Games I through IV are absolutely brilliant (never bothered to get V, based on reviews and discussion it doesn't sound as fun as IV). I've been a fan of the franchise since the very beginning. As a game, sure, it's a positive thing.

As history, it may teach players a thing or two, and that's great. Overall though, it works from a set of really problematic assumptions about the past. The biggest one is that the game is really an exercise in teleology, the notion that history had to turn out according to a particular plan, that there was a kind of "right" way for history to be. This much is evident in the tech tree, in which many routes are possible, but they all lead through recognizable points in our past, inevitably to a representation of now. This is a problem because the more you study history, the more you realize that nothing, or rather very few things, are really inevitable. History is the study of chance and contingency, not of inevitability.

Aside from its obvious visibility in the tech tree, teleological assumptions about the past and present are also visible in more subtle ways. One of these is that very modern notions of science is projected backward in time, to encompass all of human history. "Science," as we know it, is best thought of as a way of describing the universe which assumes that the universe is a basically rational and mechanical place, operating according to universal laws, and that humans are basically rational, objective beings that can discover these universal laws, and then use them to manipulate the universe to our benefit. The problem with defining science in this way is that that particular view of the universe and humans' place within it is largely a construction of Europeans during the Enlightenment. Civilization, however, takes this very particular version of human knowledge about the universe, and makes it the only form of knowledge that matters. Further, it adopts the additional view of science as essentially a commodity that can be produced with resources, and makes it possible to simply direct resources into "science" in order to gain new knowledge and technology. Outside of pretty limited circumstances, this is simply not how societies have learned and innovated.

I understand, of course, that the game works this way in order to facilitate gameplay, and like I said, I really enjoy it. As a game, it's great. As a representation of history, it's naive, simplistic, and frankly wrong. I would actually love to see a few minor tweaks that would bring the game more in line with historical reality--though these would make gameplay much different and for many people probably not fun. Still, there should be a way to make the tech tree and science basically random. After all, in very few circumstances in the past did people consciously research toward a certain theoretical understanding of something in order to then gain predictable, practical benefits from that knowledge. Further, knowledge should not be exclusive to the state (the player); if you learn something, it should spread to your neighbors automatically, or have some chance of doing so over a given period of time. Like I said, this would make the game much different, since most strategies are built around following particular research paths. It would make success or failure at lot more dependent on chance developments, which many would find not fun, but which would also be more in line with historical changes.

It won't teach you much about the actual path that history took, but you pick up tons of incidental info on the way. All of the unique buildings and troops and leaders have information about themselves in the game. Plus, it really teaches you how a civilization can work and how complicated that is. I've always wanted to find an opportunity to use it in class to teach students some of the ways that an empire can grow and fall. So, stuff like the importance of trade routes and the power of culture are brought home to students who may not get it just from sitting in a lecture hall. The nice thing about Civ is that it's not just about conquest. There are many ways to beat the game.

The Total War series does something similar. I've actually learned a lot about geography from those games simply by looking at the maps for so long. They also include certain large events, like the mongol invasions, as scripted parts of the games.

In answer to the other part of your question, most historians I know that play video games love the series. I was just drinking with some colleagues the other week and we all raved about how awesome the series is.

As an anthropologist, I've always had serious concerns about how the Civilization franchise portrays traditional Eurocentric notions of "progress" and of unilinear social evolution (i.e. the idea that all societies, everywhere, are striving towards the same end-goal, and that end-goal by default is the European end-goal and idea of "civilized"). Doesn't mean I don't play it straight for an entire weekend sometimes.

Edit: Grammar words

As you said, the direct historical information of Civ is embedded in the Civlopedia, which is in no way part of gameplay. However, what the game does excel at is healthy exposure.

Here's a conversation I regularly have: "Yeah, I do archaeology."

"Oh, that's interesting.../awesome!/not gonna make you any money. Where do you work?"

"I study cultures in Peru."

"That's like the Maya, right?"

"No, not really... they were actually way up in Mexico and Guatemala."

"Well, I was close, right? Have fun being Indiana Jones!"

At this moment, 34,500 people are playing Civ V. Almost 43,000 were playing at its peak today. Only 4 games are more popular than it on Steam. I can guarantee you that 99.9% of those players had no idea who K'inich Janaab' Pakal was before he showed up as leader of the Maya in the Gods and Kings expansion. Add up all the people who have played the game, and you're talking thousands of people who now know that Pakal was a great 7th century leader of the Maya city Palenque in Mexico.

Yeah, the facts you get from normal gameplay are cursory. But since Civ does a great job of bringing in leaders from lesser known eras and places, the average player has no fundamental knowledge to begin with. I'm a well educated fellow, but I could not have told you who Ramkhamhaeng was.

From a gaming perspective, I love the Civilization series of games - I'm currently playing a campaign as Venice in Civ V: Brave New World.

From a historical perspective? I'm split on it. I see the good and the bad.

On the good side, you're right, getting people interested in history is a great thing, and something that even the most inaccurate movie can do. For example, I'd never heard about the Songhai until I saw them as a playable civilization in Civ II. So, that prompted me to learn more about them. Now I'm aware of a fascinating element of West African history, all thanks to an introduction in Civilization.

