Boy is my face red :(

[darski]

I was just playing another game to get the feel for the various Civs. this time I played the Myans and the only other new Civ was Sumeria.

Well I was going to take out some encroaching Iro cities and before I could put together a few JT's the Sumerians had taken over all but two Iro cities. They had already made some mindless threats to me when I told them to take their empty threats elsewhere...

Well the game is going along very slowly, I can't get more land as I have squeezed in all the cities I can. I am first in Cities and in Pop but they have the most land.

I was just organizing my workers in pairs to be ready - in a 1000 years - for making my railroads. I am years away from that as I took the DEMO route thinking that it might make for a faster game overall. Anyhoo...While playing with my workers, I saw that the Zulu are in the Industrial Age.. The ZULU!!!! Boy is my face red. How bad do you have to be to be trailing the Zulu in science.

This is a very different game indeed.

Anybody else want to fess up to an embarrassing Civ moment?

 

[TheOverseer714]

If the Zulu get a big area to grow in and then knock off a couple weak tribes, that can happen. You went Democracy? That took away a bunch of turns of more fruitful research. Where is your massive income from your huge empire? You should be researching much faster than the AI at any level below emperor, with your dozens of specialist farms. You do have them by the dozen? Anyway, embarrassing civ moments are par for the course. Letting an enemy landing go unnoticed is my most common foible, one time my capital was burned by a pike that landed near it. That's the one thing about not defending every city.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I once was playing a 20K game for a HOF gauntlet. I was 10 turns from winning when I decided to plant a spy in Russia. It got caught, Catherine declared war, and Marines took my capitol and 20K city.

Now THAT is embarrassing.

Behind behind the Zulu? Not so much - any civ can be a runaway with a good start. Zulu's early GA can make that happen pretty easily.

 

[timerover51]

Darski, you might want to back down a level or two in your playing until you get the feel for the changes in the game.

 

[PaperBeetle]

In C3C, there is now Fascism, which Shaka will surely want to research, so that along with the other junk techs at the top of the industrial tree (i.e. Nationalism and Communism) should keep him occupied long enough for you to beeline to Scientific Method and win back the tech lead?

Most embarassing civ moment? There must be many that I have forgotten, but one gaffe that springs to mind was a Mongolian COTM a couple of years back. I was pretty new to palace jumping back then, but had tried it with good results in a recent GOTM. Unfortunately, I didn't understand that the whole corruption thing works differently in C3C, so I built FP in my old core (which was a really weak starting area; probably designed by Ainwood) and jumped the palace down to a newly captured region that had almost no town or tile improvements. The effect was a lot like putting my entire empire into anarchy for 20 turns or so.

 

[Aabraxan]

I've had a number of moments that would qualify for a "Boy is my face red" thread. Here's one: When I first got the game, I used the mouse to move all my units. I had one game in which I cleared my continent pretty quickly. I was eager to find the other continent and trade, but I couldn't figure out how to cross the ocean. I didn't realize that I could use the number pad and risk a suicide galley. So my galleys spent ~400 years circling my continent, just hoping to come into contact with someone . . . anyone.

 

[anaxagoras]

My red-faced moment was against Sumeria, too. It was a pangea map, and I started in the middle. I had three different civs that had cities on both sides of me, so each war was automatically two fronts. I had just dispatched the second of the three, and wanted to clear out the last civ on both sides, but they had a MPP with Sumeria, the largest Civ on the map. No problem. There were a couple intervening Civs I could bribe into allying with me to keep the Sumerians at bay and my borders secure.

Problem was, although I planned the alliances, I forgot to actually make them.

Three turns later, 25 Sumerian cavalry show up on my border out of range of my SOD, smash through my crust defense, and run amok through my empire. I lost 15 cities in three turns, including my capital, and descended into anarchy from war weariness, all because I just forgot to execute my own war plan.

 

[Theov]

Oh I once left my island abandoned for an invasion that made D-day like spring training, only to be stabed in the back by some left-for-dead civ I only to get money and cheap techs from.
It made my face and . Aftrer that I turned

 

[Spoonwood]

What level did/do you play on Darski? A few weeks ago I would have guessed the Zulu as a strange pick to do this, but less so once I read SirPleb's "going for Sid" hall of fame game, where the Zulu led in tech and territory for a good while. From my less-than-a-week experience with MapStat it'll help you spot AI tech leads like this sooner.

"I lost 15 cities in three turns..." That just sounds horrible (o.k. not that bad since it's a game I guess).

I have a hard time of thinking of an "embarassing moment", but I'd say losing my original and only worker to a horseman on a raging barbarian map who snuck up on me out of nowhere.

 

[darski]

Darski, you might want to back down a level or two in your playing until you get the feel for the changes in the game.

I think you might be right about this one. (((sigh)))

It took me forever to get to Regent but I am swamped in most of my test games. Maybe playing in SG's will help me a bit.

