Computer Game for History Geeks

I don’t play a lot of computer games, but I do play a few. Plants versus Zombies is my favorite game ever, and PvZ2 is slightly history-based, but not really. It is just a fun game I play over, and over, and over.

For the past few months I have been playing Civilization 5. And that game has a ton of history to it. For those of you not familiar with the Civilization games, you pick a civilization: Persian, Mayan, German, or many others and as the leader you lead your civilization from the discovery of pottery, through the nuclear age, declaring war on your neighbors, exploring oceans and continents, founding new cities, adopting social policies and tons more. There are many reasons why I am enjoying playing Civ5, not the least of which is that there is so much human history to it! It is not terribly complex history, which means inaccuracies are to be expected, but I still enjoy exploring the oceans with caravels, and founding universities long before public schools become available. I’ve learned things from the game too, I do not know a lot of Asian history, and I’ve been reading up on the real life civilizations that I see in the game.

It is a bit of a guilty pleasure, but I pretend that I’m being historical, so it counts, right?