Biggests Blunders!

[rescuerick]

my biggest "blunder" was not really a game play, but more a misunderstanding about how things work. in my very first game, when i got IW, i immediately searched and searched for how to make the Iron Works small wonder but I could not find coal (obviously, because I did not had not discovered steam). since i did not now of this forum, and the instruction booklet and civpedia were very sketchy, i wasted a couple hours before i finally gave up... later, i would stumble upon this site, where i would find a wealth of information which is far more valuable than those few wasted hours...

game play blunder - playing Persians, at war, I discover Republic and revolt, figuring that the AI will not attack my frontline city with that has an Immortal (unfortified). next turn, the AI attacks, my Immortal defends and is victorious thus triggering my GA during Anarchy. shoulda waited for peace before revolting - blunder because i was perfectly aware that this could happen but i was trying to be greedy and have the GA as soon as i was in Republic.

or, while playing Persia on unpatched vanilla, i built tons of warriors planning to upgrade them to Immortals. well unpatched vanilla doesn't allow for this so I had like 30 or 40 warriors and a bunch of cash with no UU. can we say warrior scouts?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I remember my early days of civ, when I would start building the palace everywhere... ah...

My biggest mistake, which I was fortunate to not have kill me, was in a 20K demigod game for the the gauntlet:

It's maybe 10 turns from me winning - I can't improve my score, and no one is going to attack me - Russia (the biggest civ) loves me since we've been trading for years. I say "hey - I never got heroic epic - I wonder just how big cathy's army is" and plant a spy.

cathy catches my spy and next thing I know, i am at war and one of her marines does an invasion of my UNDEFENDED capitol!!!

Fortunately, the AI sucks and I was able to retake it - I lost all the culture buildings, but the wonders still produced culture for me, so I didn't really lose much time....

 

[Virtual Alex]

Why was it undefended!? You would think on demigod you would at least have 1-2 warriors standing in there for MP reasons?

Or did you just have units on all adjecent squares?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

well, I'm in republic at the time, so no MP's.

And once I realized that I was at war with the world superpower, I sent most of my forces off to beat up the cossack's hanging around near me, forgetting about her navy.

 

[wgauld]

Biggest Blunder....... would have to be buying Civ IV.

 

[Virtual Alex]

Amen to that!

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

The first I do with a new game is to read the manual.

 

[wgauld]

The first I do with a new game is to read the manual.

Eh! read a manual you should be ashamed of talk like that.

 

[Aabraxan]

I haven't been playing very long, so I know that I'll have more blunders to post in the future. Here is my biggest to date:

In my most recent game, I had cleared my continent of all competitors by about 700 A.D. I had galleys out there, but had not made contact with anyone on a continent other than my own. Almost half of the world remained out there, unexplored, in the fog . . . I knew that my galleys ran the risk of sinking if left in ocean squares, and every time I put the cursor over an ocean square, the arrows turned dark and it didn't look like my galleys could even go into ocean squares. So my boats just kept circling my continent while I waited either for someone to stumble across me or for the tech that would allow them to venture into open waters. Eventually, I accidentally clicked on an open square and, lo and behold, my galley moved out there! I could explore! My galleys had been circling my continent for about 400 years!

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

Eh! read a manual you should be ashamed of talk like that.

I was a seasoned civ player when I began on C3. And I read (not all of) it. Never fear the books.

 

[Bartleby]

This is my most recent D'Oh! moment.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I once was playing a warlord 20K game - *just* missed getting ironworks.

anyway, it's the beginning of modern times, I'm off attacking my last opponent, trying to fish for an MGL. I take most of his cities and build the Internet. a few turns later, I'm about 2 turns from finishing what will be my best 20K time ever when all my cultural boundaries expand and I win by domination.

 

[odantheman]

me: Palace! it's expensive so it must be a cool wonder! must build...
Advisor: we have completed the palace.
me: (in another core city) Another palace! I thought wonders can only be built once?... oh well must build...
Advisor: we have completed the palace.

(repeats 5 or so times)

me: I wonder why my capital keeps moving...
Advisor: compared to others, you have an IQ of a carrot.

i did the exact same thing, lol

 

[odantheman]

i am still well new to this game, so i make lots of blunders, i am still trying to sus the whole thing out but i think i am getting there slowly, my funniest blunder so far which i have done 3 times now is earily in the game, still a desp
govement, just researched monechy/republic go into anachy, 4 turns of no production, then it pops up and asks what gov you want to choose and i pick the one i already was aghhhh, do it again and loose another 4turns.

anyone else admit to this???

 

[AutomatedTeller]

sure frankly, that's enough to warrant a re-load for me, unless it's a competition game.

