How Game Ecology Drives Player Choices in Strategy Video Games: An Environmental Determinism Perspective

Spatial Constraints

Competition is a pervasive theme of video games and significantly impacts the enjoyment of gameplay (Vorderer et al., 2003). This theme also aligns with human history which frequently features stories of people competing against each other for limited resources. Therefore, strategy video games often use limited space and resources as a core mechanism to stimulate interactions among players. In this study, the author borrows the term “spatial constraints” from the geography field to refer to this mechanism (Barrat et al., 2005). In Civilization VI and Humankind, players are placed on a world map composed of equal-sized tiles as the smallest unit for decision-making. From an environmental determinism perspective, the game mechanics are built upon these tiles in three progressive layers: quantity, terrain, and resources.

First of all, the quantity of tiles in the game world is limited. Both Civilization VI and Humankind allow players to review their territories by counting the number of tiles they have occupied. One tile cannot be simultaneously owned by two players, so when all the livable lands are under a power’s control, the only way to gain more space is to either start a war or annex it from other players. However, quantity does not equate to victory alone. Having too much space may actually hinder players’ management of territories. In Civilization VI, owning more tiles comes along with a greater need for amenities, while in Humankind, a larger territory also makes it harder to maintain the stability of citizens. In this sense, both games push players to not only expand for more tiles but also for the best tiles, leading to the two other layers of game mechanics: terrain, and resources.

The second layer restricts the number of tiles’ terrain types. In Civilization VI, different types of terrain can improve the yields of different districts or architectures. For example, a campus built near mountains can create more science, and a commercial hub by a river can produce more gold. Another example is building wonders like the Pyramids and the Eiffel Tower. While players can build this special type of architecture offering substantial benefits, these wonders can only be built on specific terrains. As a consequence, players are guided to construct buildings and manage their territories according to game ecology to exploit the tiles.

The last layer of game mechanics enhances this guidance by attaching functions to the resources on tiles. In both Civilization VI and Humankind, one tile can load up to one resource which values up and diversifies the tile. The resource types include bonus resources that increase yields (e.g., crops and plants), luxury resources that provide amenities (e.g., artifacts and jewelry), and strategic resources that benefit technology and the military (e.g., minerals and animals). These resources are scattered on different parts of the map and revealed over time to reflect human history. Similar to terrains, players need to exploit those resources to maximize benefits. For instance, if rice grows on a tile in a player’s base area, is reasonable to make the tile farmland to feed more people.

These three progressive layers of game mechanics can work together to create countless tile permutations, making game ecology an unpredictable and fun object to interact with, and also a possession that can only belong to one player. These game mechanics further indicate that owning and making use of the limited space leads to success. Under this circumstance, players have to fight for game ecology. The spatial constraints thus become an important unbalanced design in strategy video games that drive players to compete against each other.

Movement Modifiers

While spatial constraints refer to the inherent features of game ecology, the second form of game mechanics, movement modifiers, speaks to how game ecology influences the units in it. By units, this paper means both the playable and non-playable mobile agents that can influence strategic gameplay, including soldiers, traders, and missionaries (Civilization Wiki, 2023-a). As Murray (2017) argues navigation through spaces is a naturally pleasant experience in games, this experience is generally reflected in the movement of units in strategy games. In Civilization VI and Humankind, every unit can move one time per turn, making up an important part of gameplay. To make gameplay more complex and fun, game ecology then offers mechanics to either assist or hinder the movement of units (Elbæk et al., 2022). To this end, the author combines “movement” with the commonly used game term “modifier” to refer to these mechanics. Table 2 shows some common movement modifiers in Civilization VI:

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Table 2.

The modifiers that game ecology offers to influence movement in games.

Type	Description	Game Mechanics Examples
Facilitators
Accelerate	Lift move speed	Road building
Teleport	Transport to another place immediately or shortly	Rapid deployment
Passage	Create ways through impassable areas	Mountain tunnel
Inhibitors
Decelerate	Lower move speed	Hill and forest terrains
Barrier	Impassable areas	Mountain and ocean terrains
Occupy	Be capable of only holding a limited number of units	Limitation of one unit per tile

The obvious influence of these modifiers on player choice is that players have to follow the rules of game ecology to move playable units. Below the surface, these modifiers also significantly influence site selection. When players look for a site to build a new city or district, they are likely to choose a spot with travel convenience (e.g., by a river, and on a plain).

Furthermore, the function of a movement modifier is changeable. A hindering modifier may indicate a possible gameplay solution to turn it into an assistant one, and an assistant modifier may be temporary and disappear once the situation changes. For instance, the ocean terrains in Civilization VI are barriers when players cannot build ships, but they will soon help accelerate units’ travel on water after players unlock the sailing technology. In this regard, what players deal with are multiple movement challenges provided by game ecology. Clarifying further, the movement modifiers also reflect the human history from being trapped by nature to making use of nature, which indicates the conquerable feature of game ecology.

