Civilization 3 and Murder by the State

Jaybe · October 9, 2003, 23:41

According to the article "The World in Numbers: Murder by the State" in The Atlantic Monthly (Nov. 2003, pp. 56-57), killing off large segments of the population during or after a war is not unique to Civ3.* (In the game, it might well be a little extreme, depending on your play style). Per the article, government sponsored murder of civilians/noncombatants (democide) killed about 170 million in the period of 1900-1987, compared to combat deaths of "only" 34.4 million. Of course, "the most egregious form of state-sponsored murder--genocide-- has historically occurred for the practical reasons of empire: to eliminate threats or to acquire wealth and territory."
Sound familiar (commonly used to alleviate threats of culture flipping)?

Example "Lethal Proportions" (percentages of country's population murdered) illustrated in the article are:
Turkey (1909-1918): 9%
USSR (1929-1931): 7%
Nazi-occupied Europe (1935-1945): 6%
China (1959-1963): 2%
Cambodia (1975-1979): 31%!! (Pol Pot)
Iraq (1979-2003): 1%
Bosnia (1992-1995): 5%
Rwanda (1994): 14%

An interesting Civ-oriented article in an interesting issue, overall.

*There is no reference to Civ3 in the article. All parallels between Civ and the statements in the article are my own.

Wittlich · October 10, 2003, 00:31

Interesting anology...though you could have made your disclaimer a tad bit bigger!

Jaybe · October 10, 2003, 01:53

(Are not ALL "disclaimers" in small print??)

laurentius · October 10, 2003, 03:08

Very intresting point. I always thought the whole razing city option was stupid and too brutal for theciv kind of game. Not only it was hugely used by the computer, it was a good tactic in order to avoid cultural dissent. The result, dozens of razed multimillion metropolises. I mean many real life statesmen play these games, I hope they dont get too used to it.

David Murray · October 10, 2003, 08:39

The game lacks prison camps to effectively 'deal' with captured nationals and rioters. And for some reason governors keep re-feeding the population after starvation. Kind of makes you think the developers were doing everything they could to make killing innocents as awkward as possible.

Jaybe · October 10, 2003, 11:17

David, are you implying that you (gasp!) USE the governors?!

Just say NO to governors!! Yes, it means more micro and putting more attention into the game, but hey, YOU are the caretaker of the state.
(When civ3 first came out, I was dissattisfied with the governors, so I never got into the habit of using them.)

Wittlich · October 10, 2003, 11:28

Actually, in the early and middle game, I do not use the governors...however, once I'm in the later part of the game I use the governors so that I don't spend a half an hour micromanaging my massive empire.

But I'm with Jaybe concerning not using the governors in the early / mid game - they (the governors) just seem to make my ermpire planning/management harder.

PeaSoup · October 10, 2003, 13:06

governers to manage citizen moods? yes
governers to manage production? hell no!

Jaybe · October 10, 2003, 13:31

In recent games, if I take a city whose culture is on par, or especially superior to mine, I almost always starve it down to 1 pop before I let it grow.

And David, I apologize (for being slow in the brain). Yes, if the city starves, then it automatically readjusts so you have to go in and manually adjust it every turn. Even with all governors turned off.

laurentius · October 10, 2003, 14:03

Yeah well the moral dilemma is all the killing people. What do you think of that. I mean in AC this would never be an option or would be sanctionedheavily in the next 20 turns or so.

Japher · October 10, 2003, 15:25

I use governors to manage the mood only and still micromanage certain cities to bump production until they are producing at a rate I would like and then scale them back and put the gov back on...

Uh, this could of been in the OT, but +1!

Cambodia? Dang!

Rasputin · October 10, 2003, 20:04

i tend to not use the governors even in late game, i have the option, "build last unit" on and that at elast saves me having to make many choices, but still allows me to alter when i need to.

As far as razing citiys, i think it would be more "real" perhaps if world opinion turned against you the more you do this, especially mass genocide , a bit like it does when you launch Nukes .