As the title suggests, it's a thread about often mistakes and bad habbits!

Mine:

- Cease to expand around 1100 AD when I have 5-6 cities. I remember it when the AI starts to fill in the blanks for me :mad:

- Starting a war with my strongest neighbour to put a stop to his growth, with few troops and an already weakened economy.

- Limiting my naval force to...work boats.

- Always taking CoL as my free Oracle tech.

- Not deciding whose side to take. Eventually I can only take my side.

Building too few military units, wonder why civs look on me as "breakfast" (even when pleased, or maybe especially...).

My main problem (mistake) is that I tend to have a good plan initially on how to proceed, what to research, what to build, how to focus each city etc but after a while, it becomes a bit too much "do things on the fly and click end turn" and thus forgetting about my main goals.

So you might say I need to improve my micromanagement patience to improve my game.

Forgetting to cancel chopping forest (2)

I click end turn without considering all options - and playing at the speed I prefer I can't really compromise on this. This makes my time on the forum and thinking about strategy before/after games crucial - if I can add a thing or two to my patterns each game there's some gradual semblance of micro over time. Sort of.

You can still tell though in many of the games I post, so I have a ways to go before I stop blowing micro, which is probably the last thing holding me back but 100% the most difficult for me to overcome because I like my 3 hour epic games :(. It CAN be done, I KNOW it can, but to micro truly well and play that fast I'll need skills that border what people who do speed runs do...I'm trying :(.

i'm always looking for my next kill and will go to war even when i really should be building economy...
that would be fine but my expansionist trait means that i rarely ever burn cities.
In multiplayer games i always tend to be the one with the high score because of land, but not in technology....unlike my competitors lol!
So im used to fighting with inferior techs.

As the title suggests, it's a thread about often mistakes and bad habbits!

Mine:

- Limiting my naval force to...work boats.

- Always taking CoL as my free Oracle tech.

- Not deciding whose side to take. Eventually I can only take my side.

You couldn't have said it better.
I've solved the last one by playing with no tech brokering, makes the game more fun for me :)

Forgetting to change civics after completing the Pyramids..

- Limiting my naval force to...work boats.


This is also a really bad habit of mine, even more so since the new patch. :blush:

Also, Building too few units.

- forgeting to switch into Rep after building the 'mids.

- not picking a victory condition until 1900 AD.:lol:

-Another one who's alway forgetting to switch civics here.

-Trading without paying attention to worst enemies, with the result everyone hates me.

-Accepting vassals which later become inconvenient enclaves in my territory.

-Endlessly waiting for the perfect location for the forbidden palace, with the result I never actually build the thing.

Not building enough military
Trying to build almost every building in almost every city
Not starting wars

Big ones are:
Over-expanding pre-AD and not being able to recover.
Lack of micro, don't optimize the whip, etc.
Never get enough :health: resources.
Forgetting to switch out of pacifism after a run at bulbing through philo, edu or lib.

Mine are mostly poor micro, but if you neglect them enough, they really hurt!

- Forgetting to check the city screens often to make sure citizens are working the right tiles or assigned as the right specialists.

- Neglecting to whip high-food, low hammer cities for early infrastructure or that needed settler/worker.

- Allowing cities to regrow into unhappiness before the unhappiness penalty wears off.

- Not having enough workers to hook up the resources ASAP in my new cities.

- Getting so focused on waiting for a certain tech or wonder or improvement to be completed, that I rush through turns not really paying attention to my cities and workers.

- Refusing every begging/threatening request on principle instead of considering who my friends/enemies are/will be.

Playing "just one more round" when it's time to go to bed.

1. Having too many things running in the background (iTunes/Olympics feed and internet browser with 20+ tabs open).

I've really abandoned the game until after the Olympics because I like to keep an eye on Team GB, so my computer is no longer squealing in pain like a Chinese weightlifter.

2. Waiting until "...just one more swordsman" before rushing someone.

3. Not taking enough siege units, though I'm getting better at that.

4. Not knowing how to run a specialist economy.

5. Quitting if I don't get the Great Wall and one or both of the trade enhancers such as the Temple of Artemis or the Great Lighthouse.

