Gamers are not exactly known as the most avid readers in the world unless you count endlessly scrolling social media or reading the blurb of a game that just went 90% off on a Steam sale. They are even less known for their extensive knowledge and understanding of history. However, a senior historian working on Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, who ironically shares his name with an infamous former U.S. President, Dr. Andrew Johnson, hopes the new massive strategy game from publisher Firaxis will change that.
In an interview with PC Gamer, Johnson, who also works as an associate professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Social Anthropology when not advising game developers about complex history, discusses his role at Firaxis and what drives him to work within video games.
“I teach undergraduates in my other life, and my God, man, they don’t read. 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 [Queen of Zazzau], 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.”
Johnson hopes that, by taking control of major historical figures from around the world and across time, gamers will gain an interest in these people that will spark a path directly from the controller to the books. Johnson then details how difficult it can be to reflect history and how people actually live within certain areas through the lens of a video game. In particular, borders can be a topic of confusion.
“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.”
His solution is to add that information into Civilization VII’s massive Civiliopedia, a huge Wikipedia-like resource found in every Civilization game, which gives gameplay and historical facts and information about various leaders, nations, buildings, units, and more. He proposes that, perhaps, if players become interested enough in these cultures with overlapping borders, or any historical topic that may arise from playing the game, that they will go and read about it.
In the same interview, Johnson allayed fears over the potential for an overt Eurocentric point of view. In Civilization VII, players will begin each game in something called the “Exploration Age” reminiscent of the real historical time period between c. 1418 – c. 1620 in which major European powers sent explorers out to discover new lands and resources, military to destroy foreign civilizations, and settlers to colonize the newly discovered lands. In response to this fear Johnson gave his perspective on the era and how a Eurocentric gameplay style could be avoided.
“For me, the Exploration Age is about that age of interconnection. Yes, you have the high age of European colonization in there. But you’ve also got the Indian Ocean trade. You’ve also got the Pax Mongolica, you’ve got that trade across The Steppe. You have the caravans on the Sahara, you have a whole lot of other kinds of things going on. And the way the game is structured, you don’t have to be a colonizer to win. There are victory conditions that have nothing to do with colonization. But on the flip side of that, going out, exploring, and settling new lands is, yes, something that non-European powers did.”
Johnson ended the interview expounding on why he does the job that he does and why it is so important to him; “I just want people to appreciate the world and the strangeness of the world. Because if you appreciate how the past was different, or how other places are different, you can change your everyday as well. Then that opens up new worlds. That makes new worlds possible. If you think this is the only way it can be, the only way it should be, then you’re locked into a static existence, and that’s dull.”
Civilization has had a long and storied history itself releasing its first title in 1991. Since then it has seen numerous releases and spin-offs for fans of strategy and history to sink thousands of hours into for just one more turn. Civilization’s influence and impact can even be felt on the academic level. Some colleges with select classes have used Civilization games in the past to explore questions of history, historiography, the settlement of peoples, the conflict of cultures, and more.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is set to release on February 11 on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, as well as Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
