Luckiest thing to happen in your game?

So Civ fans, what would you say is the luckiest thing to happen in one of your Civ IV games? Do you know?

Well, the RNG gets a lot of hate, but there was this one time as Babylon when I rolled the Sports League quest about five turns after teching Construction. Turned what would normally be +1 Colosseums into +2+2 uber-Gardens.

marathon event? or like some <20% wins?

Playing MP with a friend last week, he gets the "Build Libraries" quest with bonus if have Great Library (which he have), he starts to build libraries, but is far away from completing and iirc is at war which delays.
Many turns later he is 1 turn away from completing quest, when I get the quest too, and I get it while 1 turn from building the last library to complete quest.
Even though we both get the popup saying quest completed, I end up victorious. He took it surprisingly well.

Monty is building nukes and I'm the obvious target. One or two turns before he's ready to start launching Izzy, who is UN Secretary General, proposes nuclear disarmament. Her and my votes are enough to pass the resolution. Monty declares war anyway but since he's been building nukes he hasn't been building conventional forces. I grab most of his cities before he capitulates.

vincentz said:

Playing MP with a friend last week, he gets the "Build Libraries" quest with bonus if have Great Library (which he have), he starts to build libraries, but is far away from completing and iirc is at war which delays.
Many turns later he is 1 turn away from completing quest, when I get the quest too, and I get it while 1 turn from building the last library to complete quest.
Even though we both get the popup saying quest completed, I end up victorious. He took it surprisingly well.

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ANNNNND that changed nothing in the game at all, because the library quest totally sucks (but it also kind of should, as libraries are one of the only buildings you should be building).

In a single player game at nobles, I got lucky with huts and popped 1500 gold + fishing. Needless to say I was in deficit research until the AD's.

Ambidexter said:

Monty is building nukes and I'm the obvious target. One or two turns before he's ready to start launching Izzy, who is UN Secretary General, proposes nuclear disarmament. Her and my votes are enough to pass the resolution. Monty declares war anyway but since he's been building nukes he hasn't been building conventional forces. I grab most of his cities before he capitulates.

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I don't know, that one's part "lucky/good timing" and part "Monty being a complete moron". One of those things happens every game.

traius said:

ANNNNND that changed nothing in the game at all, because the library quest totally sucks (but it also kind of should, as libraries are one of the only buildings you should be building).

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I kinda like that quest, it basically makes the GLib 50% stronger.

Ambidexter said:

Monty is building nukes and I'm the obvious target. One or two turns before he's ready to start launching Izzy, who is UN Secretary General, proposes nuclear disarmament. Her and my votes are enough to pass the resolution. Monty declares war anyway but since he's been building nukes he hasn't been building conventional forces. I grab most of his cities before he capitulates.

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Sweet. I've grown to hate Monty. Any game he's there (which seems to be most of them) my starting strategy is built around "take down Monty ASAP"

Ambidexter said:

Monty is building nukes and I'm the obvious target. One or two turns before he's ready to start launching Izzy, who is UN Secretary General, proposes nuclear disarmament. Her and my votes are enough to pass the resolution. Monty declares war anyway but since he's been building nukes he hasn't been building conventional forces. I grab most of his cities before he capitulates.

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I'm still getting my head around Monty reaching nukes on the tech tree. In my games he usually builds so many units and gets into so many fights that his tech stalls in the middle ages. Which is for the best, I would hate for that maniac to get nukes.

Civ001 said:

So Civ fans, what would you say is the luckiest thing to happen in one of your Civ IV games? Do you know?

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Popping BW, then IW, from goody huts. And finding that Copper and Iron are already within my culture sphere.

Gave me a leg up in whacking Joao, Isabella, and Suleiman into oblivion.

I once had a treb survive a 1% battle.

Ambidexter said:

Monty is building nukes and I'm the obvious target. One or two turns before he's ready to start launching Izzy, who is UN Secretary General, proposes nuclear disarmament. Her and my votes are enough to pass the resolution. Monty declares war anyway but since he's been building nukes he hasn't been building conventional forces. I grab most of his cities before he capitulates.

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I thought nonproliferation only prevented the building of nukes, not their use. Had Monty not completed any before the resolution passed?

I once got nonproliferation passed after I had been rushbuilding nukes for 10 turns, before anyone else had both Fission and Rocketry. That was fun stuff. Usually someone defies (I'm surprised Monty didn't in your case).

Suryavarman was less than 10 turns from a cultural victory and had a vassal. He was at war with Saladin, who also had a vassal. I was busy mopping up my second vassal on a separate continent when I noticed the danger and knew that I could not get a navy built in time to prevent Suryavarman from winning. So I watched the war progress looking for ways to help Saladin.

Saladin takes a city! Rats, not one of the cultural three. Saladin takes another city! Rats, again not from the crucial Legendary three. Saladin takes another city and Suryavarman and his vassal capitulate, ending the war and any chances of stopping Sury's cultural victory. I open the victory screen to see if Saladin managed to prevent his, and by extension my, defeat. He did, in the last act of war Saladin took the soon to be Legendary city and prevented a Khmer victory. I built a statue for the Arabian leader in my capital, then had it removed as I watched him build the Internet, Three Gorges Dam and Space Elevator while I was trying to recover from my own war and set about thinking of building a spaceship. It somehow feels appropriate that one of my luckiest moments may not lead to actually winning the game.

Last night I went opportunistic worker steal on Sury nice and early. The game was progressing and I was starting to get mighty nervous of a Sury SOD coming my way. I had two thirds built the Settler I was going to settle in a bad spot near his borders so I could give it to him for peace. And then I get the great mediator event for instant peace. End result, I got a free worker on like turn 20 (marathon) and Sury and his ugly mug never did anything about it.

TheMulattoMaker said:

Well, the RNG gets a lot of hate, but there was this one time as Babylon when I rolled the Sports League quest about five turns after teching Construction. Turned what would normally be +1 Colosseums into +2+2 uber-Gardens.

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Those seem lame compared to the +4 sports league ball courts I once got as Maya (who already have +2 from expansive anyway).

Mount Suribachi said:

Sweet. I've grown to hate Monty. Any game he's there (which seems to be most of them) my starting strategy is built around "take down Monty ASAP"

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I have the same strat with Izzy, Shaka, and flippin' Henry the VIII.... I really hate the fat bearded ego-maniac, as he's cost me more close vic's than I care to count.

I do remember once while doing the normal early monty beat down, taking out his capital and SURPRISE SURPRISE captured Pyramids. I was like WTF, Monty actually built PYRAMIDS.

rah said:

I do remember once while doing the normal early monty beat down, taking out his capital and SURPRISE SURPRISE captured Pyramids. I was like WTF, Monty actually built PYRAMIDS.

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You'll see him do that sometimes on Earth18 if Louis doesn't beat him to it. Then he jumps into Police State to knock out Rosy like two turns faster.