Wrap-Up

Throught my experiences with "Civilization", I have noticed numerous aspects of the game that tie in to the detail explained by Jared Diamond in his book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel." As soon as I started with the game, I was simply looking for aspects in it that related to Diamond's book and I found numerous. When I began delving deeper into the game and into creating my own, long-lasting civilization based in Egypt, I steered away from going by the book and began doing things more on my own. What this brought about was a deeper understanding of how civilizations really survived, not necessarilly what was taught to me. In the end, what I realized was that no matter how hard I tried to go about the game trying not to think about the book, the book and its aspects played a deep role in what has actually been accomplished with my civilization. How could one try to have a long-lasting civilization without using what Jared Diamond spoke of in his book? One has to start off as a farming civilization and gradually move into a more sedentary, urbanized center with specialists. The religious aspects of the game, although not necessar, grabbed a lot of my attention because I am naturally biased in my beiefs. As my civilization began to strive, military and defense was a major factory in many of my decisions and I began going to war with anyone who had a problem with what I was doing. In the overall scheme of things, my civilization was very effective because of the lessons that I had learned in class and while reading Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel." I believe that the game, "Civilization" was a great tool to teach the lesson of the class in a much deeper way and I recommend continual use of the game.