Uncommon Events

The two forms of game mechanics above introduce the features of game ecology that are predefined at the beginning of each game, creating choice-making patterns for players to follow. However, satisfying player agency does not only come from choice-making, but also the commitment to meaning (Tanenbaum & Tanenbaum, 2009). The meaning in both Civilization VI and Humankind relates to the development of human beings, which cannot live without some unexpected challenges and turning points. Therefore, both games feature various uncommon events to give a sudden change to the game situation to cultivate new meanings. Events have long been a crucial mechanism in strategy games. In this study, the word “uncommon” is added to denote the random and unpredictable elements within these events. Among uncommon events, environmental issues become prevalent because they can often create urgent and meaningful scenarios that efficiently raise players’ interest and motivation.

Civilization VI, for instance, randomly generates natural disasters from time to time. On the one hand, those disasters destroy players’ constructions, creating obstacles to players’ plans. On the other hand, those disasters may also bring bonuses to the yields of the influenced area. A perfect example is the flood. In the game, the plains by the river are most likely to be affected by floods. When a flood comes, it will destroy all architecture in the area. However, after the disaster, the area can potentially produce more food as the flood has made the land more fertile. As a result, players need to reconsider their previous strategy and think about setting up more farmlands in the area as growing food here becomes more rewarding.

The previous example points out the relationship between uncommon environmental events and player choices. These events do not simply damage players’ constructions and ask players to repeat their previous choices. Instead, these events bring changes to the game ecology and suggest other possible strategies. To some extent, uncommon events are unpredictable both in terms of occurrence and results, which also uncovers the unpredictability of game ecology.

Dynamic Indexes

The three forms of game mechanics above, while depicting game ecology either as stable conditions or conditions that change inconsistently, cannot present the ever-changing environmental issues like climate change. Furthermore, just like the global climate changes according to human behaviors, game ecology also needs to give feedback to players’ actions.

Hence, strategy games often employ monitoring systems to constantly measure the dynamic aspects of game ecology including pollution degree and temperature. In this study, the author develops the term “dynamic indexes”, drawing on conventional board games, to describe such monitoring systems (BGG, 2021).

In Civilization VI, the index of global warming monitors the total carbon emissions of all civilizations. Modern architectures like factories release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere each turn, which causes the sea level to rise and ultimately flood a large amount of land. The damage of global warming in the game is preventable, but if precautions have not been taken, the results are almost irreversible as the flooded lands can no longer function. In Humankind, a similar index monitors the degree of pollution in the world. The modern installations (e.g., factories, and train stations) built by players produce pollution and reduce all the statistical yields of the area. In addition, if the global pollution index reaches a certain threshold, the world will become unhabitable. The game ends immediately and no one wins.

From those designs, it is evident that players overlooking a dynamic index can result in fatal consequences. Once the index reaches an abnormal range, making quick decisions and preventing damage becomes players’ priority. In strategy video games, dynamic indexes constantly change to reflect the changes in game ecology, which often keeps players in long-term tension and requires them to actively respond to those changes. In other words, game ecology is designed to be ever-changing to imply that environmental problems are not formed in a day and encourage players to care about them.

When Environmental Determinism Meets Cultural Determinism

By identifying four forms of game mechanics that reflect environmental determinism in Civilization VI and Humankind, this study reveals a common design pattern: game ecology can be unbalanced, conquerable, unpredictable, and everchanging by its design. These features of game ecology are substantiated by game mechanics, which significantly impact how players can explore the game world, expand their territories, exploit resources, and exterminate enemies (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

The correspondence between game mechanics and the influenced 4X actions.

However, this argument differs from the conventional perspective that strategy games generally reflect cultural determinism. Andrés Bijsterveld Muñoz (2022), for example, states that 4X games are more about cultural determinism rather than environmental determinism. He examines Sid Meier's Civilization V ((2010)) (thereafter, Civilization V) and points out that the pre-set cultural abilities of civilizations can largely determine players’ strategies. Muñoz also provides specific examples by contrasting the English civilization with the Moroccan civilization in the game. When playing as England, players can enjoy the fast travel speed of naval units, which allows the civilization to take the lead in exploration. In contrast, Morocco’s abilities are mostly associated with the desert terrains, making them the only civilization that can produce yields on the barren lands. The distinction between those two civilizations indicates different strategies and game experiences, so Muñoz argues that the game can be understood as cultural factors determining player choices. This argument seems plausible, yet it overlooks the interconnection between cultural factors and environmental factors in the game.

