with a beautiful palace and thriving population, is officially gone. Famine and civil unrest led to utter destruction. My little hopes were dashed oh so quickly.

An element of the game that I am still trying to understand is the overall civilization status page. I have tried using the arrow keys, the mouse, and I still have no inclination as to how to navigate the page or even if I am able to navigate it at all. And I got even more confused as this page kept popping up as I got another notice of unrest or economic decline in one of my cities. It was as if each time I saw the page, I was going to be attacked by more civilizations. After the third, the Aztec cities nearest me just started hitting hard with every move. For that I am very relieved that I learned how to fortify my cities during my last play session! It helped in keeping my cities alive for quite a bit longer than if I never learned how to fortify the militia.

Trying to find the silver lining in losing the civilization that has lasted the longest out of each of my play sessions, I am somewhat grateful that each play session I have been trying out navigation and figuring out the basics of the game from a brand new game. I have two other civilizations that are saved to try to move forward in my final play session! No more starting from scratch!

Play time: 10:30 am- 12:00 pm

This play session, I started a new game to get accustomed to using the mouse and keyboard controls. WHY DID I NOT DO THIS SOONER!?! So many of the questions that I had playing previously were getting answered because I was able to give orders to my militia, fortify my cities, etc. Using only keyboard controls in the past, I was just aware of moving up, right, left, and down. I didn’t know how to protect my cities. How can I fight off hordes of barbarians if I can’t protect my cities?!

So I played at an easy level to get accustomed to using my mouse, which was a very new and somewhat frustrating experience. The graphic for the cursor was not very easy to use. I wanted to play as a Zulu civilization. I ended up playing as a Russian civilization because there is no indication of where on the cursor your choice needs to be. Getting used to the cursor meant that (for a few times) I would click on the choice above on the list instead of the choice I wanted because I was learning as I went along. 

After this experience, I went back to the Babylonian civilization that I have been building up to continuing playing that game using the mouse and keyboard controls. I felt powerful. I was able to fight off several attacks on my cities. I built up a palace! I didn’t know you could do that! Getting this play experience has changed my play goal. Again! Instead of playing as different civilizations to see how it changes the game (because at this point, I haven’t seen any significant changes to warrant a continuation of that goal), I am going to see how far I can take this civilization. Maybe my palace with become bigger. I might figure out the food storage and irrigation element. Who knows!

Play time: 7:00- 8:00pm

After the last play session, I was hesitant to play as I was expecting the ease of playing to be a fluke. I wasn’t sure why I was so hesitant other than expecting my computer to freeze with a blue screen. I started to psych myself out because my experience during the first play session was so different from the second. This third play session made me laugh at my hesitation. It was fine!

I am continuing the play goal that I set for myself after my first play session in starting a new game each time as a different civilization. Previously, I amended that goal to ensure that this ease of playing (that was drastically different between sessions one and two) was not out of ordinary. This session, I played as the Babylonians again and interacted with Alexander the Great and Montezuma as the “edutainment” featured historical figures. I am still very confused by the opening graphic of covered wagons on a plain with a city is being settled. I understand that this is an image that can be recognized from American history, but it does not apply to any of the civilizations or time periods that I can think of in the game. If I was designing this, I would have chosen the graphic of the early stages of a palace or settlement.

This play session, I did experience a fleeting sense of euphoria. I GOT A QUIZ RIGHT! And I was able to conquer two civilizations. The monotony of hitting arrow keys and moving a single square on the screen is starting to small bursts of entertainment. I am getting comfortable with the controls enough that I can survive longer than twenty minutes in the game. I am starting to pay less attention to playing the game and more on the details of the graphics so that I may answer quizzes as well as make logical decisions with pursuing advances for my civilization.

My goal for the next three play session will be to incorporate the mouse and keyboard controls. Now that I know the second play session wasn’t a fluke by changing from Roman to Babylonian civilization, I will try playing from different perspectives to see if there are any changes from civilization to civilization.

Play Time: 3:30pm – 4:30pm

I don’t know what happened. But this was like playing a completely different game. For this play session, I chose to use the same keyboard and graphics settings but without sound. I continued to play at the Chieftain level as a Babylonian civilization. I am beginning to wonder if there are different to begin each civilization. I did not get frustrated play this time. Maybe some of the stress came from the horrible bleeping of the music, but somehow I was able to play for a complete hour without yelling or swearing at my computer.

I am looking at the educational elements of the game and am seriously questioning what the designers were thinking. I understand that working with advisors to create and protect your city as well as making technological advances could really help in teaching children how civilizations were created. But… I am lost on how, when a city is founded, the image of covered wagons on a grassy plain is used. Even for the civilizations that were well before the Common Era. And while I see the intention behind using real historical figures in the game, I am fairly certain that Ghandi and Stalin were not alive at the same time as Hammurabi. Having paid attention in my history classes, I find this “edutainment” factor ridiculous because there is no educational basis for using these figures as characters. I am just glad that the historical figures are paired with the correct civilizations!

Aside from the edutainment of the game, I was able to see new features fo the design that I was unable to see before. While I still have no idea what they mean, I am interested to see how things could change in my future play sessions. My goal for the next two sessions are to understand the game a little more. I would like to play as the Babylonian civilization again to make sure this calm play session was not a fluke. But I would also like to play as yet another civilization to see if this affects play, design, movement, and any other features of the game that I have seen thus far.

Play Time: 11am- 12pm

I began playing Civilization today. As I have not played this (any other games like this) before, I decided to start a fresh game so that I could experience Civilization from the beginning. I found myself being pulled into the storyline that the game was setting up, but all of that came crashing down as I began to play. I chose to play on my personal laptop using only keyboard controls. I am still unsure if that was a smart decision, so I have decided to add mouse and keyboard controls during my next play session. I’m not sure how that will help as I am still trying to understand what half of the objectives are in the game. I began on what the game recognized to be the easiest level during the period of Roman civilization.

The majority of this first hour’s play time was filled with unladylike swearing. I found myself getting more and more frustrated as time went on because of the single paragraph description of the game. While I understand the concept of teaching the development of civilizations through this game, I as a player could not get past the lack of a player manual. At times, there would be text boxes and “quizzes” that would refer to the manual (100+ pages) and information that I did not have and could not find. At one point in the game, I was notified that I had come across a “horde of barbarians” but then play stopped as the game chose to congratulate me on the Roman discovery of the wheel. Then thirty minutes later, I am being notified that an opposing military unit is on its way to take over my city and I have no way of knowing how to protect or prevent my city from being taken over.

I am taking this first experience with a grain of salt, but also as a way of informing my next play session. I am favoring the idea of playing during different time periods with a focus on analyzing the game’s design rather than player progression. Maybe the next time my civilization won’t be taken over by an opposing military force…

At this point in time, this reflection is not only a pre-play post in preparation for my journey into the world of Civilization, but for the other games in this gameplay blog. I am feeling pretty nervous. Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to play video games. I was very much limited to the basic understanding of these games from what my friends would describe and explain to me.

But with this nervousness also comes excitement. Being a fan of the sci-fi and fantasy world, I have heard of many games that fit right along with my popular culture interests. And now I have the chance to play them! In the past, I’ve lost opportunities to play some of these amazing games (Dungeons & Dragons, Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Magic the Gathering) because of people saying “Oh, you’re just not interested in this kind of thing…” This is my chance to prove them wrong!

Will I be horrible at playing these games? Maybe. To be honest, my track record with technology is not the greatest. Will I have fun playing these games? I hope so. I’m hoping that the build up of having wanted to play these games for years hasn’t built a false expectation. Will I learn to appreciate these games from a new perspective? You betcha!