Has anyone seen a game changing random event?

[DarkSchneider]

I just barely started my first BTS game, and so far all of the random events I've heard of just sound ridiculous. I mean really, the AI bragging that they have the best truffles? The only random event I've gotten myself is the 'Legend of the fourty theives' which seems to have increased commerce on one of my tiles by 2.

Another was a choice event, where I could choose to gain 500 espionage points at a 50/50 risk of spoiling my relationship with the AI.

So has anyone seen any game changing random events?

[PsiRedEye22]

I got one where India invented Tower Shields, and all of my melee units that existed, and any i built after, had Cover I.

[eric_]

Yeah, it wasn't game changing, but I had a similar one where a master bow maker came up with a way to make superior-quality bows and arrows using a stronger wood. +1 Combat to all present and future archery units. Definitely a help! With Vassalage/Theocracy and Barracks you get CRII + CI archers...

[DarkSchneider]

Those sounds pretty crazy, I wonder if such an upgrade can happen for gunpowder units!

[Common Sensei]

Free Cover for melee units when still in the Axemens' prime can be game changing, as can free Shock for them around the same time when playing someone like the Romans.

[Common Sensei]

Originally Posted by DarkSchneider

Those sounds pretty crazy, I wonder if such an upgrade can happen for gunpowder units!

I've never seen it myself, but someone was saying there is a quest to build enough Musketman that when fulfilled, can give all Gunpowder units Pinch.

[aberwak]

In one of my first games, I had a quest to build a city by my religion's "holy mountain," although I had to build a certain number of temples for my scholars to determine where that was. I ended up just building a city on the new continent I found that was by a mountain and that was it. I think I got happiness spread throughout my empire.

I've also had events for increased productivity in mines, forests being caught on fire, farms being pillaged, promotions for units, increased food, etc. I think I've also had some new resources show up unexpectedly.

[Dregor]

I got Drill I to all current and future melee units. That was pretty neat.

[IAM]

In a current game (huge, islands) I was challenged to build 16 cities on 16 different land masses. Not a whole lot of tiny islands so it's a big challenge but doable. But it didn't specify the reward just that I had to do it before industrialism.

[LlamaCat]

I was at war with Saladin and got 2 quests: one to capture his capital (failed) and the next one was to capture a city to grab control of his source of horses next to it (duh... I was trying to do that anyway!). that one is proving hard. No idea what I would get for these efforts but it better be good.

my events have not been too dramatic, although one resulted in my library destroyed in a city. that's not going to lose the game for me, but it seems pretty harsh considering the hammer investment.

[eric_]

The quests strike me as being almost like proactive "tips."

[mjs0]

Originally Posted by DarkSchneider

So has anyone seen any game changing random events?

Yup...a free great artist event helped me get my third city with legendary culture finished just before Bismarck completed his spaceship victory!

[Quark]

The most significant one I've had so far was a very early event, the first in that game, that ended up destroying my Granary. The only building I had built to that point, and had decided to spend a decent amount of time on it too.

On the rest, the positive and negative have been pretty equal, though getting Flight before everyone else and constantly having your commercial flights crash, most often giving them free espionage, can get annoying.

[axident]

I got 4 events in my current game that were big time. I messed up on one of them though.

Background: I was Incan, wound up on a crappy island for an isolated start. The good news was that there was a long river = floodplains on the west side, the bad news was that a giant portion of my island was desert, and the east side was a big jungle that took forever to hack into submission.

1. library quest. I was going to try to tech and build like crazy, and as usual, I got the Great Library right after receiving this quest. Don't bother if you don't want to, because all that gives you is the option for a 3rd sci from the library. At the speed that I teched, I lost that sci pretty quickly (EDIT: or maybe I just miscounted? someone below says his stayed on.. one of us miscounted); I should have taken the "all libraries get +2 beakers" option instead. Assuming that it's permanent. At least that sci helped pop out 2 Great Scientists; I made 2 academies. It's actually more effective to do that if you have 2 mass-cottaged cities, than to Academy + meld. No need to bulb as I had a big tech lead after a while.

2. forges quest. This was bizarre because I had six forges and a seventh was about to get pop-rushed when I got this quest. After some debate, I took the free engineer option. Thankfully that engineer doesn't seem to expire. Cottage-spamming's main drawback = lack of hammers so this was a welcome change.

