"Dumbest" decisions in your civ career?

[Loucypher]

As Askia, forward settle a city to grab two luxes and Iron.
To a flat grassland.
With lots of Jungle to the south.
Six tiles away from Tenochtitlan.
That city didn't last particulary long.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

As Spain on deity I got excited to see Uluru 6 tiles from my capital. Rushed a settler with all the gold I had to get over there and claim it. Founded my city only to discover Persia had a city 3 tiles away. Wound up in a perma war with Darius that I never was able to recover from.

Another one was my first game as Mongolia. I wanted to get good use out of my UA and went crazy taking all the CSs in reach. Then I got stuck in permawar with the remaining CSs and the entire world hated me.

 

[civ54lyfe]

dumbest decision in my Civ career was not demanding a higher starting salary, and more vacation time.

 

[Aaron90495]

Despite having played nearly 850 hours, in my last game (Immortal, Indonesia) yesterday I completely forgot to get Harbors up until around T290 or so; only one city was connected to the capital on land. As soon as they got hooked up, my GPT went up by about 100-110, so I probably missed out on at least 10,000-20,000 gold over the course of the game.

 

[bewebste]

I was playing Portugal, aiming towards a cultural victory. The only culture runaway was Arabia, and I wanted to do what I could to trip him up, so I proposed an embargo against them in the World Congress, which passed.

Aaaaaand there goes my 25% tourism bonus for having a trade route with Arabia. Herp a derp derp. I ended up proposing to repeal my own embargo two sessions later. On the plus side, that scored me the "Flip Flop" achievement on Steam!

 

[Qoma]

The mistake I make at least once a game: partway through building a crucial national wonder, I cash buy a settler and plant a new city.

 

[Prof. Platypus]

On my first game, i settled no cities except my capital, i only built workers and scouts and used any gold i got to buy tiles. I built farms on every tile except forest, i chopped those down and left them barren. Once I got trading posts I replaced every tile i had with them, then used the gold to buy caravans. I was playing on Cheiftain, so i actually won xD

 

[LeTigidou]

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)

Oh yep i also did that. Probably my most stupid mistake. So i was playing GnK culture with Egypt and my southern neighbor was Rome. Of course i had a bunch of wonders going tradition with Egypt , so after some BS backstabbing from Ceasar i thought ''Ha , now go home you whiner i'll take that city off your hands , sure" Clicked accept , and gloomy dramatic music starts playing.... ''Awwwww wtf''.

Oh and @profplatypus : Lol my first game i build roads on every single tile. Also thought my cities were huge and , not knowing they could only work 3 radius.

 

[Snownova]

The mistake I make at least once a game: partway through building a crucial national wonder, I cash buy a settler and plant a new city.

I know the feeling, last week I was playing a game where I kept brainfarting and repeatedly started building the national epic during a massive war with the Zulu's where I was consistently capturing and razing one of their cities every few turns. (they had a LOT of cities but I had more artillery).

 

[Krschtschn]

I once prepared to found a city in the middle of nowhere just to get a strategic resource, meaning it had no production to speak of. I brought my settler in position and stupidly settled the crappy city two turns before finishing my national college. Needless to say, it took me another 20 turns just to get the extra library i now needed.

 

[Gyra Solune]

My first game, I was playing as England. I had no idea you could actually buy things with Gold, so I presumed it was just to cover maintenance costs, and thusly I proceeded to put railroads on every single tile of my empire.

...I also never built any naval units because I was too busy with wonders. :^

 

[lorrydriverjr]

Not so long ago I thought it would be a clever scenario to play huge TSL with all the European civs and no-one else, so we could race towards the other continents and take all the land we could grab.

Turned out I underestimated the spawning powers of barbarians.

On the bright side, I actually did get the "He threw a car at my head"-achievement after finally managing to settle in North Africa alive.

 

[Suliz]

Not getting the Win on Deity achievement back when all you had to do to win was pick archipelago as the map type.

 

[tetley]

My biggest noob mistake: I bought the game. Missed out on a lot of my life.

 

[erisiamk]

I was playing Ethiopia to test out that Sacred Sites strategy where you get a culture victory in the Medieval Age. The game was going perfectly; I'd been able to ICS my cities to excellent spots and my neighbours, Theodora and Gandhi, were completely fine with my expanding into their faces. Meanwhile I had like 6 ivory, which I could sell off to cover my budget deficit from having so many cities. My culture output was pretty good, but it was a race with Arabia to get a Reformation belief; they had gone full Piety, whereas I started with Liberty and the policies that go to a free Settler.

Unfortunately Arabia got to Sacred Sites 4 turns before I could, so my plans were foiled. The turn after I lost Sacred Sites, I looked at Addis Ababa's build order, and saw that the WONDERS tab was minimised. I had straight up ignored the Oracle, which I build in pretty much every game I play regardless of strategy, and would have allowed me to get a culture victory at some obscene time with Sacred Sites.

Needless to say, I was a little miffed. -_-

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

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

Haha can I "like" this??

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Toss-up between 2, both dealing with the same mistake: in G&K (don't know about BNW), those little notices bubbles that pop up on the right side of the screen between turns. If you click on them, they center the screen on the event on question (such as a new great person) but don't actually select the unit. As such:
1.)I built my first caravel, and right-clicked on the dark section of the mini-map, about 10 turns later realized I was exploring the uncharted waters with an embarked great scientist.
2.)Great Merchant is born, I click on the bubble on the right side of the screen, right clicked on a CS's territory, yeah, trade mission. Except I didn't send the Great Merchant... sent the frickin' SSengine.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Toss-up between 2, both dealing with the same mistake: in G&K (don't know about BNW), those little notices bubbles that pop up on the right side of the screen between turns. If you click on them, they center the screen on the event on question (such as a new great person) but don't actually select the unit. As such:
1.)I built my first caravel, and right-clicked on the dark section of the mini-map, about 10 turns later realized I was exploring the uncharted waters with an embarked great scientist.
2.)Great Merchant is born, I click on the bubble on the right side of the screen, right clicked on a CS's territory, yeah, trade mission. Except I didn't send the Great Merchant... sent the frickin' SSengine.

I know 1) very well (how often...!!)

2) is exceptional!!!!! WINNER!!!!

 

[Viregel]

I think I have my new (personal) favourite mistake. In my game as Indonesia, I just finished a war with France when I decided that Portugal needed to get destroyed. Forgetting that Maria had declared war on Napoleon a few turns earlier, I attacked Braga with my frigates, getting it almost down to zero health, but I couldn't take it as my privateer hadn't reached it yet. Napoleon took it on the next turn, resulting in me having to declare war on Napoleon as soon as the peace treaty expired, in order to get Iron for my frigates. Worse still, getting to Lisbon would be harder with Napoleon in the way, so I had to attack him like mad until he surrendered.

 

[VengerBR]

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

LOL, I pulled that years ago in CIV IV, happens to the best of us.