Bad Luck and Honesty

[Framesticker]

I was playing a random leader Continents game as Toku on Emperor. I was relucant to proceed (being Toku), but my "adapt to the situation" strict policy made me continue. The game went pretty well and I felt I was making good progress.

Then, a wounded 1.8/3 strength barb Archer came up knocking on my 2nd city. I had a fully healed, fully fortified, +25 city defense Warrior in it. I figured he would win, but he lost and I lost the city. I went out of Civ at that point.

So my question goes to you honest Civ players. When you play the game well and you lose due to simple, infuriating bad luck (he had >.1% to beat my Warrior), due you go on to the next game, or do consider it honest and right to, say, go into WB and delete that Archer? Or gift yourself a Warrior? Or simply reload and try to have 2 defenders in that city?

I don't want to cheat, but things like this (ridiculous barb wins, losing wonders/techs/wins by 1-2 turns) have been happening to me all the time since I started Emperor, and it's really not motivating.

So what would you do?

 

[framserv]

You lost - on to the next game.

OTOH if its mid-game with several hours of play time invested and something critical goes wrong then I might wind back a couple of auto-saves and play it differently.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, it depends.

As I see it, it's your game - you do what you want. I dont' see it as wrong, as long as you understand the reasons why you are doing it.

That said - one of the things you have to understand as you go up in levels is that you cannot do everything you want to do. Sure, it's bad luck to lose to a barb archer - but for 15 shields extra hammers, you could have had 2 warriors in that city and it would have been safe.

Or for 25 total hammers, you could have had a protective archer in that city.

So, really, it's up to you how you want to deal with it.

In that case... it might be interesting to see if I could get my city back.

 

[DMOC]

I'd just reload in this case. There are many, many games I have won that have had some probability of defeat early on when it was just one fortified warrior vs that barbarian warrior or archer.

 

[goodolarchie]

Probability and uncertainty are the spice of life!

If I feel like I got jipped by some clutch low probability event I'll sometimes reload one of the autosaves. This is a slippery slope though and it's easy to get into a bad habit of "doctoring saves," particularly in reloading different seeds (probability outcomes). Don't get into that habit, asking "What if I had..." is a good question, but you'll improve much quicker if you simply start a new game and suck it up as a loss. Afterall... anybody can win a diety game doctoring their saves because they already know the future

also, being over-prepared for barbarians isn't a bad thing because they only get worse as you crawl up the difficulties. At that point fogbusting is your best friend!

 

[Fezzik]

Shouldn't be too hard to get a city back from a single archer, if it's worth it to you. Unless it was razed. I'm assuming the city must have been small if you couldn't afford a pop to whip or send a defender along a well-built road. Or just fogbust a bit.

But if the only options you see are to reload or quit, you might as well reload. You'll at least learn from it and can continue enjoying and learning the rest of the game. Hopefully you can reload less over time and get prepared for a real game where you have no leeway.

 

[r_rolo1]

Lessons to be learned:

- don't defend you cap with a single warrior

- if you're losing too much stuff by 1/2 turns, that only means that you either need to get them 1/2 turns faster or simply make something else. It is perfectly normal to hit that barrier in some level ... it is a matter of fine tunning in the end.

 

[Paperbag_Hobo]

I'd just step down from my very tall horse for a moment, open the WB and kill the archer. Don't gift yourself a warrior - gotta take some sort of loss for cheating!

 

[Framesticker]

Thanks for your responses. Made me think a little. I eventually reloaded the 4000BC save (it was about 2000BC when my city got razed), and won the game by Domination in the end. But that's not the point of this thread.

@r_rolo1 - it wasn't my capital, it was my 2nd city and it got razed. I figured that at 2000BC I could afford a single warrior, especially if he had time to fortify, per city, and it's worked decently so far. Are you suggesting I should accompany my original Settlers with 2 Warriors? Or wait till Archery/BW/AH for a stronger unit?

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, I'd just go back a few more turns and play it differently. Or start a new game if I didn't feel into this one.

Like yesterday started a new game. HC, so I quechua rushed my neighbour. Cought his cap, then let them rest. Then sent them off to capture his next city. The turn I move them away (road then hill without a road, leaving the city empty), a barb archer comes out of nowhere to right next to my newly undefended conquered city. To me, that was the sign from above that the game wasn't worth playing on.