6. Playing on an easy difficulty level so I don't have to up my game.

7. Trying to get too many religions and/or the AP. I've only managed to lose the AP once and immediately reloaded, I'm not too fussy about the actual religions since someone usually manages to get Taoism before me by bulbing for Philosophy but my early game relies too heavily really on beelining Polytheism, amassing Great Prophet points to build the shrine and then bulb Theology, and then wondering why I am being outgunned or at least falling in the power ratios.

Forgetting to chop the jungle off an ivory-jungle tile (once I get Iron working).

I've been getting rid of my bad habits pretty handily since joining this forum, but I still have a few:

The one mentioned above about ending turns carelessly while waiting for a wonder or a research tech to complete.

Not monitoring city happiness enough.

Never have "just enough" workers. Always too many, or too few.

Not building up my military soon enough. (Too focused on getting production to sckyrocket.)

Navy? What's that? It can wait until Astronomy. Then I usually build it up reasonably well, and overbuild when I hit Industrialism and Flight (BBs and CVs).

Not enough Workers get built.

Wonder-lust. And putting them all in my capital.

Not getting Settlers out the door soon enough, so I miss some good spots and have to kick some one out.

Putting off "calender" forever because I don't want to research sailing. Or trade for it because it is so cheap and the AI always wants something huge for it.

Bad city placement. Can't get them into areas that would give me maximum returns pre-Biology, usually. And by that time, it's too late anyways.

- GREED(check the current mad's RPC) I want to claim too many good city spots and too many resources very early in the game

- Fortify the worker, while waiting for the enabling tech and forget to order him to build improvement, chop, road etc, when the tech is completed.

- Send the initial unit 3-4 tiles away, so I miss huts, or he gets eaten, because he moves on plain terrain, instead of forest/jungle.

- Neglect late micromanagment. The governor likes to assign spies too much and I pop unexpected and unwanted spy

Giving great people goto commands that run right by my enemies and then lo and behold, they get killed.

Waiting an extra turn or two to switch civics, because I'm researching another civic tech, then completely forgetting to switch at all until many turns later. Or vice versa, switching civics just before I get that additional civic tech so I could've just had one anarchy. And then I usually forget to switch after that too.

playing while being on the phone(alot - and it's obvious when I do that :p)

- Giving up games too quickly/easily.

- Regenerating map if starting position isn't optimal for my civilization.

I always forget to monitor my civics and religious situation. Sometimes I waste dozens of turns in the wrong civics.

I frequently fail to see the opportunity to go on the offensive before it is too late to build up the army. (In other words, I have Grens and/or Cannons in research sight, while the others are still hanging around with l-bows and I haul off and research biology.

--Missing the opportunity for an early war/rush and winding up having to wait for cats.
--Thinking my mad diplomacy skillz are madder than they are. This usually manifests as trying to tempt an AI to attack me so I can avoid getting the diplo hits from his/her friends. Also, trying to manipulate the AIs into warring with each other. These almost never work for me and you'd think I would have learned my lesson by now, but I waste countless turns on them nearly every game.
--Beelining when I should develop and developing when I should beeline.

-Endlessly waiting for the perfect location for the forbidden palace, with the result I never actually build the thing.

I'm guilty of this as well. I always know where I want my national wonders for the most part. But as a warmonger I'm always thinking "I'll wait till I take over so and so and THEN build the forbidden..." By the time I take said Civ over, I'm already eyeballing the next victim, and his "perfect place" for the FP.

I dont build enough units when i go to war and dont expect when the AI sends a SoD to my land....

Neglect late micromanagment. The governor likes to assign spies too much and I pop unexpected and unwanted spy
I've noticed the governor loves to hire ordinary workers :mad: to speed up production, but they don't generate GPPs.

Forgetting to switch to Rep after building Pyramids

Not specializing cities enough

Polluting my GP pool (I've given up and my new approach is to pollute away and build every wonder I can in my capital. Fewer GPP wasted empire-wide that way. Maybe this isn't a mistake?)

Not checking the PG/victory screen enough to know who my enemies are

Being overcautious in starting wars.

Forgetting to keep stack in recently captured city, or delaying capture of next city - only to lose it to a culture flip before I can capture the next one.

Checking victory screen too infrequently

Underestimating the power of the AP.

I tend to have really focussed inital strategies with buildings/techs/units being maximised to the hilt... then losing sight of anything near a medium term goal

John

Overplanning.

'Hey this would be an ideal commerce city with a library and two scientists for my planned hybrid economy...wha?'

'Your second city has been captured by the barbarian state'

Gah. Forgot to build enough defenders.

Or worrying too much about the AI and its city/resources and not making the most of my cities/resources.

Building too much infrastructure and not enough troops...
Building too many troops and not enough infrastructure...

Forgetting to minimize time spent in slavery when playing a spiritual civ.
Forgetting to beg for money.
Sometimes being late in scouting an enemy's lands after opening borders.

ah, and since it's happened again: lacking any sense of urgency when starting isolated...

it's always... "umm, let's grow 1 more pop. then start that settler", "umm, maybe I want another archer which will grow my happy cap. with 1, so... let's grow 1 more pop. before that settler" which usually ends with... "omg, I've played only half and hour, but look, it's already 600 ad and I'm eons from liberalism", "zomg, I've lost lib.", "zomg, everyone is 10 techs ahead", x comes and puts a city in my yard because I didn't even properly settled everything since... "hey, why hurry... noone's around anyway" and obviously restarting furiously.

In my obsession to win liberalism, I end up bee lining to it ignoring several important techs, I usually rush my main opponent in the classic age, then I'm recovering my economy and skip medieval times altogether, I end up with gunpowder as my free tech long before I even get to longbows or maces or crossbows or knights...

Being too bloody-minded. I always feel as if I am doing something wrong if...


- AIs aren't at each other's throats

- I have an army and am not at least pillaging someone dry

- I am not at war (at least someone could waste their troops on my fortified cities...)

- busy with something other than expansion by force, including riding an advantage to a bloodless victory

- on friendly terms with someone and they haven't proven useful in centuries.

- able to cripple the most powerful opponent but no currently attempting to


Sometimes a nasty little scheme backfires, and I end up fighting for my life in a game that would have been a guaranteed win if I had just played nice for once.

I keep forgetting about the free win against barbs that you get on Noble. That's a guaranteed 2 or 3 xp and an instant promotion on the starting warrior by attacking the first animal, but instead I defend in the forest and only get 1xp. I also forget about the civic-switching abilities of Spiritual leaders, and lack decisiveness in general (hence I'm not a great fan of early rushes).

I'm guilty on the "waiting forever to build the Forbidden Palace" thing.

Also, I'll sometimes not pay proper attention to diplomacy, refusing demands rather than considering who future friends might be.

Not checking for new resources/techs to trade as often as I should, simply because it's so tedious to do so. (If there could be a popup whenever another nation has something new to trade, that would be an awesome addition to Civ for me.)

Building more wonders than are necessary on the higher difficulty levels.

Not checking the graphs and demographics for power etc as often as I should.

I also sometimes build the Apostolic Palace while forgetting to foster the AI relationships needed to be voted the Leader. :crazyeye:

Often I get an obsession about playing a game a particular way and stubbornly stick to it or give up in annoyance if (when) things don't go according to plan.

Inadequate barbarian defense.... Recently I have begun playing as agressive leaders just so my inclination to forgo Archery and keep out the hordes by the wave of the club won't hurt my game too much. On the plus side, I never miss an early game tech oppurtunity.

Switching to Organized Religion before having a religion

I'm guilty on the "waiting forever to build the Forbidden Palace" thing.

Also, I'll sometimes not pay proper attention to diplomacy, refusing demands rather than considering who future friends might be.

Not checking for new resources/techs to trade as often as I should, simply because it's so tedious to do so. (If there could be a popup whenever another nation has something new to trade, that would be an awesome addition to Civ for me.)

Building more wonders than are necessary on the higher difficulty levels.

Not checking the graphs and demographics for power etc as often as I should.

I also sometimes build the Apostolic Palace while forgetting to foster the AI relationships needed to be voted the Leader. :crazyeye:

use the bug mod / hof mod for that feature...

My biggest mistake is to try to play as much as I can in every seat and ending playing in 12 h seats, sometimes even without going to the bathroom :eek: I don't need to say that the concentration levels are not at their best at 4 am when you're playing non stop since 4 or 6 pm :p

On game: definitely starting slowly. This game values a lot early development ( IMHO too much, but that is for another thread ) and I tend to lag it down a little, as I'm noticing in the Pitboss game that I'm playing now ( Well, I'm not being fair with myself: my biggest reference is my northern neighbour, that has a Fin civ and started with a gold hill and FPs :cry: )

Avoiding researching a tech cos it will obselete something I currently rely on, e.g. putting off researching Computers when I have a religious economy.

Biggest problem I am working on now is overexpanding and killing my economy. I got used to playing Financial or Organizaed leaders (or Shaka or Charlie with their UB's) and now playing leaders that are neither I always end up in the Classical age with the science slider at 20% or even 10% and I fall 10 techs behind the AI. My cities run out of things to build and they are building excess units or Walls just in case I might a Castle eventually. Meanwhile I don't even have Alphabet and so can't build research. Very tough hole to dig out of. It seems like I need 5 or 6 cities to grab all the important resources, and that's enough to kill your economy before courthouses.

Biggest problem I am working on now is overexpanding and killing my economy. I got used to playing Financial or Organizaed leaders (or Shaka or Charlie with their UB's) and now playing leaders that are neither I always end up in the Classical age with the science slider at 20% or even 10% and I fall 10 techs behind the AI. My cities run out of things to build and they are building excess units or Walls just in case I might a Castle eventually. Meanwhile I don't even have Alphabet and so can't build research. Very tough hole to dig out of. It seems like I need 5 or 6 cities to grab all the important resources, and that's enough to kill your economy before courthouses.

Tech towards monarchy for raising the happy cap through HR. Just working one extra cottage per city makes up for the financial boost. And building research is the least effective use of hammers because it is not benefited by research multipliers.

Biggest problem I am working on now is overexpanding and killing my economy. I got used to playing Financial or Organizaed leaders (or Shaka or Charlie with their UB's) and now playing leaders that are neither I always end up in the Classical age with the science slider at 20% or even 10% and I fall 10 techs behind the AI. My cities run out of things to build and they are building excess units or Walls just in case I might a Castle eventually. Meanwhile I don't even have Alphabet and so can't build research. Very tough hole to dig out of. It seems like I need 5 or 6 cities to grab all the important resources, and that's enough to kill your economy before courthouses.

I also wanted to comment on this!

Just one city with some grassland cottages and a good commerce/happiness resource (gold, gems) can fund something like 6 cities.

My favorite starts include 3 non-tundra/desert hills and a lot of flood plains and grasslands. =P

By the way, for the first, oh, 5000 years the most important resources are... Well IS iron. So if you can't get iron within a few cities you need to question your priorities. Copper is cool and (from what I understand) damn near necessary in games beyond monarch, but if you're playing prince or below iron is the key. All other resources simply boost your economy by allowing you to grow, and therefore are not "necessary".

Avoiding researching a tech cos it will obselete something I currently rely on, e.g. putting off researching Computers when I have a religious economy.

i too fall victim to the not building wonders to obsolete current bonuses. i'm a true victim to great lighthouse and colossus in my first port city (especially if financial).

i also forget about the forbidden palace - i guess the grass isn't always greener on the other side

i always forget to keep a few workers to micro after i've automated them... (they really do just get pesky and annoy me) but then i miss out on that uranium i thought i had hooked up because its under the stupid town ... UGH ... then my friends nuke me, great, thanks guys!

Not building the National Wonders, or too few of them. The National Epic and the Heroic Epic are easy choice for me, those I always build. But for the rest I always go "hmm, maybe it's better in THAT city" and then I go, "but what if I put it there" and then "hmm, doesn't really need National Park here" and I end up building it nowhere

Not trading techs. I rarely initiate tech trades. I usually wait for the AI to propose and if it is decent enough or I can renegotiate, I'll trade.