Firstly, 4X games like the Civilization series incorporate starting biases: if players start a game as Morocco, they are bound to be set in a base area surrounded by deserts when the game starts (Civilization Wiki, 2023-b). Regarding this, while players make use of the desert, their choices are influenced by both the civilization’s abilities and game ecology, with the latter being more influential. To clarify, suppose that the Morocco civilization starts on a small island with no desert, then to continue the game, players have to build ports and turn their citizens into fishermen even if they are not talented. In this sense, the cultural factors are only important in cases where the game ecology supports those factors. When the game ecology is extreme, cultural factors become secondary and players need to follow the environmental rules to survive.

Secondly, the Civilization series has progressively evolved to reduce the influence of cultural factors on gameplay. Compared to Civilization V, Civilization VI introduces various new mechanics that are not influenced by civilizations’ abilities, such as districts, a type of construction whose yields are dependent on geography (Civilization Wiki, 2024). In addition, the series now provides multiple leaders with different skills to add to civilizations’ abilities, indicating that these pre-set abilities are versatile. For instance, England prospers in industrialization and naval construction under Queen Victoria, whereas under Eleanor of Aquitaine, it gains from advancements in arts and population growth. As of November 2022, Civilization VI even announced a new leader pass adding various leaders to existing civilizations (Civilization VI, 2022). These updates suggest that the game developers intend to make cultural factors more controllable for players instead of being predetermined.

Lastly, game developers may have designed the civilizations’ abilities in the Civilization series out of a concern for historical authenticity. However, more recent 4X games have broken through this authenticity concern. In Humankind, players are allowed to reselect their cultures in different historical periods. As a consequence, one civilization may be England during medieval times, and later become China in the modern eras. This design sounds unreasonable, but it adds more depth to the strategic gameplay and gives players more freedom to focus on game ecology instead of civilizations’ abilities for choice-making. Therefore, game ecology plays an even more important role in Humankind than in Civilization VI. To sum up, game ecology becomes increasingly influential in shaping player choices as games evolve. In comparison, cultural factors in strategy games are often influenced by game ecology itself.

The Evolvement of Environmental Determinism in Video Games

In terms of release time, the changes in game mechanics from Civilization V to Civilization VI, and then to Humankind, indicate the evolvement of environmental determinism in strategy video games. As this ideology gains prevalence, it prompts us to inquire into the social context behind its evolvement. What is the significance of environmental determinism in society? How does this real-life significance support the growth of environmental determinism in game design?

Previous research suggests that neo-environmental determinism was promoted to argue against racial and cultural determinism claims in the 20th century (Radcliffe et al., 2010). Those claims, attributing the differences in the level of development across human racial groups to their instinctive differences in intelligence and morality, were problematic but welcomed at that time. That is why social scientists put hard work into finding the relationship between nature and human development to dispute the claims. To some extent, environmental determinism points out the injustice in environmental situations of different racial groups, which gets increasingly noticed as the global consciousness of racial issues has continued to grow.

This social significance of environmental determinism can also help explain the evolvement of environmental determinism in game design. On the one hand, as contemporary players are more familiar with the powerful impacts of environments, they can better accept the asymmetrical game challenges brought by game ecology. Although facing different game ecological situations, the goal of adjusting strategies to adapt to the environment is the same for all players, which still maintains a certain level of fairness in the player competition. On the other hand, environmental determinism gives narratives and meaning to abstract game mechanics and amplifies the experience of interacting with nature in real life. The complex game ecology can provide diverse scenarios that are new and exciting for players, which makes the gameplay captivating.

It is also worth noting that environmental determinism in games emphasizes different aspects compared to the original literature. When Diamond (1997) highlights how the environment influences agriculture, technology, and diseases to shape different societies, he focuses on the outcomes of human development. However, in games, players do not always make the most rational choices based on game ecology to survive. Instead, they can experiment with strategies that lead to various “what if” scenarios (Schulzke 2014), even losing the game. In this sense, environmental determinism in games prioritizes the simulation of the process rather than the explanation of outcomes. In fact, the process of a player mastering the gameplay often coincides with their growing awareness of the decisive impact of game ecology. In summary, environmental determinism in strategy games has derived from the social context but also evolved into new forms.

Therefore, this study proposes a new understanding of environmental determinism in video games: game ecology guides players to make certain choices to adjust to its features and changes, thus determining the meaning of the composed game narrative. In Civilization VI and Humankind, this narrative is about human history. In other video games, this narrative can be about love, friendship, conflicts, and all aspects of humanity. In other words, environmental determinism in video games expresses a core narrative that encourages players to focus on broader environmental issues instead of regional conflicts. Furthermore, this ideology also aligns with people’s growing desire for harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. In this sense, how to design game ecology becomes crucial and needs critical consideration.