All right gentlemen, it’s time for Ision to post a thread that is not his usual ‘oh so serious’ and ‘longwinded’ strategy articles.

So, what I want is your most recent and most embarrassing CIV story – NO not your ‘when I was a newbie’ story - but one that reflects your greatest recent blunder, now at your present playing level.

I’ll start; a few games ago while playing the Sumerians I found myself in late-industrial age and with a great lack of luxury resources. On another continent the Americans had a nice fat coastal city that had gems and dyes on either side of it. I spent many turns meticulously planning an invasion and amassing a huge invasion force. Nearly 70 infantry and cavalry units all sitting in the same coastal city waiting to embark on transports – to be escorted by a large covering force of destroyers, battleships, and carriers.

Off they sailed across the ocean – 4 turns later they arrived at the perfect launch point. I declared war on America and then bought 2 other CIVs as allies – my mini dog-pile was on. It was truly beautiful to behold. First, in came the Carriers – bombers striking deep into America and taking out critical roads and strategic resources- all meticulously planned down to the last detail – then came the battleships and destroyers, laying a massive shore bombardment against that coastal city - all meticulously planned down to the last detail – and then I moved those transports next to that perfect mountain hex right next to my target city – and then ………I realized that I had left the entire invasion force of 70 units in my own coastal city! Off I went, back in the other direction, picked up the 70 units and sailed back again towards my target – at this point 7 turns have passed - and when I arrived at last, ready to ‘hit the beaches’………… one of my allies overran my target city!……………

Note: The stream of profanities that came out of my mouth cannot be reprinted here.

Ision

:lol:

Wish I could say that's never happened to me.

In my current game, I captured one of two Russian cities isolated on the far side of the continent. The Russians sent 5 or 6 units out of the other city to counterattack.
A turn earlier I'd set two stacks of workers on "Auto Cleanup" of pollution. At the end of the next turn, of course, those automated workers finished cleaning the polluted squares, looked around for damage to clean up and all they could find was a couple of squares of bombardment damage near my recently captured city. There they go, across two AI nations (all railroaded and with ROP's, of course) to clean up those shell craters. Unfortunately surrounded by enemy units. Next turn I lose 8 workers. Doh!

A hard lesson that I've learned in regicide games is that it's a good idea to always bring settlers and workers along with your invasion force. I've conquered lands and the other surviving civs have built new cites on the next turn.

Seven turns is a very long time.

When I played the Middle Age scenario in Conquests. I loaded a holy relic into an army. Then I start preparing my forces for a naval invasion of the Abbasids. Then i find out that I can't trnasport the armies in the Galleys! So I send it overland but I find Constantinople blocking my path! I attack and burn it then find out I could have gone around it!
Eventually I did get to Jereslum and delieverd the relic and another I stole.

In my current game, I was going for Adam Smith. I carefully figured out exactly when to start my prebuild to get it as quickly as possible. That turn came around and I forgot to start the prebuild. I thought to myself, "How much of a difference can one turn make?" and started the prebuild on the next turn.

Of course you know what happened: The French beat me to it by one turn!

In my current game I had killed off the 2 civs on my continent, and was mounting an invasion force to attack the aztecs on the next continent. I had 10 caravels with 3 cavalry each in them. As I was moving the stack of caravels towards the other continent, on the move the caravels had I accidently clicked on an ocean square. all 10 were "lost in treacherous waters".

I had a game going (forget the civ now, but it's unimportant anyhow) that I was engaged in a pivotal war. My girlfriend also plays and when I came home from "being out w/ the boys" one night, she asked me to look over her game since she was just starting to learn it. I obliged and then got ready to continue my own game. The problem was, I clicked on "save game" instead of "load game".

I still don't know how I managed to miss the overwrite popup, or maybe I do ....... :beer:

I was playing as the scandanvians, I had a great starting position, everything was going great. But, I noticed I had no luxuries, I eventually discovered some dyes on a peninsula, five very close to each other, may be 15 to 20 tiles to the south.One city would have been enough to control all of them. This was very early in the game, so with great effort a built enough warriors and sent them to compeltey blockade the peninsula, form any foreign settlers getting there. All I needed to do was get the settler there.
I had even started building a road, it was about 15 turns after the dicovery since it took that long to get there. So I had this blockading force and worker building a road there. one of my galleys who was esploring saw a mysterious foreign galley pass by the peninsula, I thought nothing of it. My settler finally reached the dyes, I would finally get some luxuries, then I realized the celtic galley had dropped of a settler. They took all the dyes, I was left dye-less.

I was playing as the Egyptians and was involved in some aggressive negotiations with the Russians, Greeks and Americans. Apart from learning the hard way about 3 front wars the Greeks and Americans were wiping out my allies the Romans. When Rome was reduced to 1 city I thought I would meddle a bit a'la civ 2 and gave them one of my crappy tundra citys. That crappy tundra city had my sole source of oil. Doh.

I was the Japanese, and I'd just finished conquering my home continent. Deciding that the Egyptians should be my next target, I sent the first invasion wave the long (coast-hugging) way round, disembarked a load of Samurai and captured several coastal cities, including Memphis (site of the Great Lighthouse). So I can save time by sending the next invasion wave directly across the ocean, right?

Wrong. Memphis culture-flips and my fleet's stuck in mid-ocean without a lighthouse...glug glug glug.

Playing as Carthage and losing Baghdad to the Arabs via revolt...with about 30 units in it (ie most of my army at the time).

Originally posted by Carthage!!!
Playing as Carthage and losing Baghdad to the Arabs via revolt...with about 30 units in it (ie most of my army at the time).

Wow Carthage, that is embarassing. :D

Yeah, I cursed a bit at that one. Carthage can't really do anything when it comes to a culture war. I had to stay at war with Arabia (Which happened to be the sole superpower, joy) for most of that game just to keep from being overrun... I had to raze their cities that I captured too, since they'd just revolt the next turn and take whatever I had garrisoned there with them...

The first one reminds of my Napoleonic conquest.

Russia was against Prussia, a country which I wanted to eventually take. I was Austria and was attacking Amsterdam.

Then the Prussians who I'd been on very good terms with, sometimes gracious and most of the time with a ROP, make an alliance and attack me. I take one of their cities but then a few turns later the Russians take the one above it that I wanted... I just said feck it and attacked them knowing the game was lost.

I didn't have to attack Russia... but I was preparing to take that city and they snatched it from me..... bah...

wasn't really a blunder of mine but I thought I'd say it anyway.