Geostrategic simulations in Civ 4

Introduction

When I play a game, I often like it when it teaches you something about the real world. Civilization 4 is a pretty decent tool at simulating real life geo-strategic challenges. This game is especially good at simulating scenarios if the base assumptions for how international relations unveil are those of the realist school of thought on international relations. Or if you take as an assumption, that countries’ behavior is very much shaped by their geographies as you can learn in this very well written book Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics. I am personally of the opinion the the realist school of thought is not great at modelling the real world as you can learn this Munk debate. But while not perfect, it is still telling a big part of the story, because geography is really important.

Below I’m making public some of the Civ 4 scenarios I have created based on map tiles created but other great authors, available here.

I hope that you will find it rewarding and create fascinating timelines.

How to play?

To play you must install Civilization 4. You can get it on steam. It’s important that you get the complete edition, because you will need Beyond the Sword expansion. Once you have Civ 4 on your PC, then download files available below and place them in this location on your computer: WINDOWS C:\Users\<USER>\Documents\My Games\Beyond The Sword\Saves\single Now launch Beyond the Sword and navigate in the main menu to SINGLE PLAYER > LOAD GAME it will be visible here.

Downloads

UK, Balance on the continent

Britain’s strategic goal is to preserve a balance of power on the European continent. It is not by accident that modern UK’s relations with Russia are negative. Russia stands the best chance at dominating Europe, and so is the biggest foe.

9 players:

UK (You)
Russia
Scandinavia
Holy Roman Empire
Iberia
Austrian Balkans
Intermarium
Turkey
Iceland

Poland, In modern borders

Normally, playing Poland in strategy games has only one outcome. But here Poland is nerfed by presence in the North America. This simulates the US support that Poland would likely get in war with Russia.

17 players:

Poland with US support (You)
Russia
Belarus
Ukraine
Baltic States
Scandinavia
Germany
France
Czechoslovakia
Western Balkans
Hungarian Romania
Turkey
Iberia
Italy
Greece
UK
Arabs

USA, Testing its hegemony

The USA has won a lottery as far as geography is concerned. Thanks to being protected by two big bodies of water and incredible economical potential, the USA is able to project influence on other parts of the world.

14 players:

USA (You)
EU
Russia
China
India
Brazil
Spanish America
Canada
The Arab World
Central Africa
South Africa
Indonesia
Japan
Australia

Russia, The world game

Russian Invasion on Ukraine has shown, that it is ready to fight a geostrategic battle for the world. In this scenario it is present in the global south.

14 players: