To What Extent is it Sensible to See Civilisation IV as a Game of Strategy?

This is an assignment I wrote for my third year strategy module with the University of Leicester‘s School of Management. In the module, as well as studying theories and looking at criticism of business strategy, we played a multiplayer game of Civilisation IV as an alternative to the usual case studies. This was because the module leaders felt that a case study, which gives the answers to the questions it poses within the text and always has an answer, did not reflect the realities of strategy in practice. Civilisation IV on the other hand is a dynamic and changing strategy simulation, which they felt could be used as an alternative teaching tool so that students could experience first hand elements of strategy in action.

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This essay will consider strategy in the context of the computer game Civilisation IV (Civ4 as it’s commonly abbreviated and shall hereon be referred to as) and will attempt to address issues surrounding the definition of strategy, applicability of strategic theory, and how Civ4 and strategy in general relate to the real world. We shall do this by describing and comparing Mintzberg and Porter’s views on strategy, considering Ghoshal’s criticism of management theory, and then attempting to apply Baudrillard’s postmodern theories of simulacra to Civ4.

Defining Strategy

Before we can discuss the applicability of the term “strategy” to a game such as Civ4, we must first attempt to define strategy. Chambers Dictionary gives two definitions:

1. The process of, or skill in, planning and conducting a military campaign.
2. A long-term plan for future success or development.

One is the process of planning and carrying out a military campaign, whilst the other is the plan itself. Chambers excludes the process of planning for non-military activities, and that gives a hint to the word’s roots. According to Chambers, the word strategy is derived from the 17th century French word strategie, which itself is derived from the Greek strategia that is formed by combining stratos (army) and agein (to lead). So historically strategy has a strong military flavour and perhaps even now carries connotations of conflict and leadership, and yet we find strategy in businesses and boardrooms; places where war, in the literally sense at least, has never been waged. However, the second definition hints at some universally applicable definition of strategy that may be relevant to war, business, and even Civ4.

Defining what makes something “strategic” is also problematic. Mintzberg (1987, pp. 13-14) notes that notions of strategy are very subjective, depending on your perspective and on time: “what seems tactical today may prove strategic tomorrow” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 14) He then goes on to suggest we treat strategy less as a category and more as a scale “and simply refer to issues as more or less ‘strategic’” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 14), acknowledging that this strategic value can change with time and circumstances.

Mintzberg’s Definition of Strategy

Mintzberg (The Strategy Concept I: Five Ps For Strategy, 1987) also describes five different views that each emphasise different aspects of strategy:

• Plan
• Ploy
• Pattern
• Position
• Perspective

Mintzberg’s concept of strategy as plan (Mintzberg, 1987, pp. 11-12) is characterised by formulation “in advance of the action to which they apply, and they are developed consciously and purposefully”. In Civ4, the game is “won” by achieving one of a number of criteria. The criteria are defined by the games creators: they have provided several alternative ways of “winning” the game. These “victory conditions” are:

• Time Victory: highest scoring player after a set number of turns, normally when the game year reaches 2050AD;
• Conquest Victory: eliminating all rivals by destroying or capturing their cities;
• Domination Victory: control two thirds of available land and have a population 25% greater than any of your rivals;
• Cultural Victory: player controls three cities with Legendary Culture status;
• Space Race: building a space ship and successfully sending it to Alpha Centuri;
• Diplomatic Victory: winning the vote for the Diplomatic Victory Resolution in the United Nations. This requires the United Nations building to be built and the player elected Secretary-General to propose the Diplomatic Victory Resolution.

(2K Games, 2005, pp. 105 – 106)
A player can create a plan to achieve one of these conditions by deciding in advance what actions they will take throughout the game to enable them to meet the criteria.

One can even plan to deceive, perhaps by pretending to pursue a particular victory condition when that isn’t the intention. However, according to Mintzberg a ploy, or act of deception, is a form of strategy in itself, but Mintzberg also describes ploy as “really just a specific ‘maneuver’” and refers to “the real strategy” as the “plan… the real intention” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 12), and if the strategic ploy is really a plan to deceive, it would seem that the strategy is not the ploy, but the plan to misdirect. Hence, the inclusion of ploy in Mintzberg’s list can be debated, and Mintzberg perhaps realises the concept of ploy is not as important as the other Ps, as he only gave it two paragraphs at the end his discussion of plan (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 12). Mintzberg goes on to contrast plan and intended with emergent and realised strategy in terms of pattern.

Pattern is defined as “consistency in action, whether or not intended” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 12). Whereas plan depends on an intention, pattern does not: “plans may go unrealized, while patterns may appear without preconception” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 13). This allows us to differentiate between intended (plan) and emergent (unplanned pattern) strategies, both of which combine to create a realized strategy as depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Deliberate and Emergent Strategy (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 14)

This is instantly familiar, as games of Civ4 take a long time and as circumstances change one is forced to adapt to new situations, creating a realised strategy that is a blend of intended and emergent strategies. This may mean that a player adopts a new strategic position within the game as the game progresses.

Mintzberg’s idea of position owes a lot to strategy’s military roots. He describes position as “a means of locating an organization in… an environment” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 15) which is comparable with military ideas about locating an army in its environment: one of Sun Tzu’s five governing factors of war was Earth, which “comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passages; the chances of life and death” (Tzu, p. 1) or the ground upon which an army fights. Although, Mintzberg discusses position in terms of niches and product-market domains (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 15), the interpretation of environment can be broader than the organisation’s product positioning. For example, the PEST framework breaks an organisation’s environment down into political, economic, social, and technological contexts that can explore an organisation’s place in an environment beyond product positioning (Rollinson, 2008, pp. 34-41). Within Civ4 the geographic sense of positioning is most obvious, but it can also be used to describe what strategic niche a player occupies, such as do they focus on technological advantages, sheer size of territory and quantity of cities, or military power. In the case of military power as a strategic niche or position, this should not be confused with an aggressive perspective.

An aggressive perspective that informs a player’s actions is an example of strategy as perspective. Strategic perspective encompasses the idea of vision or “an ingrained way of perceiving the world” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 16), but more than that: it is “shared by the members of an organisation” so they are “united by common thinking and/or behaviour” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 17). Naturally, this common thinking will inform decisions that are taken and so can lead to strategy as plan (and ploy), position, and pattern.

However, there is a subtler interaction of these different views on strategy. An order can be placed on these concepts, that perspective leads to plan, which leads to pattern, which leads to position, for example, but Mintzberg claims that “ while various relationships exist between the different definitions, no one relationship, nor any single definition for that matter, takes precedence over the others” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 20). That is, there is no single way approaching or establishing strategy, that, for example, a plan can establish pattern just as easily as pattern can inform a plan. In this respect, Mintzberg’s Five Ps theory resembles Porter’s views on strategic position as an integrated system.

Porter’s Definition of Strategy

Porter’s idea of strategy is very easy to apply to Civ4. He argues that strategy isn’t so much a plan as a system of interrelated and complementary activities that form a position within a market: “Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities” (Porter, 1996, p. 68), however he first discusses what strategy is not.

Porter argues that operational effectiveness is distinct from strategy (Porter, 1996, pp. 61 – 64), and this is mirrored in Civ4: the speed at which a player’s cities can construct buildings and units does confer a strategic advantage and is necessary to compete with rivals, but in itself does not bring the player closer to victory. Instead it is how the player decides to use this advantage, what positioning they use it to adopt, that determines their strategy.

In Civ4, operational effectiveness can be measured in terms of the amount of production units a city produces. Efficiency can be viewed as maximising the production output of a city. A city’s output can be increased through the construction of buildings that yield bonuses, tile improvements, or fine tuning the tiles the city’s workers are using for maximum effect (rather than trusting the computer). Rivals can also achieve similar levels of operational effectiveness by researching the same technologies, building the same buildings, and maximising city tile usage and it is for this reason that Porter argues operational effectiveness is not strategy, because efficiency can be easily matched and in the long term offers no real strategic advantage as a result.

Civ4 offers a number of different approaches allowing for players to adopt different strategic positions. The approaches are the victory conditions, which each encourage a different strategic position to be adopted. (2K Games, 2005, pp. 105 – 106) The means to achieve these victory conditions can be split into three major areas: military, culture, and technology, and how the player balances each of these areas helps strategically differentiate that player from rivals.

In Porter’s view, the strategy is the system of unique activities chosen to support the key strategic themes that define the position (Porter, 1996, pp. 64 – 65). Creating this activity system requires tradeoffs: “Tradeoffs occur when activities are incompatible. Simply put, a trade-off means that more of one thing necessitates less of another.” (Porter, 1996, p. 68) Thus the only activities to be undertaken are those that support the strategic position, and Porter suggests that deciding what not to do is just as crucial as deciding what activities to pursue. (Porter, 1996, pp. 68 – 70) The benefit that tradeoffs give to the organisation is fit. Fit is the self reinforcing and complementing nature of closely linked activity systems that creates the strategic advantage and “locks out imitators by creating a chain that is strong as its strongest link” (Porter, 1996, p. 70).