 

[anaxagoras]

Maybe playing in SG's will help me a bit.

SG's are absolutely a great way to learn better technique. Not only do you get to discuss strategy and tactics with the other players (and so learn how they are thinking about the exact problems you face), but the mere act of having to closely document your own turn set forces you to play much more carefully and helps you find your own mistakes. Play a SG one level higher than your own comfort zone.

 

[anaxagoras]

"I lost 15 cities in three turns..." That just sounds horrible.

Yeah, it was pretty much the worst five-turn stretch I've ever had. The really unfortunate part was, I couldn't even sue for peace. I kept trying to contact the Sumerians, but they were still in the "refuse to acknowledge your envoy" window, and so was the other Civ I had just attacked. I did belatedly engage my allies, but by that time the entire Sumerian cavalry was already on the way. My "allies" pretty much just stood aside and let the Sumerians blow through at that point. Those darn move 3 cavalry can sure cover a lot of ground, even when wielded by an AI that insists on moving half its units around aimlessly before taking over undefended towns that let it use the road movement rate.

It had been a pretty good game for me up to that point, too.

 

[Aabraxan]

If it's any consolation, one of the worst beatings I can recall ever taking was from Sumerian cavalry. I miscounted tiles and had laid lots and lots of rails. I'm sure you can guess how fast that one went downhill for me.

 

[darski]

Oh that's right. Once they take your towns, they can use your rails right up to your next town... OWIE!!!

 

[Theov]

Oh that's right. Once they take your towns, they can use your rails right up to your next town... OWIE!!!

usually takes 1 or 2 turns to GET to your town. Depends on city spacing, but even with CxxC They can only get to the second x on the first turn and attack the second C on the second. Even with rails - no?

 

[darski]

Assuming that it is Cavs, they can use 0 moves on 'your' rails in their newly acquired territory. they land on your square right in front of your next city - that is one movement. They still have 2 to attack. I have used this against the AI on several occasions. When I need to, I even build the rails if they are missing first so that I can do it.

 

[Theov]

dont they need to wait for the other turn to attack?

 

[The Professor]

Just had this happen this weekend...I'd sent a suicide galley to meet the other continent, so when the Russian demanded Feudalism, I told them to stuff it, they declared war, and I got War Happiness. Since I knew the Russians wouldn't sail across the ocean to meet me, I mostly just forgot about it, and went back to my regularly-scheduled war with the Americans in the south end of my continent.

Thirty or so turns later, I see some Russian caravels heading towards my shore, and think, "Gee, I should make peace with the Russians before they land." But I was busy with another war, and didn't spend much time looking at that part of the continent during my turn, so I hit enter without talking to Catherine. The interturn, the Russians land two warriors and two horses. Again, I think, "yeah, I need to do something about that." But somehow forget AGAIN. The Russians took and razed two undefended (but very productive) cities, and killed a worker, before I remembered to send some troops that direction. And I had been thinking about submitting the game to the HoF...

 

[darski]

Just had this happen this weekend...I'd sent a suicide galley to meet the other continent, so when the Russian demanded Feudalism, I told them to stuff it, they declared war, and I got War Happiness. Since I knew the Russians wouldn't sail across the ocean to meet me, I mostly just forgot about it, and went back to my regularly-scheduled war with the Americans in the south end of my continent.

Thirty or so turns later, I see some Russian caravels heading towards my shore, and think, "Gee, I should make peace with the Russians before they land." But I was busy with another war, and didn't spend much time looking at that part of the continent during my turn, so I hit enter without talking to Catherine. The interturn, the Russians land two warriors and two horses. Again, I think, "yeah, I need to do something about that." But somehow forget AGAIN. The Russians took and razed two undefended (but very productive) cities, and killed a worker, before I remembered to send some troops that direction. And I had been thinking about submitting the game to the HoF...

I find stupid people to be so terribly annoying and it is most annoying when I am the stupid person.. My heart aches for you Professor.

 

[anaxagoras]

dont they need to wait for the other turn to attack?

Not if they have movement points left (or even just a fraction of one). The sequence can be as bad as:

All units begin on a rail line.

Unit 1:
Rail move to border.
Move over 1 enemy tile next to city 1.
Unit 1 attacks, secures city 1.

Unit 2:
Rail move through city to new border.
Move 1 enemy tile next to city 2.
Unit 2 attacks, secures city 2.

Unit 3:
Repeat..ad infinitum.

The only limits are the number of units you start with, the existence of rail connections, combat losses, and whether or not there is ever a 3-depth cultural boundary. With rails everywhere, the border keeps pushing farther and farther out, but is still accessible in zero moves.

In my case, the rails didn't exist yet, but I had roaded like a maniac. The per-turn limit was nine tiles, but that's still pretty darn far when there aren't any defenders and many of the towns are packed CxC.