CharlyShadow

[Fish Man]

Sorry but it's probably pointless (moving your Cap with map knowledge).
Not saying it's cheating (everybody can reload if they want as well, sp anyways), but where i try getting at: you will not be happy long-term with it in games.
I did so for a Gwaja map, was set up for fun that you can do nothing else, but here we can play normally.. it's just very difficult.
Even on Gwaja's map, i had zero motivation afterwards to ever do so again (and never finished that game too).

Strangely enough, civ feels most satisfying for me when I do allow myself to reload. I have a reloading addiction of sorts and really feel uncomfortable when playing without it, being unable to min-max saves the way I want and get some sort of insurance if I make mistakes. Almost as if I’m walking on a tightrope across two skyscrapers and any mistake too big will bring me tumbling down. Perhaps this is an extension of my current mental health anxiety issues (without going into too much detail) or just a sign that I take this game way too seriously?

Anyways, this is probably the #1 reason I’ll probably never actually submit a GOTM or HOF save. As well as partly why I dropped out of the cookbook #1 so early. I kept true to my word and played the first 45 turns blind, but after that I caved and allowed myself chances to play turnsets again and again to find out what te best things to tech were, etc. I’m not as good as I want to present myself as, in all likelihood : ( .

 

[Fippy]

No worries, and ty for that post (in all honesty) ~~
Usually it's very healthy to talk about those things.

Imo we fine tune so much here and in Civ4, cos of it being such a great & complex game.
I know no other similar game.
This can lead to what you describe, i even remember some players reporting how they felt unhappy in fear of messing up while playing.

Years back i felt similar while playing botm, sgotm and so on.
Some day an inner switch or so triggered and i started playing for fun only, doing only what i enjoy, and also getting fun out of lost games.
Never looked back to the "pressure" days, not encountering "what if i could reload now.." anymore, and so on.

Can this be trained? Probably, happened naturally for me.
But as you mentioned, it also depends on mental stability and is probably different for everybody.

 

[Fish Man]

Somehow I did it.

Spoiler :

This might be the hardest deity game I've ever played. @unas876 you were absolutely diabolical in presenting this map (I assume edited, because there's never gold just laying on the ground like that or crab in the ocean and the pig behind the mountain seems too cruel to be randomly generated; also the start is just a special type of bad), but I prevailed against all odds (literally - I reloaded several times because it would've been impossible to win given the presented situation had I taken the first result that came my way).

The only reason I won was because I got super lucky in that Hannibal decided to go culture for some reason, but right BEFORE he got the Big Three industrial era military techs (RR, AL, and artillery). Otherwise 17 cities with factories mass-producing infantry would have been far too much for a dozen whipping cannons to overcome. Meanwhile, Mansa decided to go culture as well, but pretty late, meaning I could casually reach nukes and then pound him with 2 tacticals per city a few dozen turns before he was ever really in danger of winning (but he also didn't get gunships, or have uranium anywhere, meaning mech infs were the toughest foes I faced). This map was a true test of warfare prowess but, as these examples prove, it was extremely luck-based with many factors totally out of the player's control. At least on this start, with this batch of foes, without reloading or prior knowledge, I reckon even the best players would have a 10% or less shot of beating it.

I really have to sleep now, will post more thoughts and details later. But despite the cooked settings it was a very entertaining and nail-biting game through and through. I got to use every single era of warfare (HA rush -> engineering "rush" at 1000AD -> cannons and rifles vs Hannibal 1440AD -> tanks and nukes vs Mansa 1800s -> modern armor slaughter against Kublai endgame), which was actually something I've never gotten to do before; in fact I do not believe I've ever even attacked with trebs on deity. Other firsts: being quite grateful I was Charlie (TWELVE GGs throughout the entire game generated certainly handy, fast monuments really needed to reach the food and horses, and schecky-schnekts saved my butt against Pacal when I was lacking for CS), 1-pop settler (gotta go fast when you're up against Justinian), moving my cap to a not-terrible location, and I tried a little US economy near the end with Hannibal's generously donated swaths of towns, buying nukes and tanks (strangely enough, US hurry production cost does not seem to be affected by production modifiers, which combined with the 3 to 1 conversion ratio is probably what makes it terrible most of the time).

Spoiler :