Tradeoffs, and a strong fit, make a position harder to imitate because rivals may be unwilling or unable to make the same tradeoffs. Research in Civ4 is a good example, because it takes time to research new technologies. If a player wants to imitate a rivals position by copying their technology it will be very hard, if not impossible, to do so because to achieve that position the rival made tradeoffs when deciding what technology to research. The imitating player did not make the same tradeoffs, and the end result is that the imitating player will never be able to catch up with the rival, because the tradeoffs mean the rival has a head start on the imitating player that can easily be maintained.

So Porter, in summary, defines strategy as a series of interlinking activities that when taken as a whole support a market position and defy imitation by virtue of the tradeoffs required to achieve a strong fit.

It may seem that Mintzberg and Porter have differing views on strategy, but in fact there are many similarities. Porter’s argument that strategy is essentially a position is obviously compatible with Mintzberg’s own view of position, but the similarity goes further. The system of activities is an example of strategy through pattern, consistent action, and, as Porter suggests a process of actively decided what activities to pursue, this suggests a deliberate plan as well. In a general sense, Porter’s approach works best when everyone in the organisation shares the vision for the strategic position, or when, in Mintzberg’s words, they share “common thinking and/or behaviour” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 17) and the same perspective. Therefore, we can say that Porter’s view of strategy and Mintzberg’s definitions support each other.

It can be tempting then, to suggest this may be a correct view of strategy, and that they are relevant to the practice of business.

Theory and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Ghoshal discusses the effect of theory on practice, and argues that theory is negatively affecting practice. He reasons this is because management theory avoids issues of ethics and morality, is based on negative assumptions drawn from a particular ideology (liberalism), and has attempted to adopt the scientific model of investigation and “since morality, or ethics, is inseparable from human intentionality, a precondition for making business studies a science has been the denial of any moral or ethical considerations in our theories” (Ghoshal, 2005, pp. 76-77)

He argues that, as it’s a social science, management theories and practice cannot be untangled because “a management theory – if it gains sufficient currency – changes the behaviour of managers who start acting in accordance with the theory” (Ghoshal, 2005, p. 77) and so bad theories become true, even if they were initially wrong, by virtue of the self-fulfilling prophecies they encourage (see Figure 2).

For example, if a theory encourages a manager to distrust his employees, this will affect the way the manager interacts with his employees; the employees will pick up on the manager’s expectations from behavioural cues and respond accordingly, leading to validation of the original assumption, even if it was incorrect.

Figure 2 Model of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect (Rollinson, 2008, p.119)

The result is a set of amoral theories that relieve managers of any moral or ethical obligation and place them in a position where they compete with internal and external stakeholders: “In strategy courses, we have presented the “five forces” framework to suggest that companies must compete not only with their competitors but also with their suppliers, customer, employees, and regulators” (Ghoshal, 2005, p. 75).

Whilst Ghoshal focuses on morality, in doing so he highlights the wider issue of theory that does not reflect reality, which in Ghoshal’s view is a result of incorrect and unchallenged assumptions. This gives us a stepping stone to question the relevance of strategic theory at all. After all, assuming the purpose of theory is to improve our understanding or how effective we are, what is the value of theory if it makes organisations perform worse rather than better?

The Irrelevance of Theory

Baudrillard (Simulacra and Simulation, 1995) offers some insight that helps us address the relevance of theory. He argues that we are living in a hyperreal age, where we mistake simulation for reality. He describes simulacra, which are representations of real things, and describes three orders of simulacra:

1. An accurate representation of something real; a placeholder for it
2. An imitation of something real that replaces the original and real; A copy of something real
3. A representation that is detached from the original and the real; the absence of anything real; An imitation of reality that is mistaken for reality itself

(Baudrillard, 1995, p. 6)

Baudrillard presents Disneyland as “a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulacra” (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 12). It is a “play of illusions and phantasms” that is taken at face value rather than recognising the “excessive number of gadgets necessary to create the … effect” (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 12). However, Disneyland is not the simulation, it merely “functions as cover for a simulation of the third order” (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 12). In fact, Disneyland is a “deterrence machine set up to rejuvenate the fiction of the real” (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 12). That is, the juxtaposition of something that is acknowledged to be fake (Disneyland) with the simulation (American culture), so that in comparison the simulation seems real and natural.

