finally i have learned to play the game

After logging close to 25 hours in the simulation game Civilization IV I have decided to move away from hasty and risky decisions regarding my society and move more towards advancing a civilization and making it truly successful. No longer will I engage in dangerous and risky military strategies, but be more conservative and help to build up good, soldiers, and technology before going intro treacherous combat. Originally in my game play I focused on conquering as many new lands and territories in as little time as possible. This plan worked for a short period of time, but soon after my civilization would collapse and fall apart extremely quickly. It is just not possible to have a successful civilization while engaging in multi-front battles and allocating far too high of a percentage of a nations resources on war. This can be seen in the history of the modern world through the example of Germany under the control of Hitler. From the late 1930’s to the countries practical collapse in the mid 1940’s the nation used all their man power and resources on conquering as much land and overtaking local governments, but this could only be successful for so long and eventually the civilization collapse. Maintaining a successful, powerful, and dominant society is a lot like staying healthy through eating a balanced diet. Every aspect to the success of a society needs to be taken in moderation not too much aggressive warfare or isolationism, kind of like not eating too many fatty proteins, or not eating enough fruits and vegetables.
Another aspect to developing a successful civilization that I have developed and mastered through my growing experience in game play is strategizing where to develop new territories and cities to fit the needs of my society most adequately. It does no good for a nation to have five cities in very close approximation to each other in almost uninhabitable lands consuming unnecessary resources. Also it is pointless to waste a society’s resources to conquer lands that will do absolutely nothing to aid or advance a civilization. Taking over a desert or an ice sheet will do little to benefit the people of a nation. But taking over freshwater sources or arable land will be of great benefit to the people of a society. This cost-benefit analysis is crucial and a separating factor between societies that succeed and societies that collapse. Many times nations such as Britain in the 19th century and Spain in the 15th through 17th century become overly aggressive and begin to conquer far too many lands and declare this is all good and makes the nation powerful and seem invisible. However this overzealous conquering eventually runs down a nation like an infection and without giving the nation like the human body time to rest the nation begins to fail and eventually if the problem is not fixed the society will collapse. This is what happened to Great Britain and Spain they over spent their man power and resources on overtaking lands that did nothing to improve, advance, or aid the nations and eventually these pointless undertakings contributed to the demise as both of these nations as world superpowers.
Overall the more I play the game Civilization IV the more I realize the characteristics that define why some civilizations succeed and others fair.

Blog Post #2 Defensive military strategies

Originally my goal in playing Civilization IV was to conquer as much new land and territories as possible without any concerns for the future of my society. Soon I realized this approach always led to the collapse of a civilization and there was no way to fight multi-front battles while at the same time preparing for food shortages and crop failures. Eventually the costs of war caught up with me and my civilization could not handle the stresses or costs of allocating all available resources to conquer new lands and rapid expansion of a society.
So I took a new approach one in which I focused on slow gradual thought-out expansion. This allowed me to develop food surplus and prepare for unexpected crop shortfalls and possible attacks from the outside. Also allocating more soldiers to defensive military tactics rather than offensive allowed me to more adequately secure my cities and lands to protect the people from invasions and foreigners. This made it more difficult for my cities to fall due to attacks from opposing civilizations and barbarians.
Another advantage to making a more well rounded and balanced society was that it enabled me to better advance all aspects of society and not just focus on the military and ground soldiers. More resources could be put to use in order to advance technologies and improve the quality of life for all my citizens. Examples of these advances are improved farming techniques, and better city management as well as improved defensive tactics and structural protection from outside threats.
Comparing my new approach of allocating resources to civilizations of the past I was able to see that my new approach was very similar to societies that have prospered and the overly aggressive military techniques that I once engaged in were common in societies that failed. Examples of civilizations that succeed due to similar practices as mine are the United States during isolationism, Australia, and Switzerland. All of these nations focused military resources on defensive measures and protection from outside threats. While allocating the vast majority of resources to protecting the people and helping improve the quality of life for everyone. Like my civilization these nations cared most about insuring every citizen had their basic requirements for life ment and expansion and concurring of new territories was trivial and insignificant.
Aggressive military strategies have been shown throughout history to be extremely successful in the short term, but in the long term no civilization has been able to sustain the added stresses and costs of aggressive military techniques and all society that try rapid expansion fail and collapse due to unexpected monetary, food, and human shortages. Examples of these civilizations are ancient Roman Empire, as well as France under the control of Napoleon. Eventually fighting on too many fronts will place too many added strains on the civilization and lead to the collapse of a once great society. Napoleon’s empire was vast and great, but his million man march into Moscow strained his empire and the nations resources were spread to thin and eventually the society crumbled under the added stress of yet another war on another front. This shows another important aspect of societies to consider, resources might be available in some parts of a nation. But many times transportation limitations create shortages in some parts of the society, and shortfalls may be isolated to heavily populated or rural areas. France had plenty of food and warm clothing for the soldiers, but it was not possible for the nation to get these goods to the front line and eventually hundreds of thousands of men died dude to the fact available resources could not be transported to where they were needed. Rome did the same thing allocated far too many of the nations citizens and resources to conquering new lands and eventually the interior became weak and the nation practically divided and collapsed from the inside out.
These examples of great civilizations that eventually collapsed show why my civilizations originally failed when I was overly aggressive in my military strategies. Keeping a civilization strong and powerful is like keeping the human body healthy. Everything needs to be balanced; war is a lot like exercise a nation needs to be able to expand its territories like a person building up muscle. However one needs to be careful not to ware out ones body, or in the instance of a civilization not spreading soldiers to thin on too many fronts and use up to many resources of the nation, and tire out the military and fall to outside invaders. Overall the game Civilization IV helped me to better understand how overly aggressive civilizations fall, and what it takes to slowly develop a society and what attributes lead to the success of a civilization and what attributes lead to the decline of a once prosperous powerful society.