On the bad side, the narrative and structure of the game proposes a standard "progress" model of history that maps to the European experience. The technology trees are a large part of this. You learn technologies that Europeans developed, in the order that Europeans developed them. In Civ V, you research the "Gunpowder" technology in the Late Medieval era/early Renaissance era, and use it to build musketeers, which is a unit whose appearance immediately evokes the popular image of a 16th/17th Century Western European soldier. There's no mention of East Asian traditions of gunpowder, or its myriad cultural/military applications, centuries earlier - you get gunpowder units when the Europeans did, and use it for the same purposes.

(Notice that the basic units in every Civilization are all-white, regardless of whether you're playing Ethiopia or Russia. The only non-white units are "special" units, like the Ethiopian Mehal Sefari riflemen. Every other unit Ethiopia fields is white, except for the one that's highlighted as being different.)

The Eurocentric view of technology comes into sharp relief when you play as a non-European "civilization". If I play as the Aztecs, I'm still building Western-style cities, supported by wheat-farming and cattle-raising, and equip my soldiers with iron swords and catapults. The Aztecs had none of those things pre-contact. In the game, that would be equivalent as "lagging in technology" - i.e., "playing badly." That's the fundamental assumption - the historical Aztecs, viewed in the game lens, were "playing badly." That's a worrying take-away message - it suggests that the Aztecs deserved to lose, because they didn't progress in the same way as Europeans, and you only win the closer you follow the history of, say, England or Spain.

Even within the European focus, there's a focus on getting to the modern day. The only thing the Ancient and Classical eras are good for are to set you up for later eras. Later eras are better eras - they have better units, better culture, better trade goods. Why, as Rome, am I chewing through the Classical Era as fast as possible, when that's the time period when Rome did a lot of very interesting things? It's suggesting that the Roman Empire was just a necessary stepping stone to get to the "real" story, which is the 21st Century.

So, I've written a lot about the bad, and not so much about the good. Does that mean I think it's, on the whole, a bad influence? Honestly, no - any starting point can be a good starting point, in my opinion. And, in Civilization's defense, at least it makes an effort to represent non-European societies as interesting in their own right, with their own history, as opposed to just adversaries for Europeans to beat on their way to victory.

Being that my area of study is the American Civil War, I found that the add on expansion to Civ V was excellent for familiarinzing oneself with the distances and locations of various cities throughout the conflict. It is somewhat lacking in that there isn't a realistic comparison between troop sizes--the Confederacy fights on even terms in the normal skill level--but I think it's worth it if you want to learn more about the geography at that time.

Years ago, I designed a teaching tool called "Cultural role playing". I even got support from Gary Gygax, as he sat in on my seminar. I had met him a few times, and when I talked to him about what I was doing at this convention we were both at, he sat in to listen to it. The game was never meant to "teach" but to help the students understand the period, and get an idea how the people thought. I do not see any game as being more than a teaching tool, no matter how much you put into it. There is just to much a game cannot cover; but to do as I had stated then, could help kids having trouble understanding, and kids that are doing well, get a better understanding. As an assistance tool, yes it could do a lot, but that would be all.

Civilization is not a historical game, even though it may look like one. I think the only way to look at it and be satisfied is as a science fiction title in which time travelers have gone through earth's history and found famous political personalities and decided to pit them against each other in a simulation. You're playing as a kidnapped world leader playing an in-depth simulation of the rise and fall of civilizations that just happen to bare a cultural similarity to their home culture. It's the only way to really explain all of the game-y aspects of the titles, such as having an American civilization under the command of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington starting in 4000 BCE.

That said, the potential for tangential learning because of context and civlopedia entries is astounding. Obviously you'd never want to assign a student homework based off of Civ games, but I flatly admit that I would not have become half so interested in history if it were not for titles like Civ which sparked my interest in learning more.

Besides, given what US high school history teachers teach students these days, I'd honestly consider Civ games to be a superior medium for those students. History is the one subject that the more astutely a student studies it in high school, the more poorly those students will do in college. Literally knowing nothing is often better than learning the propaganda many high schools end up teaching and in that respect Civ is an excellent learning tool.

Edit: I accidentally a word

I think anything that can get people interested in history is a good thing. Sure, it has inaccuracies, and as agentdcf pointed out, gives a pointed perspective. However, it's a game. It's meant to be a game, and I've never heard a game developer say they were trying to produce PhD's. To me, it's ultimately up to the educators to show people 'true' history and to do so in a way that captures the gamers' attentions better than the games themselves. It's a cultural failing, not a game developer's failing, if people are taking Civilization or Assassin's Creed as a real course in history.

I'd say it's competetiveness stops it from giving several lessons you could get from games like Europa Universalis. Playing EU4 will teach you:

• Geography and all those hundreds of ancient states.
• Importance of diplomacy: royal marriages, casus belli, unions.
• Roughly how the wars were fought. Before playing the game people may imagine that the war always was WW2-style total war or fantasy single-battle war.
• Problems of the time. Reformation, rebels, trade...

Civilization passes it and condenses history in the common mechanics, so that you don't see much difference between Victorian England and ancient Babylonia, except British have already built enough roads to connect all their cities.

Also I see problem with ideology. True, Civ5 lets you choose between democracy/communism/ahem, authority and they're all Disney versions of themselves. But still the game mechanics tell you what good state is: it's a big state with big cities, with scycrapers, with a big army. Basically, objectively good state is USA whoever you play. Others already covered it, but it seems strange that everybody gets this Renessaince - Industrialization - Information era path.