Crogan (Remembering (Forgetting) Baudrillard, 2007) suggests a “consideration of games in term of Baudrillard’s notion of the deterrence machine” (Crogan, 2007, p. 409) so that we can examine their assumptions and in what way they distort the reality they dissimulate. This leads us to a comparison between Disneyland and America and Civ4 and strategy theory. Thus, we can suggest that Civ4 is a deterrence engine, a simulation acknowledged to be false in order to be juxtaposed and contrasted against the real practice of strategy, which is in actual fact hyperreal! A simulation that has no bearing on the real, but is nevertheless unquestioningly accepted as the real.

As Mintzberg says, “It is important to remember that no-one has ever seen a strategy or touched one” (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 16), and Grandy and Mills (2004) support this hypothesis. They argue that the “perceived ‘control’ of…organizations is a movement into the third phase of simulation” (Grandy & Mills, 2004, p. 1162) and that strategy discourse masks the absence of any form of reality in the representation: “the acceptance and unquestioning of its existence and significance masks the absence of reality” (Grandy & Mills, 2004, p. 1163).

Grandy and Mills (2004, pp. 1161-1162) argue that the simulation of strategy start with the first-order simulacra of the “organisational” and “corporate” worlds, which are imperfect representations of the natural world as they differ “from the entirety of the natural world” and are used “as a way of viewing the world” (Grandy & Mills, 2004, p. 1162). They then argue that “models of these first-order simulacra are second-order simulacra” (Grandy & Mills, 2004, p. 1162) that simplify reality by suggesting that “organizational life can be understood through strategy and strategic management”. In Baudrillard’s view it is an “evil appearance” (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 6) because it oversimplifies reality, thus distorting it. “Attempts to prescribe ‘generic’ strategies to firms are exemplary of the world-wide application of second-order simulacra” (Grandy & Mills, 2004, p. 1162), for example, frameworks such as PEST, SWOT, and the Five Forces are all second-order simulacra because they grossly oversimplify reality. Finally, we arrive at the third-order simulacra, already described, as discourse about the models, second order simulacra, emerges severing the link to reality in the process and becoming hyperreal.

Strategy and Civilisation IV

So to conclude, strategy is a problematic term to describe having a multitude of possible meanings that we explored using Mintzberg’s Five Ps and Porter’s ideas on strategic positioning. Ghoshal suggests that such theories can be damaging as they propagate incorrect assumptions leading to negative self-fulfilling prophecies in practice, which leads us to Baudrillard who we use to help us examine the relevance of strategy to the real or natural world. We also drawing on Crogan’s discussion of Baudrillard and video games and Grandy and Mills discussion of strategy as simulacra. Thus, we are lead to conclude that Civ4, which fits the theories we examined, is a simulation of strategy, as per Baudrillard, but also a deterrence machine that helps to reaffirm the hyperreal discourse of strategy in business. Finally, having established the hyperreality of strategy, we are left with a final question, which we leave to the reader to answer: Is it worth studying strategy, and if not have we just wasted a semester studying it?

Bibliography

2K Games. (2005, October 25). Civilisation 4 Manual. 2K Games. Retrieved January 10, 2010, from http://steampowered.com/Manuals/3900/manual.pdf

Baudrillard, J. (1995). Simulacra and Simulation. (S. F. Glaser, Trans.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Crogan, P. (2007). Remembering (Forgetting) Baudrillard. Games and Culture , 2 (4), 405-413.

Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices. Academent of Management Learning and Education , 4 (1), 75 – 91.

Grandy, G., & Mills, A. J. (2004). Strategy as Simulacra? A Radical Reflexive Look at the Discpline and Practice of Strategy. Journal of Management Studies , 41 (7), 1153-1170.

Mintzberg, H. (1987). The Strategy Concept I: Five Ps For Strategy. California Management Review , 30 (1), 11-24.

Porter, M. E. (1996). What Is Strategy? Harvard Business Review , 74 (6), 61 – 78.

Rollinson, D. (2008). Organisational Behaviour and Analysis: An Integrated Approach (4th ed.). Harlow, Essex, United Kingdom: Pearson Education.

Tzu, S. (n.d.). The Art of War. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from http://www.artofwarsuntzu.com/Art%20of%20War%20PDF.pdf”

Table of Figures

Figure 1 Deliberate and Emergent Strategy (Mintzberg, 1987, p. 14)

Figure 2 Model of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect (Rollinson, 2008, p.119)