For a while, Dr. Andrew Alan Johnson claimed that Byzantine Emperor Basil II ruled over everything.

The emperor had a glittering career. He reigned for nearly 50 years, endured perpetual civil wars, conquered the First Bulgarian Empire, and won many campaigns. Thanks to Johnson, Basil II briefly conquered history by replacing every single entry in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI’s extensive Civilopedia.

Johnson is an associate professor and historical consultant at Stockholm University. He has worked with Firaxis since Civilization VI, specifically since the New Frontier Pass introduced Byzantium and Basil II. He has been responsible for everything from naming the achievements to helping the art team design historical leaders’ costumes so they look the part. He has also written many Civilopedia entries. Although this seemed like a significant undertaking at the time, it highlights the differences between working on a team project and Johnson’s other job, where he bears the full responsibility alone. The Civilopedia is a platform where Johnson can educate and share his passion for history and anthropology with players, using his expertise to enlighten them.

“So I come to Firaxis, and they tell me, ‘OK, for the first couple of days, just play the game and get really familiar with it.’ That wasn’t hard because I was a fan long before I was an employee there. Then, they said, ‘Let’s write some entries.’ I think they were entries about people like Triệu, Basil, and the New Frontiers Pass civilizations, leaders, and wonders. Then, we uploaded them to the database. I uploaded it over every other file. The entire folder disappeared, and when I looked, I saw that only my entry on Basil II remained. That’s it. That’s the Civilopedia.

I had a good week in game development. I’m going to go be a nomad and raise sheep in Montana. Companies like Firaxis have measures in place to prevent this. I went to IT and apologized, and they were able to rescue it by rolling it back to the previous version. This was my first real experience with game design. In my field of anthropology, I am the data collection tool. I’m the one who writes it. When I send something out, everything in it is me. So, if I mess up conceptually or lose my field notes, it’s my responsibility. There are stories of anthropologists who have lost all their field notes in disasters. A friend of mine had all his notes confiscated by the police. If you lose something like that, it’s your fault. You have to rewrite the entire thing.

Since I don’t need to explain what archery is, I can use this opportunity to write a few paragraphs about how archery actually predates anything in Civ. You can make bows out of horn. You can make bows out of wood. You have to think about tensile strength. You have to consider power versus mobility. A longbow is effective because of the wood’s grain and the type of tree it’s made from. You can get more power in a smaller space by mixing materials, gluing them together with bone and wood, and using the result on top of a horse. However, in a warm, wet climate, as the Mongols discovered, those bows will break,” Johnson said.

He was lucky the backups saved him!

Source: PCGamer