walletta
King
First the question, to save everyone the bother of reading on if not interested:
how well do you deal with adversity when playing Civ? How much punishment are you willing to tolerate and key question: can you recall the biggest reverse, or lag in development, from which you came back?
Now the story, which sort of relates to the question but only sort of and it's not at all necessary to read it. It's just illustrative of how I like to play and may either resonate with some or attract guffaws, suggestions or other things.
In my latest game I reverted to my favourite Civ - the Romans (I just love the legionary). Small continental map at emperor level. It turned out there were two more or less equal land masses running parallel from NW to SE and separated by ocean, two turns distance for a transport. The eastern land mass in fact consisted of two islands, like New Zealand or Japan.
I was on the southern end of the western land mass, with the Germans to my north and Egypt to theirs. I headed straight for the Republic slingshot: pottery, writing, code of laws and philosophy. Along the way I acquired masonry, bronze working and ceremonial burial by trading. I also fought off a short war launched by the Germans and aimed at my second city which, as luck had it, contained ivory within its borders.
Straight after switching to Republic, which I managed obscenely early, I zeroed in on the Statue to start pumping out Ancient Cavalry. Long story short, with the AC and the legionary I wiped both Germany and Egypt of my continent in pretty short order, acquiring a nice collection of GWs in the process. They were relegated to sharing a small island off my west coast with one city each. LOL.
In the tech race I fell behind a little but not much and my financial power enabled me to overhaul the Babylonians by the Industrial Age. I easily made it first to the Theory of Evolution and then headed for whatever the techs are that allow you to build destroyers and subs and then cruisers and battleships. Then flight and a fleet of bombers.
By now, the eastern continent had resolved into the north island belonging to Babylon, having been wrested from the yanks - now a rump state of one city. While babylon and the Inca split the south island such that they were roughly at overall parity with each other but considerably smaller than mighty Rome.
The Babylonians picked a fight and as they had an island just off the point on which my sole source of saltpetre lay and which they kept culture-flipping away from me, that was my first target, easily attained. Then I won The Battle of Midway, taking a three-square island city from them and giving my bombers a base from which to obliterate not only some key Babylonian cities but also their coal, horses and saltpetre on the northern half of the southern island. LOL again. One of my battle fleets operating on the far side of their southern island made a pest of itself by continuously destroying their vineyards.
With the aid of the marines, I took their south western most city and occupied it with an infantry army and a bunch of artillery. I then went up the cost and amphibiously took a second city, about four squares away. Three slave workers were given the job of making a road connection between these two cities, a bad idea as the terrain was hill, mountain, hill and it would have taken them forever. I made the fortunate decision (As it turned out) to ship 9 proper Roman workers over to accelerate the work while the 'discovery' of mechanised transport enabled me to start shipping tanks across as fast as my fleet of transports would carry them.
Oh, I also planted a spy among the Babylonians and found that the unending series of naval defeats I had inflicted on them and the persistent deprivation of resources had reduced them to a static army of infantry with a tiny handful of cavalry and a few obsolete frigates which I sunk every time they sallied from port.
Basically, a massacre.
What of the Inca? Puzzlingly, a fruitful relationship involving the exchange of techs (by me) for luxuries (from them) seemed to have turned sour as Rome's power grew. Such that when I decided the time was right to move my infantry army north to participate in continuing operations against the Babylonians, the Inca decided that was the time to launch a war with a view to seizing the newly vacated beach head town. This walled town was garrisoned by two infantry and five artillery. It was situated on a hill (I like building towns on hills). It now faced about 20 cavalry with a similar number of infantry in immediate reserve. At the end of the Incan's first attack, one elite infantryman survived along with the artillery. Half the Incan cavalry had disappeared and the rest was red-lined. The infantry were in position to assault.
No worries, I thought. I filled a transport with stuff and sent it south from the more northerly beach head town but found to my horror that it had lacked the movement allowance to make it. Eek. An Incan cavalry unit barred the road. Plan B involved bombing that unit off the map, finishing the road/rail network and transferring in a relief force more than adequate to keep the hordes at bay.
The rest was plain sailing, the Incans gave up once they saw their objective was out of reach and their army obliterated and the Babylonians could offer nothing. As recounted elsewhere, a weird glitch in which I somehow lost all my bombers in the course of moving them from one city to another caused me to abandon the game (although I might resume it if I can find an auto-save predating the loss).
Another lol is I decided to switch from Republic to Communism as I generally do when playing always war. However, I failed to take the precaution first of actually researching communism and only realised my mistake once I was in anarchy. Oops! Luckily, I wa snot then at war with the Inca and they sold me communism on extremely unfavourable but affordable terms so no harm done.
And there it is. Pretty much a perfect game. No serious set backs or reverses, a pleasingly smooth path to victory in a game which was effectively over by the time I hit the industrial age. And that is how I like it. I deal very badly with adversity, I think. It demoralises me and I am not motivated at all by the prospect of digging myself out. Obviously, one or two cities were cultured away and had to be 'persuaded' to return to the fold but that's not really what I mean. I mean losing a couple of key cities, or losing a whole bunch of units. Another one I hate is losing a pre-build race and having nothing to switch to.
