[fallingfrog]

I don't know if the downvotes are fair here. She's making a point worth discussing even if we disagree. I think that even just since the first civ came out, there has been a little bit of cultural shift where maybe people are seeing national power relations in a different way. Where people are less likely to see acquisition of lands for their nation as being quite such a good thing.

[chc]

The idea that Civilization makes you, personally, a tyrannical psychopath is not worth discussing. There are vaguely related topics like the one you bring up here that might have some conversational value, but the comment with the downvotes is attributing a positively insane level of mind control to video games.

[fallingfrog]

No, of course, it doesn't.. in fact Civ 5 is my favorite game at the moment, and I hope I'm not a psycho! I interpreted the post to be saying that it makes you play the role of a psychopathic ruler. I mean, I've used nukes on my enemies in Civ. And I guess the other question is, does it pass on the values of.. well I would say imperialism, but it goes back a lot farther than that. The patriarchy, maybe?

[douche]

In my experience, war is rarely worth pursuing in Civilization. Relentless, manifest-destiny expansion via settlers is the way to go. They've tried to build in some penalties for this kind of expansion in recent titles, but I've still found it the best strategy. I think in either 3 or 4, you could produce so much culture/influence that you could simply take over land and assimilate cities from other civs peacefully.

I do always play marathon games on huge maps, though.