 

[Aabraxan]

I've done that. Another, similar one that I've pulled off is in the advisor screen. Clicked on the box that told me what type of gov't I had (Republic), thinking that I had 3 available types. Sent my empire into anarchy, only to discover that I only had Republic and Despotism available. . . . Anarchy for no good reason, only to go back into Republic. I really wish I could open up that box and see what gov'ts are open to me before I decide whether or not to throw my empire into total pandemonium.

 

[glisp42]

I almost forgot about my biggest blunder. In the last game I played I was playing as the Germans and built the UN to keep the AI from having it. I was 10 turns away from having a histograph victory, just barely edgeing out Russia in score. I figured the voting had to be unanimous and that me voting for myself would not allow someone else to win. Can you believe they picked Catherine over me? I mean all I did was wipe the Iriqouis, Americans and Incas off the map with Panzers. I killed off the Iriqouis in the AA, but I waited too long to move against anyone else because I was waiting for my Panzers to arrive.

 

[LLXerxes]

I one of my earlist games, I was the Americans, along the vast English border preparing for war. So I select one of my nukes over my top industrial city, Detroit, and decide: 'No, I won't bomb anything this turn. I'll just put it back.'. So I CLICK ON MY OWN CITY, thinking it would keep it in the city... but it DETONATED. 9 population lost, all of my troops except for an ancient spearman I forgot about.

Needless to say, I decided war wasn't my thing... so I instead finished up on the space race.

 

[Bartleby]

that's a new one: Spearman survives Nuke.

 

[Aabraxan]

It would appear that my Tale of Doh! continues. . . As I noted above, my boats circled my continent for about 4 centuries as I tried to figure out how to make contact with someone. While this was going on, I improved my empire. I built troops, I improved tiles, I amassed wealth, and I built the Great Lighthouse. (Remember this; it becomes important later).

As troops were built, I moved them to coastal cities, knowing that I would probably end up loading them up and shipping them overseas to visit someone eventually. I moved many of them to my eastern coast, because that's where it looked like the short route to my neighbors would be. Eventually, some 400 years after the demise of the Mayans, I accidentally discovered that I could actually put a galley into ocean squares, if I was willing to risk its loss. As you might imagine, after 400 years of isolation, I was.

Once I made contact, I traded like mad. My relationship with the Scandnavians was particularly profitable. The Byzantines and the Iroquis less so, but profitable nonetheless. The Aztecs, though, were totally uninterested in any sort of mutually beneficial arrangement. So I thought I'd take them out first. The Vikings paid me enough that I could afford to upgrade all of my galleys to caravels. The gold brought in by trading also allowed me to crank up my research, and I did.

During the course of all of this, I found one small, safe "passageway" to the other continent. My caravels could make it across all ocean squares in one turn -- it was only 5 ocean squares, so no risk of loss (remember the Great Lighthouse?). Unfortunately, the passage was off of the western coast. So I loaded up my caravels, took them around the northern horn of my continent, and headed for the west. I began moving troops over to my western coast to begin deployment. I would pull my caravels up to the edge of the ocean squares and stop. I'd wait for the next turn, and make the jump safely across the ocean. I had found a nice little uninhabited, unclaimed spot on an island in the northern part of their empire, and was going to plunk down a settler and begin moving troops in. I also found one lone unclaimed square on the border beween the Scandanavians and the Aztecs, so I got the Scandanavians to sign an ROP, moved a settler and some troops iinto that one square and -- voila! -- another forward base. A couple of turns and some gold and it's got barracks and walls.

I began shipping cannons, cavalry and crusaders on my caravels. The Aztecs only had spears. They had horses, but I hadn't seen even a single horseman, nor a single swordsman. Then the Aztecs declared war on me for no apparent reason. I was elated. I was overjoyed. All kinds of troops in place and I didn't even have to declare a war. I talked every other nation on the planet into declaring war on the Aztecs on the same turn that they declared on me. The war went well, and was brief. Soon, the Aztecs were no threat. Then the Iroquois declared war (for no apparent reason, I might add). They were on the other side of the Scandanavians, so I checked our ROP, made sure that we were getting along, and got them into the fight with the Iroquois.

Then I discovered magnetism . . . Remember the Lighthouse? Remember that I'd taken the extra gold from trade and cranked up my research? All of the sudden, I found myself at war on the other side of a 5-square ocean route, with at least half of my army and most of my navy over there, and the Great Lighthouse had just become obsolete. It had instantly become the Moderately Good and Somewhat Interesting Lighthouse. And I'd just lost the only route that I could take without risk of sinking. . . . Oh, well. . . . The Scandanavians are nice neighbors, I guess.