I'm not really interested in how he could have handled things to have a better outcome... What I do find extremely interesting is that he's in a particular situation that he can't get out of that's just a horrible cycle of death and destruction. And it seems to draw some eery parallels with real life.
The issue the parent points out is that the situation that the game player has worked himself in is most likely artificial. It's really, really easy to keep your land squeaky clean and productive in Civ 2. If you've played to year 4000 and haven't won yet and your land is trashed, it's because you wanted things to turn out that way.
