"Dumbest" decisions in your civ career?

[MerchantCo]

We all have a bit of noob left in us... sometimes, we make decisions that make the AIs seem like tactical geniuses. Post them here!

Once, a super powerful nation planted a citadel and took one tile of my territory. I lost a luxury resource, sending my civilization further down into the pit of unhappiness. Enraged, I clicked on "Diplomacy" and declared war on that civilization.

Turns out his military was much larger than mine, and he had a few nukes with him too. My empire was crushed, and the game ended. RIP enraged gamer.

 

[Viregel]

I remember my first game well. Having read no tutorials, I assumed that Siam no longer being the ally of a city-state was a sign that I could declare war. Despite playing on settler and having several wars with Siam, the game was in stalemate for most of the time.

 

[cpm4001]

My first non-demo Civ game (played on Warlord) - I was the Ottomans, and was positioned near Byzantium. I'd decided I would go for a Domination victory (might as well conquer Constantinople, right?), and so got all my Cannons and Janissaries set up so I could immediately take it.
Sadly, all my units were inside Byzantine territory...so I DoWed her, and everything got kicked out. Then they got massacred by the Byzantine army that had just finished offing the Huns. That was the end of that game!

 

[ixias]

My first game I played as Siam, so I did the whole buddy-buddy thing with all the CS, which my nearby neighbor, Alex didn't like. We were at war most of the game and everyone else pretty much ignored us (even though no one liked Alex).

In my second game, I wanted to avoid the perma-war so I made Defensive Pacts with all of my friends thinking that would make the game peaceful. Well one friend decided to DOW another, so I was engulfed in a major war against one of my best allies and everyone hated me for it. Eventually, I was at war with all 7 of the other civs, including the guy who triggered the war...

 

[redwings1340]

I'm sure I've made lots of ridiculous mistakes in the past, but in my first game of BNW...

I was playing as Venice, and I was trying to exterminate the backstabbing mayan pests from my continent. I set up 7 bombers and a few fighters in a city near them, I declared war, killed a few units, and then my city was immediately nuked and I lost everything. This was about the third time where I had gotten advances with fighters and bombers completely wrecked by nukes, so I really should have been expecting this.

 

[radster_X]

Invading Russia, (I know it happens to the best of us, Napolean Hitler etc...)
So yeah it was a TSL map and I was China. Russia was gobbling up the middle east, and the ottmans, (who were a dominant civ, important ally, and trading partner), had their capital captured by Russia, and their empire reduced to a about 5 cities of their original 14. So I decided being in the Golden age of China with my HWA-CHA-CHU-KO-NU's to go in and kick their ass.

After preparing my forces I headed over to the Caspian Sea, ready to sail across and take back Ankara and liberate it. I declared war on Russia, as I knew Russia was busy fighting Germany, and I assumed they would take a while to mobilize their forces to the south, (sounding a bit like a famous WWII leader of germany hmm?) Anyways I launched my attack, sending about 2/3 of the troops across the caspian sea, and the rest threw Persia, (my ally and I had open borders with them).

Immediatly things went wrong. 4 Trebuchets arrived and quickly took out the bulk of my forces, (they were sitting ducks in the caspian sea). Then Persia declares war on me and my small sub team get pushed out of their borders to israel, isolated from the rest of my forces.

Within about 4 turns my army had been obliterated leaving a single Chu-Ko-Nu alive, which retreated back to my lands.

Later on in that game I would succeed in my mission, and by using my nuclear weapons on my carrier, I conquered Persia, Russia and liberated Ankara.

 

[Sabrina]

Usually my dumbest game decisions (yes, it's plural, I do this mistake pretty often) is settling on a huge desert and trying to build the Petra, just to lose it for the AI when I'm 1 or 2 turns from finishing it.

Also, I tend to declare war when someone is trying to settle too close to me and doesn't obey to the "don't settle near me". Then, after getting a free worker, I make peace. Problem is that they can spawn another settler before the peace treaty is expired.

But my most stupid mistake so far was trying an emperor game having Attila as my neighbor, just to see my capital being captured before turn 100

 

[Cerilis]

Invading Russia, (I know it happens to the best of us, Napolean Hitler etc...)
So yeah it was a TSL map and I was China. Russia was gobbling up the middle east, and the ottmans, (who were a dominant civ, important ally, and trading partner), had their capital captured by Russia, and their empire reduced to a about 5 cities of their original 14. So I decided being in the Golden age of China with my HWA-CHA-CHU-KO-NU's to go in and kick their ass.

