Wednesday 9 February 2005

Pic of the day: City view from Civilization III. As you can see, there is plenty of space in this city. What to fill it with? Banks or barracks?

Civ3 vs Bush

Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling Republicans uncivilized. I just propose the hypothesis that people who voted for George W. Bush in the recent US election have probably not played the strategy game Civilization III. Probably not even the original Civilization. Let me explain why.

There are basically two fundamentally different theories about the effect of war on the economy. One is that all economic activity is good, as the people who work for the defense industry are paid and can spend their money on other goods and services, and as well there is useful knowledge spun off from the military that eventually serves the whole of society. The opposing view hold that resources spent on the military is basically squandered – people could have made stuff that other people needed for their daily lives. There must be a military for the protection of the country, but it should be no larger than is needed for the safety of the nation, and used only as the absolute last resort and under much chagrin.

The game Civilization was firmly in the "squandering resources" camp. The shields (unit of raw materials) spent on military units were basically lost (although you could get a small part back by disbanding later) and the time spent building them could have been used for city infrastructure that help your civilization grow. Of course, in the game you really need your military because the artificial intelligence is rather ruthless and will attack you if you are too weak to defend yourself, and will also band together against you if you are too strong. But that's the cost of living in a hostile world, not a good thing in itself.

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In Civ3, almost everything is a bit more realistic than in its prequels. And so also with war. Where military units were before supported with a shield each, they are now financed with money, so the cost is borne by the whole nation rather than the city of origin, and so a financially strong empire is able to heft a more powerful army. But they still take resources and time to build, and so other public works are lagging. For advanced civilizations (from the onset of nationalism onward) there is also the option of mobilization. When you mobilize for war, your cities become more effective, producing extra shields (resources). However, the downside of this is that you cannot de-mobilize your cities until you have a peace treaty. So you can continue to churn out military units, but you cannot start any public works.

Another new feature introduced in Civ3 is war weariness. Depending on your type of government, your citizens will be less than happy about a war dragging on for years. Government with great liberty such as republic and (especially) democracy are very prone to war weariness, but these are also the types of government that give by far the most income and invention. On the other end you have fascism with no war weariness, great productivity but much less trade and invention. If a country has been attacked, it starts out with negative war weariness, meaning it will take a time before it sets in. Once it does, however, more and more discontent people show up. You need to spend more and more money just to keep them satisfied and keep your cities from breaking out in open revolt. Some public buildings or national "wonders" might have satisfied them too, but you probably already mobilized your cities for wartime production, right?

If the war weariness keeps building up it may eventually topple your entire democracy – a city or two in revolt could set it off. Then when the chaos settles, restoring your democracy would leave you right back at the same war weariness and the same problems. So there is a real pressure to shift to a less liberal government (in later years preferably fascism) that is immune to war weariness and lets you use military police to keep order in your cities, making sure people stay calm. Of course, going down this path means stagnation in economy, invention and culture. But you may not have much of a choice if you have started a war you cannot withdraw from.

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I hope you see what I'm saying here. Of course the real world is more nuanced than that. But you can probably see why people who have played Civ3 would hesitate to vote for Bush. Just in case. He has after all portrayed himself as a wartime president, leaving the impression that – if it is up to him – there will be war for as long as he stays in power, and a legacy of war left when he retires. And war is even less fun in real life than in games.