Tech Tree

In the 1980s, I discovered Civilization, the boardgame (Avalon Hill), and saved up enough money to buy the game. I had always been enamored reading about ancient civilizations, but to be able to rule one of them and decide its fate was a revelation! You had to manage the economics of trade and war, keep your citizens fed, make alliances, undermine your enemies, and gloriously advance in the technology tree. It was probably my first encounter with the tech tree in a game and I loved it!

 

I still have my old copy of Civilization. It has sat unplayed in a box for some three decades or more. (I also have a pristine copy of its expansion, Advanced Civilization, that I snagged from a game store going out of business in the early 2000s. Computer and video games were ascendant; board games were only just beginning their rebirth.) But the problem with Civilization, the boardgame, is that to truly shine you needed to find six other players willing to spend 10+ hours to play what seems like an archaic boardgame. I’ve since played many other 2-4 hour games with decent tech trees (such as Through the Ages), but they don’t quite have that same heft as their progenitor.

 

Civilization the boardgame was also the inspiration for Sid Meier’s Civilization, the computer game. I was no longer playing computer games in the 1990s, partly because I didn’t own a computer (laptop or desktop) until I started my job as a faculty member and I certainly wasn’t going to use my office desktop to play games. When my brother gave me his old ThinkPad, it had Civilization installed. I enjoyed several games at the easy Chieftain and Warlord levels. But because I didn’t have the manual, I didn’t know how the tech tree worked, and I had no focused strategy. I built up my cities, warred with neighbors, and advanced higgledy-piggledy through the tech tree, choosing what I think sounded good at the time. I didn’t understand how the scores were calculated, and I never changed my tax rate. It was somewhat fun to win at the lower level, although my winning percentages were never very high. After a few losses at a higher level, I gave up.

 

Fast-forward twenty-five years. I am rediscovering old computer games that are free to download and run on an emulator. I still can’t find six other human players willing to devote gobs of time to a Civilization boardgame. I decide to read the Civilization manual and look at the tech tree for the first time. I was hooked. With fresh eyes, the game looked much more interesting and I learned many things I didn’t know and mostly didn’t remember. Time to give it a whirl.

 

I romped through my first game at Chieftain level. Then I proceeded to win a couple of games at Warlord level, with higher percentages, but still not great. Then I moved on to Prince level, and then realized that I could get much higher scores by focusing on conquering the world as soon as possible. I always played with seven civilizations so it takes a while to find them all and do this. But how could I do this as efficiently as possible? I started to realize for the first time, that the strategy is not to advance too far in the tech tree. I needed to quickly get The Wheel to build chariots, Mathematics to build catapults, Writing to build diplomats, and Navigation to build sailing ships. At higher levels, I needed to build temples to keep my populace content while I built up a massive army. Previously I always prioritized Pottery to build a granary (just like I would in the boardgame).

 

At King level, I started to break the 100% rating. In my third game, as the French, and being fortunate to start with two settler units, I was able to remain as a Despot and conquer the world in 580 A.D. for a final score of 1642 and a rating of 131%. The only problem was that I mostly ignored the tech tree. Could I get a higher rating by shifting to science and focusing on Future Technologies? Since I had saved the game just before my military victory, I decided to resume at that point without conquering the hapless Babylonians who were down to their last city on a small island, and I had their city surrounded by diplomats. I switched to prioritizing science, switched governments to a Democracy, built the largest spaceship possible, but the plan was not to launch it but march through Future Technologies until close to the end-year before sending out my spaceship. It was really, really boring. I was essentially building and selling Courthouses and SDI Defense systems almost every turn. I finally caved and launched my spaceship, finishing the game in 1885 A.D. with a final score of 2293 and a rating of 183%.

 

It was time to try Emperor level. I was unable to finish the first game because of a glitch in the game where even though I conquered all the civilizations, the game didn’t end because a civilization likely got destroyed before it built its first city. I discovered this glitch in an earlier Prince-level game. Yes, I could have gone for the highest score ever with a future technology approach, but it would be too boring. Instead I played a second game, and as the Chinese, I was able to win in 1340 A.D. with a final score of 1532 and a rating of 153%. Wiser than Solomon apparently. But the game itself was a grind. The joy of the tech tree had been lost, and while I enjoyed being extremely efficient in having lots of small cities to keep up production, it became less interesting. I don’t feel attracted to trying the sequels to Sid Meier’s original Civilization. I’m an old-school computer gamer used to simple blocky graphics and not too many options. Maybe I’ll find something that’s in my sweet spot, and at least Sid Meier’s original scratched the itch of not having played the boardgame in a long, long time. But I do miss the tech tree!