At what point do you all quit or realize you lost?

So something i have always wondered with the more experienced civ 5 players here. At what point in your current game do you quit the game, or just realize you lost? Meaning, in my current game as Assyria. I am in the Modern era, and i am way behind enough to know i will not win, and screwed up. Now, i learned from my mistake and know what i did wrong.

IN my other game, i deleted tonight, i was playing as Indonesia, and i have 5 cities, went bankrupt, completely negative in money, and disbanding all units. I just really messed up this game. And quess who attacks me, good ole Monty. Literally brings the house, 10 jaguars, 5 catapults, and 4 archers. He has captured 3 cities so far and cruising. So i know ive lost. BUT< i learned from my mistake.

Anyways, at what point do you guys, start over a game, delete and move on, or just take your losses as a man? Just curious, we cannot win them all. Thanks, just a fun topic.

Usually, the answer is: when it stops being fun.

Indeed sounds like a game quitting situation.
That said I quit les and less easily.
Game with Celts I played one day being the reason.

Took forever before I catch up in science. When I did, I ended up at one point with embargo on me, embargo on citystates and no CS allies.

Had to put all cities on gold production, save ALL $$ for 40 turns before I can buy enough city states to garanty I can repeal at least one of these 2 proposal all of that wile at war with Polland!

Was the most frustrating, long, tought and GREAT game I ever played! Ended up sending the shipon turn (pffff dont even remember, 400 plus for sure) just a few turns before Wu, after razing the rest of the world decided to aim for my continent and was about to land. Only other civ alive was Ghegis. She had like 5 times more army than me and ghegis combiened!

All that said in your situation I would probably call it a lost too...

But sometimes, keeping up even if it looks like you cant do nothing can be so rewarding!

I usually try to fight on until the end screen pops up with a picture of a statue in the wasteland...

I am not an experienced player, but the last time I quit I was playing with the danish. I went all war, started honor. I got the Ethiopian capital and annexed a second city of theirs. After that I started a war with Siam planning on getting 2 cities early and move on to the next civ before my UU expired. I lost Addis Ababa to a CS, and the war with Siam went until modern era: I conquered one city and was sieging the capital. Then he got flight+biology and destroyed my 3 range canons with great war bombers (also most of my berserkers). I was also into modern era (did the oxford-radio combo to get autocracy first) but I was nowhere near flight (I was currently researching rifling) and nowhere near biology (just stole compass from the Inca). I think I could have just made peace with them until I also got flight+ dynamite but i was planning on a medieval/renaissance/ early industrial war campaign and that failed entirely. I should have gone down the lower part of the tech tree first and get dynamite and flight rather than electricity and radio.

At the victory screen .

I think it also depends on the game speed and how far you are into it. On a standard game or quicker, to me it wouldnt matter as much. But on a epic game, or marathon, if your only like 180 or 220 turns into and in the medieval era, you can make that up rather quickly. On my third epic game i have going, i am on turn 470, while i am doing well, i dont think i will win, but i am still enjoying the game, and there is NO way id quit after that many turns.

I quit when/if an AI becomes a runaway and it is 1-2 tech eras ahead of me due to my gross empire mismanagement from playing drunk or half asleep

I realized I lost my third try at emperor (first loss, though the others were lucky and barely wins) as Indonesia on archipelago when I over warred (sniped Aztec capital after Japan crushed their empire, then took a beautiful city state that I couldn't resist) which led to the whole world DoW'ing me. I pushed back the first war set (taking an additional 3 capitals, as well as several other great cities and not so great (all not so great of which I then sold to weaker civs)), and thought I was good to go and started pushing science and money. But my conquests of those who attacked me made everyone madder, and they sunk my navy with a fleet of subs in a new wave of everyone DoW'ing me. Following this, my tech advantage couldn't save me from being slightly too spread out and every army in the world attacking my various islands. Lost the Aztec capital, the beautiful city state, another capital, and another great city. Not even nukes could save me, even though noone else had them. At this point, with no end in sight and hobbled, I knew victory was beyond me. It was a great learning experience though (don't gather two big warmonger penalties back to back, especially when Ghandi is everyone else's friend and starts denouncement and DoW chains, despite not fighting himself) and I got way way better at war because of it. I think the map was standard sized, but with 14 civs total. Taking 4 capitals, holding 5 with my own, and three other excellent cities for keeps wasn't sufficient, with one of those civs still a major power (Japan), and 8 others still strong with me and Japan the only enemies (mainly me, due to Japans isolated map location).

I usually don't like the late game when every turn takes ages. If a can see a way to win, I try do that asap. If it's a stalemate, I am out most of the time...

Honestly, this game frustrates me.

My intuitive goal is to claim as much territory as possible. However, there is no victory condition for taking over the map, and the game actually punishes it at every turn.

Going for culture victory or domination victory or even science victory is mostly a huge grind. If you want to the culture, you end up just grinding late game wonders all game. If you go domination, you just churn out units and happiness buildings.

Diplomatic is the most fun, to me. Allying every citystate on the map is sort of the second best thing to ICS. Having your 16 citystate allies all DoW for you, and then just sitting back and watch the computer going at it is pretty fun. Getting strategic resources, luxuries, and awesome UUs from citystates is fun, as WC votes. To me, that's the way these kind of games are really designed to be played (and used to play that way, in previous installments of the series.) Even if the finale victory condition is the most predictable and abrupt, Diplo is still where it's at for me.

