Written by JFD
Civ is often spoken about in terms of being a historical fantasy; a 'what if?' sandbox in which America can exist from 4000 BC and the Aztecs can discover Flight. But when you look deeper at the game, you realize that such an ethos is only skin-deep – all civs follow the same, linear path; a path that – paradoxically – is at once coated in a liberal-progressive sense of time and at another manifestly realist thanks to its technologically determinate measure of progress and its preoccupation with power politics as the impetus for play. The ‘what if?’ factor really only exists at a surface or even merely at a nominal level – what if this thing we call America – which plays just the same as this other thing we call Assyria – can exist from 4000BC, and what if this thing we call the Aztecs – which just plays the same as this thing we call England – can discover Flight? In the end, the answer is not particularly interesting because they play out with very similar goals – to get to the end of the game in one aspect of victory or another.