3. spices showed up. The big jungle had mostly grasslands, some hills, and a bit of food, so I was sad to replace a coveted hammer-producing forest tile with spice. On the other hand, I had to do it, I had only sugar for Happy and was dying without more Happy resources.

4. silver was discovered. I had one city way down south near the pole as my designated national park city. It was next to deer, iron, tundra, ice, and a few forests that I hoped would grow. The silver that showed up next door made it all worthwhile. Needless to say, I paid extra gold to have that silver be mined+roaded on the same turn. (My workers were all busy; that jungle took FOREVER to chop down.)

I also had some miscellaneous bad stuff happen to me like farms getting whacked but that's fine. The good stuff can be permanent (see above), whereas the bad stuff does not seem to ever be permanent (not if you have gold anyway, and I founded 3 religions, all shrined, and 2 were in one city that was declared my Wall St city), except for diplo stuff that might fade over time anyway. And I was isolated so I had no diplo random events. (Aside from the tech drawbacks of isolated starts, it sucks too for spies... I had lots of Great Spies courtesy of some wonders and nobody to build up those spy points against.)

I'm on Monarch/fractal/standard and currently in 2nd place only to one guy who vassalized two other civs and is several techs behind me. I went uber cottage spam and hope to get a battleship fleet to ward off any would-be invaders. In the meantime I have just a couple of chariots and a bunch of quechas (warriors) defending. I infected my similarly-isolated neighbor Brennus with my state religion so hopefully I have ONE guy I don't need to worry about.

[A_Mere_Icon]

I was presented with a random challenge during my current game. It basically said, be the first CIV to produce 8 muskets and you'll get a prize...I forget the story the accompanied the challenge part.

Well I cranked out 8 muskets and WHOA they gave me a free golden age!!!

true story.

[TriviAl]

I completed the classic literature quest. Build 9 libraries before the Renaisance. Bonus for having the great library.

Pushed slightly and got it done. Reward was nice, picked an extra free scientist at the Great Library. The little begger even hung around after the GL was obsoleted, so no complaints from me!

Other than that, most of them have been really minor. Slave revolts costing a population point and some cash or two pop points. Buildings or improvements either destroyed or gained small bonus.

Free pinch for gunpowder or cover for axe units sounds most vicious!

[marioflag]

Completed Greed quest.I had a few units remained to destroy all other Viking cities, getting that 8 Swordsman for free was really a blessing for the continuation of my campaign.

[Figaro]

Originally Posted by Common Sensei

I've never seen it myself, but someone was saying there is a quest to build enough Musketman that when fulfilled, can give all Gunpowder units Pinch.

I got this quest a few times, it only gives Musketmen Pinch, meaning it's useless as soon as Riflemen appear.

Once, when I spread Judaism to the Greeks, I got a "Greek Missionaries go crazy spreading their religion" event (OK, those weren't the exact words!) and they spread Judaism to all of their own cities and all of the Germans', converting and area of roughly 1/3 of the map into Judaism without me having to lift a finger. Needless to say, I built the Temple of Solomon pretty quickly after that.

[Chrispy]

Originally Posted by IAM

In a current game (huge, islands) I was challenged to build 16 cities on 16 different land masses. Not a whole lot of tiny islands so it's a big challenge but doable. But it didn't specify the reward just that I had to do it before industrialism.

I received the same one (10 cities on 10 different, but I was on a standard map.) I started to try it, but gave up to avoid ridiculous maintenance.

I had a Harbor + Caravel quest (7 Harbors + 4 Caravels) that gave me the option of Combat 1 for the ships, Nav 1 for the ships, or +2 gold per harbor.

[Lil_Yospeck]

The 3 main ones I've had from my current game is:

Quest: Horse Whisperer, you are challenged to become more akin to horses.

You are challenged to build 11 stables before you reach the renaissance period or before another enemy beats you to it.

When you do it you either get:

+1 Terrain Movement (I THINK, cant rememeber 100%) to all future mounted units.

16 Horse Archers (I've really managed to do this early, so they're still a decent enough unit to pick off the weaker civs around me)

"You have learned to make your horses work better on the farm" +1 food to stables.


Second one as mentioned was a great artist has been discovered, either have 100% Culture in this city, or have him join as a free Great Artist.


Third one isn't great, but its a "you had a great deer hunting season" event that I keep getting every so often for the same city, pumping up its population slowly.


Nothing world changing.