So, how do you guys manage?
how well do you deal with adversity when playing Civ? How much punishment are you willing to tolerate and key question: can you recall the biggest reverse, or lag in development, from which you came back?
Now the story, which sort of relates to the question but only sort of and it's not at all necessary to read it. It's just illustrative of how I like to play and may either resonate with some or attract guffaws, suggestions or other things.
In my latest game I reverted to my favourite Civ - the Romans (I just love the legionary). Small continental map at emperor level. It turned out there were two more or less equal land masses running parallel from NW to SE and separated by ocean, two turns distance for a transport. The eastern land mass in fact consisted of two islands, like New Zealand or Japan.
I was on the southern end of the western land mass, with the Germans to my north and Egypt to theirs. I headed straight for the Republic slingshot: pottery, writing, code of laws and philosophy. Along the way I acquired masonry, bronze working and ceremonial burial by trading. I also fought off a short war launched by the Germans and aimed at my second city which, as luck had it, contained ivory within its borders.
Straight after switching to Republic, which I managed obscenely early, I zeroed in on the Statue to start pumping out Ancient Cavalry. Long story short, with the AC and the legionary I wiped both Germany and Egypt of my continent in pretty short order, acquiring a nice collection of GWs in the process. They were relegated to sharing a small island off my west coast with one city each. LOL.
In the tech race I fell behind a little but not much and my financial power enabled me to overhaul the Babylonians by the Industrial Age. I easily made it first to the Theory of Evolution and then headed for whatever the techs are that allow you to build destroyers and subs and then cruisers and battleships. Then flight and a fleet of bombers.
By now, the eastern continent had resolved into the north island belonging to Babylon, having been wrested from the yanks - now a rump state of one city. While babylon and the Inca split the south island such that they were roughly at overall parity with each other but considerably smaller than mighty Rome.
The Babylonians picked a fight and as they had an island just off the point on which my sole source of saltpetre lay and which they kept culture-flipping away from me, that was my first target, easily attained. Then I won The Battle of Midway, taking a three-square island city from them and giving my bombers a base from which to obliterate not only some key Babylonian cities but also their coal, horses and saltpetre on the northern half of the southern island. LOL again. One of my battle fleets operating on the far side of their southern island made a pest of itself by continuously destroying their vineyards.
With the aid of the marines, I took their south western most city and occupied it with an infantry army and a bunch of artillery. I then went up the cost and amphibiously took a second city, about four squares away. Three slave workers were given the job of making a road connection between these two cities, a bad idea as the terrain was hill, mountain, hill and it would have taken them forever. I made the fortunate decision (As it turned out) to ship 9 proper Roman workers over to accelerate the work while the 'discovery' of mechanised transport enabled me to start shipping tanks across as fast as my fleet of transports would carry them.
Oh, I also planted a spy among the Babylonians and found that the unending series of naval defeats I had inflicted on them and the persistent deprivation of resources had reduced them to a static army of infantry with a tiny handful of cavalry and a few obsolete frigates which I sunk every time they sallied from port.
Basically, a massacre.
What of the Inca? Puzzlingly, a fruitful relationship involving the exchange of techs (by me) for luxuries (from them) seemed to have turned sour as Rome's power grew. Such that when I decided the time was right to move my infantry army north to participate in continuing operations against the Babylonians, the Inca decided that was the time to launch a war with a view to seizing the newly vacated beach head town. This walled town was garrisoned by two infantry and five artillery. It was situated on a hill (I like building towns on hills). It now faced about 20 cavalry with a similar number of infantry in immediate reserve. At the end of the Incan's first attack, one elite infantryman survived along with the artillery. Half the Incan cavalry had disappeared and the rest was red-lined. The infantry were in position to assault.
No worries, I thought. I filled a transport with stuff and sent it south from the more northerly beach head town but found to my horror that it had lacked the movement allowance to make it. Eek. An Incan cavalry unit barred the road. Plan B involved bombing that unit off the map, finishing the road/rail network and transferring in a relief force more than adequate to keep the hordes at bay.
The rest was plain sailing, the Incans gave up once they saw their objective was out of reach and their army obliterated and the Babylonians could offer nothing. As recounted elsewhere, a weird glitch in which I somehow lost all my bombers in the course of moving them from one city to another caused me to abandon the game (although I might resume it if I can find an auto-save predating the loss).
Another lol is I decided to switch from Republic to Communism as I generally do when playing always war. However, I failed to take the precaution first of actually researching communism and only realised my mistake once I was in anarchy. Oops! Luckily, I wa snot then at war with the Inca and they sold me communism on extremely unfavourable but affordable terms so no harm done.
And there it is. Pretty much a perfect game. No serious set backs or reverses, a pleasingly smooth path to victory in a game which was effectively over by the time I hit the industrial age. And that is how I like it. I deal very badly with adversity, I think. It demoralises me and I am not motivated at all by the prospect of digging myself out. Obviously, one or two cities were cultured away and had to be 'persuaded' to return to the fold but that's not really what I mean. I mean losing a couple of key cities, or losing a whole bunch of units. Another one I hate is losing a pre-build race and having nothing to switch to.
So, how do you guys manage?
