The Aggressor Sid Meier's CIVILIZATION

Aggressor Type: Dynamic

• This game features the “Dynamic Aggressor.” This means that the game allows for a flexible engagement with the Aggressor role, i.e. that actors within it change whether or not they are perceived as an aggressor. This type of game often features a way in which aggression is measured by a game-internal parameter and makes aggression a conscious decision that players can choose.

Setting Type: Historical

• This game has a historical setting. It is placed here by adhering to a point in time, persons or events of history, or a place recognisable by the player audience. It does not mean that the history simulated works deterministically to play out exactly like its real-life equivalent but that a historical world in the broadest sense is created.

Player Agency: Active

• In this game, the player's agency towards the Aggressor(s) is enabled by the game and they are able to take actions. This can include resisting the Aggressor or acting as one themselves.

  To the Analytical Categories

The original start of the “CIVILIZATION” series, created in 1991 by MicroProse and often recognised as the passion-project of Sid Meier, shows the original ideas behind the series and the Global Strategy genre in general. Historical factions can be chosen, yet they are even more cosmetic than in the later titles - it is simply a name that is chosen, with leaders present in other games, like Mahatma Gandhi. Every faction is pitted against each other in a deterministic tech tree and features only two win conditions, either world conquest or the research of future tech (winning by points is another one, but often a result of these two conditions). However, aside from all problems, the creation of a non-violent victory condition was popularised mainly through CIVILIZATION and created immense potential for the dynamic Aggressor, as it splits the genre off from the wargame of world conquest.

The manual that accompanies this game gives a great amount of information about the rules, mechanics and historical understanding of the designers, featuring a dedicated “History of Civilization” section. It is therefore valuable to familiarise oneself with the vision that MicroProse had.

Notably for the Aggressor, each leader personality pursues a certain style that is hard-coded into the game: some leaders, like Napoleon, Suleiman, Stalin, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan are described and coded as much more “aggressive” and will use warfare to expand their influence. Others, notably the USA under Abraham Lincoln, are described as expanisionist but not too aggressive.

Further Reading (both for the individual game and the series as a whole):

• Donecker, Stefan. “Pharaoh Mao Zedong and the Musketeers of Babylon - The Civilization Series between Primordialist Nationalism and Subversive Parody.” In Early Modernity and Video Games, edited by Florian Kerschbaumer and Tobias Winnerling, 105–22. Histoire, Band 50. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.+
• Edwards, Benji. “The History of Civilization.” Game. GameDeveloper, July 18, 2007. 

  https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-history-of-civilization

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• Krapp, Peter. “Sid Meier’s Civilization: Realism.” In How to Play Video Games, edited by Matthew Thomas Payne and Nina B. Huntemann, 44–51. New York: New York university press, 2019.
• Pobłocki, Kacper. “Becoming-State. The Bio-Cultural Imperialism of Sid Meierís Civilization.” Focaal - European Journal of Anthropology, no. 39 (2002): 163–77.
• Reichert, Ramón. “Government-Games und Gouverntainment - Das Globalstrategiespiel Civilization  von Sid Meier.” In Strategie Spielen. Medialität, Geschichte und Politik des Strategiespiels, edited by Rolf F. Nohr and Serjoscha Wiemer, 189–212. Medien’Welten 9. Münster: LIT, 2008. 

  https://mediarep.org/handle/doc/3414

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