How can you tell when you've blown it?

[Solo4114]

How early do you guys throw in the towel on a game? Are there triggering events for you? Missed "firsts"? (IE: founding religions, crucial wonders) Will a lost city, resource, or unit/stack make you say "Ah, the hell with this one"? Will you start a new game when you realize you've got crappy positioning and/or access to resources? (Or will you just open the World Editor and "remedy" the problem?)

For me, it'll differ from game to game, but sometimes any of the above will just make me get fed up. I'll admit to sometimes "hacking" the game by dropping more resources, rather than give up altogether and start a new game (I've found the game is incredibly stingy at times with placement of stone/marble, uranium, etc., and while I don't mind fighting/trading/flipping to get access, sometimes it just gets annoying). But, even so, sometimes a single bad event will make me say "Nope. Not happening this game..." Mostly, I get sick of being the perpetual underdog in a game, or continually not being able to acheive major goals (IE: unsuccessful wars, fracked-up diplomatic relations with too many civs, several crucial wonders going to other civs).


So, how long do you guys soldier on? When do you think a game is either unwinnable, or no longer fun?

 

[Killroyan]

Moments I normally give up:
1. Barb warrior comes along, beats my warrior protecting my first settler and beats it. Major setback normally.
2. Settled my second city. Barb archers comes along and beats my fortified warrior, destroying my second city.
3. Meeting the neighbours around 1 AD only to find out everybody is way ahead in techs of me (8 techs with 4 big ones). I tried trading non desirable techs but was not able to catch up in the next 1000 years. Quit.
4. Getting backstabbed by Alex/Genghis/Montezuma and loosing 1 or 2 core cities.

I never use the world editor, only when I play an OCC to see if there are any good resources near my city.

 

[r_rolo1]

If you understand Latin, see my Civ lema in my sig.

If not, a loose translation:

Spoiler :

A victor can't call itself it if the defeated does not accept defeat

EDIT: Sometimes is useful to take the game to his bitter end. There are a lot of forms to win and to not loose a game. Even when your opponent is building the SS Engine there is hope, and if you don't try to stop him just because he's two spaceparts ahead of you, you'll never discover the unlimited power of the AI dumbness ( switch mines to windmills in a spacepart production city, for an example)

 

[toug]

The second I start building things in cities and can't explain my actions. It usually means I've been playing too long without taking a break.

This doesn't necesarily mean I've blown it, but it means it's not really a quality game.

 

[johncross21]

How do I know when I'm beat

Not having coal on your continent can be a disaster .

and let face it the situation is pretty irretrievable when you have all your troops tied up with Monty and war weary when ceasar suddenly appears on your border with a huge stack and evil intent. Then its just a matter of time.

In both those cases I admit defeat and resign but rather than start from scratch I might open a saved game and rethink strategy from a couple of hundred years back

however some times other nations get so far ahead on points or power that you would have go back a long time to fix the problem - in that case definately restart.

 

[Chemtech]

I used to give up WAY to quick - down a couple hundred score points around 1200AD or so - I've improved to winning many of these games.

The one that I usually hang up on is when I get an isolated start, feel I'm doing everything very well - fast expansion, good cottages, smart tech choices and even a few wonders, only to have the world show up on my doorstep, 50% ahead in score, 5-6 serious techs ahead and me with nothing to trade, theyre all the same religion and at least 2 of them are already "annoyed" even tho I've done nothing at all.

It's the realization that instead of helping my isolated start basically condemmed me to the basement. When I used to play noble, I loved and isolated start - even just one level higher on prince I find that being isolated is just pure torture.

 

[rabidveggie]

When I get really bored with a game and decide to start another one
When my second settler and warrior die on route to a town
When I pop a hut just outside my second cities border and four barbs warriors come out next to an undefended city. (Happened Once)
If I'm way behind in tech
If I suffer a major set back in my first war and realize that I can't win it anymore. i.e. My stack of 8 praets just died to a stack of three archers.

 

[Sir Jaref]

I usually quit if I lose one of my first cities to barbarians

I try to stick with my games even when I get crushed by AIs. It sucks, but I've managed to turn some games around. Like in my last game I was attemting a culture victory with an isolated start. I was very far behind in techs, and around 1800-AD Monty came to my doorstep with tons of riflemen. He took two of my cities, and I thought I was done, but I managed to hold him off and negotiate peace. No one declared war on me after that, and I managed to win the game, beating all those space race loosers ^^

 

[Solo4114]

Yeah, being isolated is rough. Everyone else is talking and having fun and playing kickball, but you're the poor lonely kid on the swingset with no one to push you.

I may tend to give up a little quickly, but for the time being, I'm trying to perfect my early game approach. I'm working on finding the balance between researching, building wonders, and building up an army tough enough to kick the snot out of some bordering civs and either free up land for settling or steal one or two cities. When things go poorly early on, I'll either chuck the whole game, or go back to a much earlier autosave and pick up from that point.

 

[strategygamer]

I really really really hate losing cities, and having it destroyed by the enemy. It's one thing to have a city captured - I can handle that - I'll just retake it later on. But when an enemy captures a city of mine, and then destroys it along with the time I put into building that city up; I just get really dejected. After a few of those happening, I usually save and quit. Maybe I'll continue later, maybe I won't...

