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Once I played a game of Civilization II for roughly two years, on and off, as the Americans. The reason it took so long was because it was a bloodlust game (yes, we all know how long those can take). My American democracy, straddled across a fairly large continent, was attacked by an alliance forged between the Sioux, the Aztecs, and, later, the Babylonians. Eventually, while my armored forces were pounding on Aztec city walls, I started a long, a very, very long submarine war against the Sioux, from whom I was separated by a very large ocean (think Pacific X2). Anyone who has a knowledge of undersea warfare in Civ or in real life knows how it goes, it was a nasty, bloody war of attrition that was costing me anywhere between two and five submarines per turn and the Sioux were losing only slightly more. After a great many turns of this murder passed I gave up on the underwater strategy and just built aegis cruisers and steady wasting of men and material decreased a good deal, for me anyway.

Let me restate, my empire was losing between two and five submarines EVERY turn, presumably with their crews. Each of these units probably had ten or so submarines and each submarine could have as many as fifty crewmen. That means that EVERY turn my empire was sending between 1000 and 2500 young men (and women, I suppose) to Davy Jones locker. Did I hear a single complaint from my population? Did I get any letters from grieving widows, mothers, or whomever? No. Nothing. Keep in mind that my empire was a democracy and yet my citizens said nothing about the slaughter consuming their sons and daughters. They said nothing because citizens in Civ II are little more than an abstraction. The only time they seem to have any voices at all is when they want a Colosseum, or a temple (and they make far too much noise then, even starving themselves sometimes)! I don't even know how many citizens are enlisted in my army, all I know is that I have X number of units. How many people are in these units? If I am fighting a big war, and I'm losing ten riflemen a turn, how many citizens was that? 100,000? I have no idea, and the rest of my citizens don't care. They're happy working in their factories or building more riflemen. What I propose is that there should be a limit, a point where your citizens say no. And also a point where your citizens say yes. There is nothing in Civilization II like August, 1914 where all of your citizens are rejoicing because of the great adventure. On the opposite side, there's no equivalent to 1918, when your citizens get so tired of giving up sons and husbands that you, the ruler, can't afford to fight any more for fear of revolution.

And I know what people are saying already, if you are in a democracy or a republic your people do get pissy if you take units out of the city radius. That is true, but due to the nature of this system, the fact that the unit is out of the city radius is all that matters. If that units is destroyed, killing who knows what percentage of that unit's soldiers, the citizens in that unit's home city are suddenly happy again. Your soldiers' deaths can make your citizens happier, but not the opposite! This lack of war weariness is a serious problem for a game that offers its players the chance to rewrite history. History is, after all, made up of people, citizens.
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I'm a History grad student at Ole Miss, currently studying in Cologne

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