Econ 202 JL's Blog post #1

Around 30 years ago Jared Diamond was posed with a question from a man Yali living in Papa New Guinea, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it back to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own.” Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel is dedicated to answering this question that Yali posed over thirty years ago. However to better understand why some areas developed and prospered and advanced technologically while other civilizations struggled to survive let alone advance and become prosperous, we used the video game Civilization IV as a simulation to better understand Yali’s question and issues brought up in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Then we compared the history of civilizations to the simulation outcomes from the game and analyzed similarities and differences.
One of the most striking similarities found between the game and history is the cost of war. On my first attempt at playing Civilization IV I was in an overly aggressive mood and decided I would make a foolish and futile attempt to control as much territory as possible. I did not allocate enough man power or resources to everyday living and expansion of towns, but spent the vast majority of resources on soldiers and military technologies. I was able to spread out of the Fertile Crescent, but eventually I found myself fighting too many multi-front wars and eventually my civilization collapsed like most societies which spread themselves to thin and engaged in far too many battles trying to gain territory hastily. Examples of great civilizations of the past who spread their resources to thin over war and experienced the same collapse as I did in the simulation are Napoleon’s reign of France and collapse when trying to control Russia and march into Moscow, and the fall of the Roman Empire after trying to control almost all of Europe and Asia.
Overall the simulation showed the importance of balancing a civilization in order to have it advance and prosper. A society can not be too aggressive and try to develop at expand at too fast of a rate or it will simply collapse. Most resources need to be allocated to everyday living to help people leave simple substantive farming and become skilled, but in order for this to happen their has to be liquid capital or a food surplus so not everyone has to farm in order for everyone to eat. I did the opposite I only allocated enough resources for basic survival and little expansion of specific skills and building on gained territories, gaining land was my number one and only goal. Eventually this was fine everyone had food to eat and a place to sleep, but that did not last I underestimated the needs to my soldiers and militaries and eventually food shortages and lack of development led to the collapse of my militaristic society.
This simulation game also showed the difficulties in simple day to day life for developing civilizations. Northing comes easy and when I played around with the difficulty level I soon found holding a steady let alone increasing population was near impossible. This is very similar to history though very few societies have actually been able to prosper and become successful advance cultures, most do not make it much past infancy. An example is Papa New Guinea an area that has been populated for approximately twelve thousand years and has never successful developed past substantive farming, showing the main points of Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel, he argues that all people are of relatively the same intelligence and intuitiveness. However the origins of a civilization are crucial in dictating the success of the society. Climate, native animals and plants, and possible axis of expansion all play crucial roles in determining the fate of any society. These same principles govern success in the game when it comes to determining a starting point for your civilization and analyzing advantages and disadvantages to the given areas. Those factors are what Diamond concluded determined how civilizations out of the Fertile Crescent were able to advance and prosper, while civilizations on remote islands like Pap New Guinea never were able to get their feet off the ground.
Overall the simulation gained through the video game Civilization 4 was extremely valuable in helping us gained understanding why some civilizations prosper and others collapse. It also supplemented Diamond’s ideas and helped to understand Yali’s question.