Otherwise, games either just end up being a boring snowball, or a futile grind (if things didn't go right) and when once that's apparent, I abandon and roll a new game.

Unavoidable diplo victories. I usually try to wipe them out but sometimes it's too late.

When I lose 3 or more cities.. When I lose many units.. When I lose many wonders... When I get mass unhappiness from ideologies..

DarkestOnion said:

I quit when/if an AI becomes a runaway and it is 1-2 tech eras ahead of me due to my gross empire mismanagement from playing drunk or half asleep

Click to expand...

Bwahahahah!
it happens to the best of us, lol!

Usually, I can beat the AI in every situation. Therefore, i only quit when it stopps being "fun"

I know I've lost when:

I'm playing Deity and holding my own despite having horrible dirt (3 unique luxes in my empire, plains & desert everywhere, not a single grassland in sight). Get DoW'd by one of two runaways just before Industrial era. Fine, I'm holding him off quite well while I tech Scientific Theory, bulb Industrialization & Electricity, Oxford Radio, and tech biology. At least I get first dibs on Ideologies but alas I discover I have no Coal, no Aluminum, no Oil! I figured my Plains and desert would at least have aluminum and oil for me so I could do something useful but nope, RNG hates you sometimes and this was one of 'em.

So I'm getting pounded mercilessly by Assyrian bombers, all I can field are Infantry and a lonely Artillery. Anything that isn't an infantry and is outside a city gets bombed to smithereens instantly. I'm still managing to not lose any ground, and I convince Napoleon to join the fight against the evil Assyrians just by asking, ya know since Nappy and I are both running Order and have plenty of bright green stuff in the diplo mouseover. Alright maybe things will turn around now and I can eek out a science win while the two heavyweights destroy each other. 10 turns later, Nappy decides to make peace with Assyria and hey you know what's a good idea since his army is already here, he should takeover his longstanding ally's territory for funsies! So Nappy invades me, I have nothing to defend it with (well I do, but anything I move to defend against Nappy lets Assyria march right through my empire). Not feeling like watching myself get pig roasted I quit in disgust.

I personally think letting Ashurbanipal make it past Medieval era is a big gamble, unless you've severely outteched him. Same with Shakka.

I definitely agree but there wasn't much I could do early. He was pretty far away from me at the start and the terrain was really bad for trying to wage an offensive war. His empire was thick jungley hills everywhere, Cbows would've been mostly useless and by the time I got there I knew he'd be churning out pikes. I doubt I would've accomplished anything other than sacrificing a bunch of hammers for nothing.

I rarely give up. I played a game recently where Shaka conquered everyone else and then decaled war on me. I almost quit, but I stuck with it, built up my army, turned the tables on him, and won a Domination game.

I recently started a game on a Tiny map where I intend to go for a Diplomacy victory. Who were the other 3 AI&#8217;s I discovered? Siam, then Greece, then Venice. I don&#8217;t plan on giving up; this ought to get interesting.

One game I recently played, which I initially wanted to give up on... I was Hiawatha, with direct neighbors Gandhi, Montezuma, Shaka and Pacal. All on my continent. But I stuck with it.
Turned out quite epic.

There was an initial Native American coalition vs Shaka, and I did my share by taking and razing one of Shaka's cities by going for a Mohawk Warrior rush (too far out in the open and away from the safety of my forests, and my mountain ridge that was the only real barrier from me and Montezuma). I stayed with 3 cities.
Shaka was still friendly with me after I made peace with him.
Monte and Pacal were treacherous, Monte declared war on me several times, and it was Jaguars suiciding against Mohawks. Then in one of them wars. Shaka joined in - about the time when we all began to start using Muskets.
But thanks to silly AI and a nice choke point involving mountains and hills, I held my ground against them and made peace.

Good thing about warmongers, it's easy to fight them and still be 'friendly' after. So I bribed monte to attack Gandhi, Shaka, and Pacal again. Then I finally attacked him after I got dynamite and artillery (I didn't do so before that because of the Great Wall of the Aztecs). I tore my way through the choke point and captured the city he had near it. Followed by making peace and positioning my troops in front of his 2nd city. Then after the treaty expired I continued onward to his capital.

Then Pacal was just sitting around and building wonders (with occasional irritation from Monte), heading off to a runaway culture victory again (several times in my games now). But I refused to give up. After researching Ballistics, (for I know the AIs were generally getting Flight). I went to war with Pacal and slowly broke through yet even more difficult choke point terrain.. making use of citadels combined with 'walk through forest/jungles like they're roads' of Hiawatha to make troop movement a bit faster in some instances.
Finally captured Cusco and a ton of Wonders and Great Works.

I had effectively won the game. Meanwhile, Rome, Korea and Spain were having some petty squabbles on another continent. Our Native American tribes on this continent had already surpassed them in techs despite all our quarrels, so I built up my navy and eventually colored the whole map grey.
I was glad I didn't give up initially. Would have missed out on some crazy Civ moments. Also, in this game, the world congress came up and both International Games and World's Fair were proposed at the same time...
Ambitious, aren't we?