After preparing my forces I headed over to the Caspian Sea, ready to sail across and take back Ankara and liberate it. I declared war on Russia, as I knew Russia was busy fighting Germany, and I assumed they would take a while to mobilize their forces to the south, (sounding a bit like a famous WWII leader of germany hmm?) Anyways I launched my attack, sending about 2/3 of the troops across the caspian sea, and the rest threw Persia, (my ally and I had open borders with them).

Immediatly things went wrong. 4 Trebuchets arrived and quickly took out the bulk of my forces, (they were sitting ducks in the caspian sea). Then Persia declares war on me and my small sub team get pushed out of their borders to israel, isolated from the rest of my forces.

Within about 4 turns my army had been obliterated leaving a single Chu-Ko-Nu alive, which retreated back to my lands.

Later on in that game I would succeed in my mission, and by using my nuclear weapons on my carrier, I conquered Persia, Russia and liberated Ankara.

I was going to write "Don't worry and think of Genghis: Invading from the east goes just fine." But then I read what happened.

 

[Heerlo]

One of the craziest things I've done was in a multiplayer game the other day. I started inland, so I had no coastal cities, but I wanted to get one. So I sent one of my settlers and a worker to settle between two city states on the coast. Turns out I couldn't settle there because the CSes were too close.

So I proceeded to move my settler and worker back closer to the rest of my territory, and to settle somewhere around there. One of the units was ahead of the other, and I started accidentally telling my worker to go where the settler was, and vice-versa. So they were both moving in and out of each others tiles. I wasted a couple or three turns by doing that.

 

[Talcove]

My dumbest decision? Settle my cities pressed up against a mountain range, and have minimal soldiers, with Askia completely covering my southern borders. How did it go? Well, let's just say that the Polynesian empire didn't last very long...

 

[AW Arcaeca]

The only one of mine that comes to mind right now is my very first game. I never read tutorials, and in the early game as Polynesia I found Vatican City and decided, well, lets declare war on them because I don't know what else I'm supposed to do with this Maori Warrior.

Needless to say, that warrior died, and Vatican City was then hostile towards me for a while.

 

[MerchantCo]

Aha, AgressiveWimp was aggressive from the beginning

 

[isau]

I recently walked an undefended Settler next to a Barbarian camp at turn 3, instantly losing the game.

 

[kb27787]

Me: Bribing the powerhouse to DoW my friend-turned-enemy neighbor forgetting we had a defensive pact set up a few dozen turns ago...
Next thing I knew I was at war with the powerhouse

 

[flying_dug0ng]

Playing on a continents map, conquered mine, getting ready to invade the other with a massive fleet of bombers.

Moved to my coastal city, declared war, then realized all possible targets were 11 tiles away. I had 0 range promotions, and only built 2 caravels to capture.

Remember kids - ALWAYS count the tiles between continents before planning an assault type.

 

[Walter R]

I still fall for this occasionally, almost always well into a Dom game: forget that I'm building a wonder and raze a captured city. Recently I even founded a city and forgot - I should know better by now!

 

[Rohili]

My dumbest decision was accidentally accepting a peace offer which involved giving away a few of my cities to the AI. I was winning the war, mind you, and when the screen popped up I had a brain fart and thought that the AI was offering me his cities in exchange for peace. Needless to say, I had to reload (this is why I make the game do an autosave every 4 turns instead of the default 10)

 

[Glieze]

Me: Bribing the powerhouse to DoW my friend-turned-enemy neighbor forgetting we had a defensive pact set up a few dozen turns ago...
Next thing I knew I was at war with the powerhouse

Lol, WINNER

 

[Storminator]

Aha, AgressiveWimp was aggressive from the beginning

Also, a wimp.

PS

 

[Pepo]

I remenber my first game with france on vanilla.i had conquer all my continent,start invading a new one and has two eras advantage over the rest of the world.then great britain declare war on my for inavading there friends.they were in the medieval era.i sent three F.legions and cannons to capture all their cities.next turn all my army was destroyed by longbowmen and knigths.i then enter a 50 turn stalmate,losing the war until i manage to regain control and counterattack
Lesson learned:longbowmen will kill your troops even if they are much more technologicall advanced