Avoid these: A collection of your most common mistakes

[Azash]

Alright, this thread is here so new players can see stupid mistakes others make and learn to avoid them. I will have to list this one:

Stagnancy: At a certain point, usually during the middle of the Middle Ages, I slow down on expanding, and eventually freeze it down. The result? Aroundthe beginning of the industrial era, I start falling behing, and because all space has been taken, war is the only option left.

 

[Mistfit]

Early in my gaming experiance I was lent to building spearman for every city.

STOP IT!

Most games I play now I build very few if any. Unless it is a AW or a PBEM.

 

[Choffy]

I should remember to build cities on river whenever possible... and not 2 tiles away.
I should settle as soon as possible a city on coast to start exploration thanks to navigation.
I should renogatiate deals after 20 turns if worth.
At start, I should build, after settler factories, worker factories and one or several warrior factories with barracks. No warrior without barrack.

 

[Own]

You don't need to build temples before going to war in AA. I just recently realized that a 60 shield temple is enough for 2 swordsmen who can easily take it back. With a couple of temples, a Deity AI city ain't gonna flip.

 

[berserks01]

I really need to stop signing ROP and MPP.
I need to play AW more often (for some reason I like these games more than regular games )

 

[Renata]

I need to plan ahead more. I keep getting spectacularly wonderful ideas about ten turns after they would have been useful.

Renata

 

[fe3333au]

@Renata ... you're not the only one

I will never ever put workers on automatic anything ... i saw 40+ merrily whistle past in rail assisted eagerness, in happy bliss from all over my substantial empire ... totally oblivious to the waiting chains of slavery ... when they mistook bombardment damage as pollution after a blitzkreig sneak attack from AI another player during pbem game

 

[TheBB]

Make absolutely totally sure you can win a war before starting it. Sigh.

 

[garyg]

I will never leave an army in a city just conquered "to heal" only to see that city flip two turns later.

 

[Misery]

Hold a UN vote when there are more civs who are annoyed with you than polite.

 

[Himalia]

MPP were the biggest mistake i use to get involved with. Signing a MPP is a quick route to getting your reputation tainted and is a clar sign that the Civilization asking is about to goto war. Not such a problem in multiplayer tho.

 

[Tomoyo]

My most common mistake is getting so caught up in keeping up in tech that I create a runwaway AI that eventually comes around to beat me.

 

[SJ Frank]

Don't play too long in one session. My brain goes on auto-pilot and miss some of the most obvious mistakes.

 

[Randomjohn]

- forget to check the science progress and start turning it down a few turns before you're about to waste beakers (thank you civassist!)

- I don't go to war enough. Need those MGLs!

- speaking of GLs, stop racing for the Great Library. Often, I'd be better off letting someone else build it for me then go in and capture it

- more workers more workers more workers. not so much of a problem anymore, but only because I forced myself to get out of that idiotic habit.

- speaking of workers, stop improving tiles that aren't being used and won't be used for a while. Much as I like having perfectly manicured territory, it's far far more important to get those first improvements in the size 1 towns than making sure all 21 are improved in my size 6 capitol.

- lay off the spearmen. they're just not that good. I'm finally learning how to build settler factories instead of what I used to do, which was have a city (sometimes without a granary or a barracks) build spearman-settler-spearman-settler,

- focus cities more on what they're doing. If I'm building stacks of units in a city with a barracks, I don't need to build a temple and a library there too. In fact, I probably don't need a temple AND a library in any cities. I've been trying to learn RCP lately (I think it's RCP=3? settler goes, e.g., NE NE N, another goes NE NE E, etc), so I tend to build a lot where I have my capitol in the middle with 8 cities equidistant around it. I tend to make 4 or 5 of those barracks and military producers and the other 3 or 4 focus on culture and great wonder prebuilds. I have a problem with not warring enough (see above) and this is how I'm trying to work on that.

Thoughts?

 

[jm chen]

On Chieftain, my most common mistake was settling aggressively. I didn't know that it upset the AI when I plopped a city down two squares from theirs. I wondered why they always ended up angry at me.

On Warlord, my most common mistake was refusing demands on principle. This is the level at which I realized principles are too expensive and should be discarded.

On Regent, my most common mistake was shipping off outdated troops (warriors) to defend new cities I was founding on faraway islands. Later I learned to ship the good defenders off, because you can always make better ones in the homeland, where you have barracks and high production.

On Monarch, my most common mistake was trying for too many wonders I couldn't get. After I learned to concentrate on only a few wonders, and prebuild for them, I didn't get into that infuriating spot where you have 5 turns to the Temple of Artemis and someone else gets it and you've got nothing to cascade to. I never hand-build ToA now, only leader-rush or, better, capture it.

On Emperor, my most common mistake so far is trying the super-early archer rush that worked so well for me on Monarch, often getting rid of a nearby Civ so I could expand into twice the territory without further violence. Even if it looks like Zimbabwe is only guarded by a single regular warrior, this never, ever works above Monarch.

I look forward to making more mistakes on higher levels.

 

[DS_Legionary]

My most common mistake on all levels of play is letting my capital or second city go into disorder in the early stages of a game, costing a vlauable turn of expansion.

 

[Himalia]

speaking of GLs, stop racing for the Great Library. Often, I'd be better off letting someone else build it for me then go in and capture it

I have only ever got one free advance from the Great Library and that was Seafaring so no great gain there. I Still build it tho just to stop the AI or other human players from benifiting from it.

One thing which im still guility of is once my Empire reaches a certain size i can start to get lazy and just start switching everything to wealth beacause its quick and easy. Sometimes yes this is the best thing to do but i find i just get complacent once this starts.

 

[Invisible Rhino]

My mistakes....

I build way too many defensive units.

I'm hopeless when it comes to naval actions before Navigation.

I want to build every improvement in every city.

I keep thinking I can trust the other civs

 

[budweiser]

- Don't forget to start research on the same turn that you settle your capitol and set it to 100%. Dont wait to be prompted on turn 2.

- Never trade with an AI in between turns when they pop in and ask you for something.

 

[Tomoyo]

- Don't forget to start research on the same turn that you settle your capitol and set it to 100%. Dont wait to be prompted on turn 2.

You mean turn one...

- Never trade with an AI in between turns when they pop in and ask you for something.

Sometimes this is actually good, since the AI might get the tech from another AI between when they propose a deal to you and when your turn comes. And remember - clicking your foreign advisor on the diplo screen gets you to your foreign advisor screen, so you can do nfers on the AI's turn.