There are a few threads knocking around on frustrating events, such as the AI beating you to a wonder you were short of by one hammer, so I was wondering did anyone have any tales of games where you accidentally pulled the rug from under the opposition, the kind of win that would cause a PC capable of passing a Turing test to shut down in a sulk.
My story is one of Babylon on Emperor level. Chasing a science victory right from the start (natch) and abandoning previous forlorn attempts to gun straight for the Great Library, I had a decent game overall with lots of Great Scientists and always keeping just the right side of being a military threat without saddling myself with an expensive army. Unfortunately I made a blunder (I think it was a mistake anyway, perhaps others will tell me differently) by focusing on the NC with my first three cities and allowing America to build a city in a place I had identified as a likely slot for city number four which would also have provided a buffer zone for further expansion. By the end game, which started around turn 350, I had five top notch cities churning out science and production, but the Greeks were utterly rapacious. They had accumulated enough city states in the World Congress to ensure victory and I had no money with which to bribe, er, gift them to my side. I was all set to retire but decided to let it end naturally and salute our new Greek overlords.
But lo! victory was about to be snatched from Bucephalus' nosebag. Unknown to me Buenos Aires had sought my religion for God-knows-how-many turns and as the turn for the World Leader vote started they announced that they had converted to my religion and were now my ally. Alexander duly fell two votes short of victory. I now had fifteen turns to rack up as much cash as I could, which wasn't hard as I only needed two spaceship parts at this stage and could focus all all cities except the capital (home of the Hubble Telescope) on wealth. Three city states found themselves the recipients of four figure gifts of cash and once again Alex found himself two votes short. Four turns later I blasted off towards Alpha Centauri, although I never arrived having fallen so much in love with me that I ended up eating myself.
So has anyone else got examples of pulling a Homer?
My story is one of Babylon on Emperor level. Chasing a science victory right from the start (natch) and abandoning previous forlorn attempts to gun straight for the Great Library, I had a decent game overall with lots of Great Scientists and always keeping just the right side of being a military threat without saddling myself with an expensive army. Unfortunately I made a blunder (I think it was a mistake anyway, perhaps others will tell me differently) by focusing on the NC with my first three cities and allowing America to build a city in a place I had identified as a likely slot for city number four which would also have provided a buffer zone for further expansion. By the end game, which started around turn 350, I had five top notch cities churning out science and production, but the Greeks were utterly rapacious. They had accumulated enough city states in the World Congress to ensure victory and I had no money with which to bribe, er, gift them to my side. I was all set to retire but decided to let it end naturally and salute our new Greek overlords.
But lo! victory was about to be snatched from Bucephalus' nosebag. Unknown to me Buenos Aires had sought my religion for God-knows-how-many turns and as the turn for the World Leader vote started they announced that they had converted to my religion and were now my ally. Alexander duly fell two votes short of victory. I now had fifteen turns to rack up as much cash as I could, which wasn't hard as I only needed two spaceship parts at this stage and could focus all all cities except the capital (home of the Hubble Telescope) on wealth. Three city states found themselves the recipients of four figure gifts of cash and once again Alex found himself two votes short. Four turns later I blasted off towards Alpha Centauri, although I never arrived having fallen so much in love with me that I ended up eating myself.
So has anyone else got examples of pulling a Homer?
