When I start having my classes begin to build their nations
they are all colonies that have a Mother Country, which allows them to exist
and expand as they wish. I always relate
that they are all part of a larger empire that has a king or queen and if one
of the largest alliances in the game.
When designing the game the Mother Country can be another class or you
could be the Mother Country as a control country. We do have control countries in the game, but
the students do not know who which ones are a school and who is a control nation. Having one class lord over another is always
interesting to watch, since the controlling group always becomes arrogant and
as the colonies buck up against the Mother Nation mistakes will be made by both
parties. But either way, when we start
everyone is one large happy family.
At the start of the simulation, the Mother Country rarely
interacts with my classes and takes a hands off approach to governing, until
problems begin to arise. Normally, my
classes begin attempting to expand their nation and test the Native population
that has spread across all of the continents within the first week or so. They are sometimes successful and sometimes
they fail, but the native population, which is played by the computer’s barbarian
nation always pushes back to keep them from advancing. This stage in the game is when I get serious
conflicts to begin to arise between colonial governments, my students in their local
legislatures, and the Mother Country.
The debates usually have to do with how often they should attack the
Native Americans or if expansion is morally just.
The Mother Country starts with more resources, weapons, and
science that gives them an advantage over all the colonies. Trade begins to take place between the Mother
Country and the colonies or between the colonies themselves, which always
causes them to begin going up in the rankings.
Sometimes my classes become jealous of the wealth and power the Mother
Country has accumulated and complains, but usually the fact they are too weak
to do anything about it causes them to back down. Also, plots are normally hatched during this
period and negotiations take place at lunch between colonial governments in the
cafeteria.
After several days of building the colony, the expansionists
usually win people to their crusade to expand the colony, which causes a
legislature to vote to attack the Natives.
The battles vary in success, but someone takes a city and is given a
choice of burning or keeping the city.
The debates are always fierce, decisions are made, and I can always tell
what kind of class I am going to have based on the discussions that ensue. If
they choose to burn the village and kill everyone in it they normally celebrate
their victory, but after it is all over the discussion is always somber when
they realize they just killed everyone in the village when they burned it
down. But before this time, I say
nothing and let them make their decisions so I do not influence their thought
process. From here I use the conflict as
an opportunity to where I can talk about the Proclamation of 1763, which
attempted to keep the colonists on the Eastern side of the Appalachian
Mountains or conflicts between settlers and the Natives.
There is usually a group that also wants to test the waters
and declares war on a colonial neighbor.
They always think this is fun and both classes kind of puff their chests
out as they battle. I allow them to do
this to simulate the conflict between colonies, such as Virginia and Maryland
who once fought over the rights to parts of the Potomac River. At this point the Mother Country always
intervenes, punishes the instigator or tries to mediate a settlement. It is through these conflicts that rules are
always placed on the colonists that they do not like. They always ask if they can break the rules,
but I always deny them the right to revolt.
They are not mentally ready anyway to deal with revolting, but they have
to be in a froth of anger before they push away from their Mother Country.
After these initial events happen, new laws are imposed on
the colonies where they are not allowed to trade with other nations to help
simulate mercantilism. I usually teach
this material through the traditional means, such as notes, videos, and
lectures before I start putting it into practice in the game. This ensures they understand why the events
are happening to them. This causes the
students to level of anger to increase, since I usually begin getting offers
from the economics classes at one of the other schools, but every offer that
comes in I always reject. By this time,
my classes are always languishing at the bottom of the rankings because they
cannot get the resources or the technology to continue growing and their blood
begins to boil.
By this time, conflicts that are out of the students control
begin to arise as other classes start looking outward for growth. The other teachers I play with have their
classes in Europe, which causes a tons of wars and forces them to try to
colonize the new world to get the resources they need. At this point, a war usually breaks out
between the Mother Country and another nation, which then by default means the
colonies are all at war. Troops are
almost always landed in the new world and the battles ensue, which is how I
model the French and Indian war with my classes. They are pretty much on their own, with the
Mother Country bringing in some troops to help or using their navy to sink as
many ships as possible. The war lasts a
week or so and when it is over the students are elated that they fought off the
intruders. They usually have a sense of
comradery and that they are all a similar nationality when it is over. They also have one large question: Where was the Mother Country while we were
doing all the fighting?
At this point in the game the students are usually pretty
content, but getting a little angry. As
teachers we make sure that the events kind of take the turn they need to. We use the control countries to make sure
things happen the way they need to and that no one class steamrolls everyone
else. All of these activities remember
take place every day as we move through the material and I add new concepts as
we learn them in class, which helps reinforce the knowledge.
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