 

[Liquidated]

I always try and load up 2 defenders in any town that's open to barb attack (learning to fog bust has allowed me to slack on defenses though) for defensive redundancy. If the RNG can screw me over it most assuredly will, so I roll with the punishment with a grin.

In the spirit of the OP though, some times the game is just out to get you no matter how you prepare. A good game to really get this sort of foreboding gameplay going is Dwarf Fortress, where "FUN" is all about losing.

I personally just review the game and and start fresh... prolly can blame all those brutal roguelikes for that sort of outlook. Best I can advise is go over how you could improve on your game play and reroll or reload however you want. Nothing to cry over either way so long as you learn in the meantime (if it just wasn't the RNG saying eff you).

Oh, and never use the custom continents script

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Framesticker]

I always try and load up 2 defenders in any town that's open to barb attack (learning to fog bust has allowed me to slack on defenses though) for defensive redundancy. If the RNG can screw me over it most assuredly will, so I roll with the punishment with a grin.

In the spirit of the OP though, some times the game is just out to get you no matter how you prepare. A good game to really get this sort of foreboding gameplay going is Dwarf Fortress, where "FUN" is all about losing.

I personally just review the game and and start fresh... prolly can blame all those brutal roguelikes for that sort of outlook. Best I can advise is go over how you could improve on your game play and reroll or reload however you want. Nothing to cry over either way so long as you learn in the meantime (if it just wasn't the RNG saying eff you).

Oh, and never use the custom continents script

Cheers!
-Liq

Haha, why never Custom Continents? I used it rather oftenly ><"

 

[Paw]

Lessons to be learned:

- don't defend you cap with a single warrior

Didn't DMOC just finish his deity game with the dutch where his capital was defended the entire game by a lone warrior?

 

[fathertuck]

I could never cheat by entering WB or re-loading. It's a matter of honour to me to win fairly or not win at all.

What's the point playing if you take away the uncertainty factor? It makes the whole gaming experience more fun when you know that some unlike event could take place, like losing an archer/city to a barb warrior or something similar. I think we all have had our share of beeing screwed one way or another, but these are the things that you can laugh about later - specially if you still manage to win the game. That makes the victory sooo much sweater.

 

[oranje willem]

Intense bad luck with barbarians resulting in losing a city often leads to a reload for me, but losing a wonder by 1-2 turns not. The failure money allows you to get a big tech very fast usually which doesn't make it that bad. Btw I read somewhere (so i'm not 100% sure) that if you can whip your wonder its 100% that you will be the one to be first (even though you still have to wait a turn). So if a wonder is really critical for my tactic I often sacrifice a few people just to make sure.

 

[iggymnrr]

Spawnbust.

 

[coanda]

If, for example, I'd been cutting warriors to build more workers, then I'd probably make myself accept the consequences (which might mean restarting the whole game). But if I had the warriors available, but just hadn't been paying attention and needlessly left 1 space available in the fog in which a barb spawned, I'd load and/or WB. Depends on if I thought it was a gamble that didn't pay off, or just a stupid mistake.

 

[stefista]

Btw I read somewhere (so i'm not 100% sure) that if you can whip your wonder its 100% that you will be the one to be first (even though you still have to wait a turn). So if a wonder is really critical for my tactic I often sacrifice a few people just to make sure.

This is almost true. Whenever you have 1 turn left on a wonder, you will get it unless someone who goes before you in turn order has completed it on the same turn or the turn before. In normal single player games (not scenarios) the human player goes first, so the only way you can lose your wonder is if an AI completed all the hammers on the turn before. Conveniently, you can see whether this occurred on the wonders screen. If the wonder is not listed as built, then you can go ahead and whip, secure in the knowledge that the wonder is yours.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Consequences of player decision - take the loss of whatever it is
Consequences of game w/o player input/intent (misclick, game forcing actions before orders, DoW on AI w/o pressing any buttons) - Reload.

The unit control incompleteness explains about 90% of the reason I do not participate in XOTM or HoF much. It is simply too much BS for me to accept that my units can move on a turn, into danger, before I can give orders to interrupt that, or to DoW on an AI I'm just trying to trade with and get no prompt about my intention (even though the game is more than happy to spam a DoW prompt when I'm simply trying to explore).

 

[jaycuhbbb]

Usually the game is in its early stages when things like this happen so I'm usually not too committed and just move on to the next game.