Not enough cities. I usually have strong quick starts which lose momentum pretty fast since I want all my cities to be hooked-up and wonderfully prospering before I even think about the next city or important techs. I experienced how a large empire does wonders to science and production, but only when I conquer my neighbours. I never expand enough peacefully.

Many other things, mostly mentioned in previous posts.

cheers,
wannabewarlord

In my recent games I have a sick obsession to found every single religion I can get and spread it everywhere in my empire for the happiness with free religion civic. I want to keep everyone as my religious buddy. Eventually I'll miss 1 or 2 and by 1500 I find out that my main religion is 15% of the world and the religion I missed is 40%. A religious economy can be quite robust but eventually becomes weak.

To the person who forgets about the Noble barb-combat bonus: I wouldn't call that a mistake, not if you you plan to advance to Prince soon.

On the other hand, maybe it is one after all, in that you have an opportunity, and you are not using it, and the idea in Civ is to use your opportunities!

Believing the attack odds... then gifting the AI promotions for it's defenders

Tech towards monarchy for raising the happy cap through HR. Just working one extra cottage per city makes up for the financial boost. And building research is the least effective use of hammers because it is not benefited by research multipliers.

Sure, no problem. With the science slider at 20%, I can get Monarchy in 26 turns. Then one turn of anarchy, and my cities can finally grow by one. Meanwhile, the AI is in the Industrial age.

Turning hammers to research is a desperation move. I don't really care that it doesn't get multipliers. Running the science slider at 10% or 20% doesn't make much use of the library multiplier. So what? I am dead without research and building it directly is the only way without commerce for the science slider or enough food for scientists.

I also wanted to comment on this!

Just one city with some grassland cottages and a good commerce/happiness resource (gold, gems) can fund something like 6 cities.

If I have gold or gems in my capitol, then I don't really get into the stalled research jam. Same if I am Financial or Organized. It's all those other times. In the Classical age, I have cottages and maybe a hamlet or two at my capitol.

Sure, no problem. With the science slider at 20%, I can get Monarchy in 26 turns. Then one turn of anarchy, and my cities can finally grow by one. Meanwhile, the AI is in the Industrial age.

Turning hammers to research is a desperation move. I don't really care that it doesn't get multipliers. Running the science slider at 10% or 20% doesn't make much use of the library multiplier. So what? I am dead without research and building it directly is the only way without commerce for the science slider or enough food for scientists.

I usually start researching the "save the economy techs" BEFORE the economy crashes. Also you have a cottage and a couple hamlets in your capital. what about your other 4-5 cities? Do they have cottages?

By your statement that Monarchy takes 26 turns and you consider that a long time, I gather you are playing at Normal speed. That means Monarch has a base of 300 beakers. Even if you are playing on Diety level it is only 507 beakers. You have 6 cities. With a library you can run 2 scientists each for 7.5 beakers. that is 45 beakers. That is Monarchy in 11 turns @ ZERO percent research.
If you're playing Epic or Martahon then Monarchy in 26 turns isn't horrible. And you can probably trade it to backill.
Much better than using production cities to build research.

Believing the attack odds... then gifting the AI promotions for it's defenders

You mean "not taking large enough stacks to your battles"?

To the person who forgets about the Noble barb-combat bonus: I wouldn't call that a mistake, not if you you plan to advance to Prince soon.

On the other hand, maybe it is one after all, in that you have an opportunity, and you are not using it, and the idea in Civ is to use your opportunities!

I don't have any plans to advance in difficulty just yet. I don't get much time to play, so I haven't even tried out most of the leaders yet (mostly the ones that lack strong economic traits :rolleyes:). There's plenty of fun to be had at Noble :D

Really, I just mentioned this because no one else did already.

The single most infuriating mistake I make is I forget about the single Artist specialist I've assigned in a new city for the first border pop. A hundred years go by, and I remember to check that city, and... ugh.

For everyone who forgets to do things like change civics or wake up workers, may I recommend the BUG Mod? It's got a ton of nifty features, my favorite of which is the ALT-M reminder: hit Alt-M during the game and a box pops up where you can type in a reminder and set the number of turns before it reminds you. I use it to remember to rush my cities every ten turns, and (especially) to remove that infernal artist specialist from new cities :-P