Sid Myer's "Civilization" as an Educational Tool

[Kurt D.] Squire has studied middle school kids who played Civ3. He found that some students who were able to spend the hours needed to learn the game began to identify “rules” by which history progressed; rules that apply to such issues as resource allocation, the tradeoff between aggressive military expansion and diplomacy, and technological exchange among societies. Weir, who had college juniors and seniors playing every day for three weeks in a summer course, says some of the game scenari...