 

[uncarved block]

When the game no longer looks "fun". An isolated start probably wouldn't bother me, if I still played Continent maps, because I'm still a builder at heart. I've quit a couple Oasis maps lately as the Japanese because, after founding IW, it turns out the closest Iron is 30, 40, even 50 squares away from my second city. The map can be fairly peaceful, but why play it when you'll never get a shot at your UU in a timely fashion?

I'll also quit after a gambit fails, but often those games were just started to see how the mechanics of a Quechua rush, say, works out. Other reasons might include bad terrain, and a tech monster like Mansa smack dab in Flood Plain heaven on the other side of the map. Playable? Maybe. Fun? Not really.

Basically, if the game makes it into the Industrial age, I'll finish it. The problem is getting to that stage in the game . . .

 

[gallego]

Moments I normally give up:
1. Barb warrior comes along, beats my warrior protecting my first settler and beats it. Major setback normally.
2. Settled my second city. Barb archers comes along and beats my fortified warrior, destroying my second city.

Personally that's why I don't found a second city without archers...it seems to me to be an exploit to use warriors and just hope that they will hold. I always played SMAC with "iron man" turned on (no saves except for when exiting the game), because I feel that if a human knows that he or she can just reload, it affects the gameplay.

For giving up, I try to keep going until it's obvious that I am going to lose. If I lose a city, I'll try to take it back, but if one of my main cities gets razed, that's usually it.

 

[Solo4114]

When the game no longer looks "fun". An isolated start probably wouldn't bother me, if I still played Continent maps, because I'm still a builder at heart. I've quit a couple Oasis maps lately as the Japanese because, after founding IW, it turns out the closest Iron is 30, 40, even 50 squares away from my second city. The map can be fairly peaceful, but why play it when you'll never get a shot at your UU in a timely fashion?

I'll also quit after a gambit fails, but often those games were just started to see how the mechanics of a Quechua rush, say, works out. Other reasons might include bad terrain, and a tech monster like Mansa smack dab in Flood Plain heaven on the other side of the map. Playable? Maybe. Fun? Not really.

Basically, if the game makes it into the Industrial age, I'll finish it. The problem is getting to that stage in the game . . .

That's more the way I do things. I don't always need to be the #1 civ. I like having a close rival or two even if they're ahead of me. But, for example, when that's the case and everyone else is annoyed at me because I'm not their faith, or whatever.

When the nearest [resource] is [long distance] away from me, I'll pop open the world builder and drop one a little closer (although usually a little outside my borders). I'll also usually seed the rest of the continent, including my rivals, with other useful stuff. A little stone in my backyard, some copper in Louis', aluminum in Alex's, Bismark gets a couple extra wine drops (I do like a nice Icewine, after all) and some ivory, and so on. So, usually, everyone benefits when I open the world builder, and benefits fairly evenly.

 

[Jorunkun]

I don't give up until it is undeniable that I have lost the game. An enemy taking half your empire would qualify - but a barb taking a settler or city? No way. Yes it hurts, yes it makes the game more challenging. But this is how you learn.

Some of the most interesting games I've had were ones where I lost. You learn a lot being forced to do things differently or recovering from plans gone bad. For example, I've had games where musketeers and ironclads saved my neck, repulsing an invasion by a technologically advanced foe. I eventually lost that game by spacerace, but it was hugely satisfying to know that they never managed to take my cities by force.

That said, I will quit out of games that get boring, but these may be games where I am on the road to victory.

 

[The Navy Seal]

When you have rifles and they have Modern armour.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Ha, you don't need to quit if you have rifles vs. modern armour, it'll be over in a few turns anyway! Genghis did that to me once and then had the cheek to vote himself a diplomatic win instead of eliminating me when I was down to 1 city left. The cities he took were just about to finish building a spaceship too. Man, that was 30+ hours of time I'll never get back.

 

[The Navy Seal]

Ha, you don't need to quit if you have rifles vs. modern armour, it'll be over in a few turns anyway! Genghis did that to me once and then had the cheek to vote himself a diplomatic win instead of eliminating me when I was down to 1 city left. The cities he took were just about to finish building a spaceship too. Man, that was 30+ hours of time I'll never get back.

I normally quit when that happens.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I wanted to see what happened so just went into press enter mode. Not just Genghis but his vassals Saladin and Huayna Capac too. The game before that Washington invaded just before I built my spaceship too, I was trying to get my first prince win at that time. Never trust Washington is my new motto.

EDIT: And all this has turned me from a peaceful builder into an aggressive warmonger now... and I can see the results immediately! As someone says in their sig, land and large cities = power.

EDIT2: Surely you should spell Bill Shakes' name correctly in your sig Navy Seal?! Don't drop the final "e"

 

[Maydrock]

How about this one, what a dumb*ss I am:

My game I am just playing, I mean quit now. It was 960 AD. At war with Monty to my south, racking up the GGP's. Napoleon to my north way ahead in tech and about 3 times stronger and I can tell the hammer is coming. My production city finished HE and at the same time finished researching machinery. So, I am getting my hopes up to mass produce some crossbowmen. I go to start production of my first crossbowman and the icon is greyed out. What? Why can't I produce crossbowmen? I don't have any freakin iron! There's two sources of iron close by, first one buried behind Napolean's outer ring of cities, never get to that one. The other is to my SW, but it's in the middle of this huge dessert that not even the AI wanted to settle. Catherine will trade, but she wants stone, bannana, dye, rice and silk.

Screw it!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I heard Catherine likes a bit of banana though. I'm surprised she didn't demand horses as well but that might just be a myth.