"First Timer" Mistakes

[Chieftess]

What were some of the mistakes you made, or misconceptions you had when you first played Civ3?

1. (first game I played) I had just built a 2nd city to the south of my capital, and had a warrior placed on a semi-chokehold. It had one tile on each diagonal, but coast on the east and west side. I met another civ to the north, and decided to declare war (thinking of the Civ2 style of attack). My attackers lose, and I fortify that warrior at the chokehold, thinking I can block the approaching warriors. WRONG! To my utter surprise, they slip past, and head right towards my new, and undefended city.

2. I had a pollution problem in my city, and headed straight for Mass Production, thinking that it would give me Mass Transport.

 

[Dark Sheer]

As a result of playing Civ2, it takes me a long time to start stacking my units for an attack.

 

[basher]

At the beginning I had trouble remembering that the Pyramids won't give all forms of government anymore, only Granaries to every city on the same continent...

 

[D9phoenix]

I tried using a battleship to attack a land unit by moving the battleship onto the coast line.. i was kinda peived when it didn't work and i had to use that stupid bombarb button that took my attack away even though i had 2 moves left...

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

The first game, hmmm.

Wondering why Leo's didn't upgrade all my troops after I built it.

Wondering why there was a banana shortage.

Thinking catapults were useless because every time I tried to attack by moving them into the enemies' space, I got a message saying it couldn't be done.

 

[sabo]

HA that is nothing, here's what I did...

I was really new at the game I think it was only my first or second game. I was negotiating with a civ and I wanted gold per turn, (I love the "we want", "we give" boxes, very descripted for a newbie like me huh? anyway I kept bumping up the GPT and my advisor kept telling me "this should be acceptable" Finally I got it up to about 150 GPT and didn't want to push it any further so I asked him if he's accept and he said "yeah" as it turns out the "WE" in the "we give" box was for ME not HIM!! my next turn I noticed how much friggin' money I was losing per turn.. HAHAHA
I was so new I didn't even know about the autosave, so I restarted back to my previous saved game... can anyone beat that???

 

[Zachriel]

For a long time, I didn't even consider mining grasslands.

 

[Pachy]

mining grassland!! i havent even done that yet!!

 

[Catt]

I relocated my palace about 5 times, always within my core cities -- I just saw it as an avilable city improvement that generated culture, and kept building it in "complete" cities. Took those 5 or so times to realize that the palace could only ever exist in one city, and that that city was always the capital.

 

[philippe]

in my first game i started with zulu and i always wondered why the impi couldnt win in attacks....

 

[Tweedledum]

Originally posted by philippe
in my first game i started with zulu and i always wondered why the impi couldnt win in attacks....

They can when the AI attacks me... I had one of my (undamaged) tanks destroyed by one today...

 

[IDSmoker]

In my first game, I got most of the way through the middle ages before I figured out that a city has to be placed directly beside water before it can build boats! <grin>

 

[sabo]

HEre's one I did just recently, I built a boat in a city on a lake!!!

hey it was a big lake ok?? I was just to lazy to double check whether or not it had sea access...

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by sabo10
HEre's one I did just recently, I built a boat in a city on a lake!!!

hey it was a big lake ok?? I was just to lazy to double check whether or not it had sea access...

Ahh, that reminds me of the good old days of Civ2, with AI's fondness for building pond battleships.

 

[The Last Conformist]

In my first game, I didn't bother to check what the Forbidden Palace did, so I simply built it in the city with the highest production, which, naturally, was my capital ...

I eventually rectified the situation by relocating the proper Palace, but the incident should teach me something anyways.

I'm also another Civ II veteran who had real trouble getting the knack of mining grassland, and had a paranoid fear of stacking units outside cities/fortresses for quite some games.

 

[Japher]

My first game I moved 6 squares from my starting spot... Even though there were four wheats I just didn't want to be located next to those filthy, disease ridden flood plains. To make matters worse I built the rest of my towns avoiding those squares...

 

[sabo]

I like to put a ship by one of his island and watch his tanks go round and round in circles during his turn just to end up right where he started again... hahaha

Why does he do that anyway??

 

[Jason Fox]

Originally posted by sabo10
HEre's one I did just recently, I built a boat in a city on a lake!!!

hey it was a big lake ok?? I was just to lazy to double check whether or not it had sea access...

I once built my first city on what could only be called a puddle thinking it was the ocean.

But I've built ships in lakes intentionally (I'm talking about big lakes) because it's much easier to send units across than around and if you build a couple you can keep everyone else off. When at war across the pond, literally, it's nice to just shuttle people across while they trek around.

 

[Carver]

Ditto, Jason Fox. Lakes are also good for subs with nukes on board to hit deeper in enemy territory.

 

[El Rey]

civ2 induced mistakes:
i put none of my workers into automate
i didnt realize that settlers take away two from your population