Europa Universalis III

Considering I am a giant dork, I get most of my videogame entertainment not out of fun, fast, violent games, but instead out of strategic simulation. One of the more interesting games that has surfaced recently is Paradox Interactive's grand history simulation, Europa Universalis (2007). This game allows you to play through world history from 1399-1820 (give or take), guiding any of the nations that existed during this period to glorious world conquest. As with most historical games, the user is granted liberties with the text-book history, but surprisingly the game remains generally true to the narrative represented by Wikipedia, etc. For example, if the user has not affected the general politics of England, by 1455, the War of the Roses will break out. Obviously, having previous knowledge of what historical events are pending will give the user a great advantage in the game, and thus many feel that games of this sort encourage history education in young people.

An interesting problem arises, however, when we consider the combination of hard and fast historical fact with the procedures and structures of the game world. Ultimately, there are ways that the user can win the game, in the face of historical fact. The user, playing as France, can prevent Waterloo, or perhaps playing as the Aztecs, prevent the European conquest. Beyond the startlingly racist game rules that are instituted to force such historical inaccuracy to be a challenge (the Aztecs are considered "lower technology" than the Spanish, and thus fight at a massive disadvantage), the game encourages alternate views of history that imply certain savage tactics as "winning". Users of this game have established a community wiki, http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Main_Page, to share tactics that are effective for each of the various countries. Strangely, these tactics tend to have a rather racist bend to them as well. For example, one wiki provides an indepth description of how to conquer Europe using the Ottoman Turks: "Westernization will be crucial for your long-term survival, so don't get rid of the Byzantines yet: if you annex them you'll have to accept Greek as a primary culture before you can westernize, which is a real pain (-5 stability). With the correct slider movements right from the beginning (centralization and innovative) you should westernize by the mid-16th century" (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Ottoman_strategy). Ultimately, the game forces the Ottoman Turks to not only Westernize, but to eventually give up their Turkish identity and instead declare themselves as Greek. In historical simulations such as this, we have to ask ourselves whether the benefits of teaching people history in an easy and fun fashion is not countered by the ideological messages that are integrated within the games very structures.

I probably wrote to much, so signing off.

-D