[ng12]

I don't know. This feels pretty similar to criticizing Call of Duty for not exploring peaceful resolution of conflict enough. Civilization is just a skin on a resource management game; popular history is the theme. Criticizing it for not adequately exploring the intricacies and assumptions of western history is missing the point.

[vkou]

If you can, as TFA, plumb it for deeper political meaning, you can also, like Errant Signal, criticize it for that political meaning being a glorification of a rather weird, authoritarian-nationalist (nearly fascist, with the game's single-minded obsession in directing all resources, human or otherwise towards the service of a single-purpose state) world view, that does not even make any sense in 95% of the time periods that the game covers.

Your argument can certainly be made, but it can also be turned against the article this thread is about, with similar levels of success.

Errant Signal is not saying that the game is bad. It is saying that the political picture its mechanics paint isn't one with any depth to it.