How do I stop being a perfectionist?

[SuperCrumpets]

I have the opposite problem, I play as fast as possible and end up making easily avoidable dumb mistakes bc of it.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I have the opposite problem, I play as fast as possible and end up making easily avoidable dumb mistakes bc of it.

If I've played for a long time, I can slip into playing faster, but it sometimes screws me up unless I have the game in the bag.

 

[Henry.K]

Unfortunately I don't think it's possible, civ4's appeal IS the perfectionism. With so much freedom to micro and fine-tune everything in the game, it's what makes the game special and worth playing. The enjoyment of civ4 comes from chasing perfection. It's why I've always thought civ4 is a horrible game to play casually, you need to be in a really specific mood and mindset to play it.

That said, my most enjoyable games are where something unexpected happens that ruins my perfect game and I have to figure out some way to salvage it. I had a Raging Barbarians game where I lost my first 2 warriors to a 3% and 0.9% barb fight on the same turn That absolutely warranted a restart/reload but I played on anyway and it ended up being a crazy and really fun game!

I certainly have the same problem as the OP, and I very much agree with you.

Ever since I was a kid, I was quite detail oriented. Once I discovered Civilization and could manipulate small details and see the results, I was hooked! However, being a perfectionist AND a detail oriented person can be very difficult to manage. I find Civilization 4 has so much detail that it can become quickly overwhelming and tedious to chase micro-level perfection. This usually sets in for me in the later game when the sheer number of cities, workers, and military to manage becomes work and not play. To keep my sanity I try and aim for the earliest win as possible before the complexity snowballs in the later era. I think I enjoyed Civilization 5 a bit more because it had less detail and was easier to get 'perfect' according to my admittedly silly standards. Civilization 6 might be even better in that regard but my computer can't run it

Like jnebbe said, you have to be in a specific mood and mindset to play it. I agree that it is a very poor casual game. However, making subtle/micro changes and seeing the result on a macro level is fun, but in a more mature and serious way.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Like jnebbe said, you have to be in a specific mood and mindset to play it. I agree that it is a very poor casual game. However, making subtle/micro changes and seeing the result on a macro level is fun, but in a more mature and serious way.

Funny because I always play it casually. And I micro like hell too, mind you. I just really don't care if it all ends up wrong in the end just as long as it looks neat and just right in my head and is fun.

 

[sabo]

Every time I play, I always seek to achieve the perfect game with no mistakes. Fail to complete a wonder? I quit and start a new game. My army fails to beat the enemy and have to waste another 10 turns to raise a new army, failing behind in technology? Start a new game. Build the Pyramids and forgot to change the government civics? I start a new game, and so on...

This habit of mine makes me frustrated and unable to enjoy the game as it should be. What should I do?

I'm sort of like that too, but not to that extreme. I usually will go to load game and open my last autosave. I will however always start a new game if on those rare occurances some barbarian captures my capitol

 

[Henry.K]

Funny because I always play it casually. And I micro like hell too, mind you. I just really don't care if it all ends up wrong in the end just as long as it looks neat and just right in my head and is fun.

But your average casual gamer, would not call your Civ 4 micro game "casual". To them it would seem extremely complex, intriciate, and intensive given how many hundreds of hours of practice it took. Your definition of the word is not the one shared by most people. Some who love Crusader Kings 2 may play it "casually" by their definition of the word, but it would not seem that way to the majority of viewers. When I use the word casual, I refer to the definition used by an average person. To my mother, Civilization 4 looks like math homework, not a game by any means

 

[PPQ_Purple]

But your average casual gamer, would not call your Civ 4 micro game "casual". To them it would seem extremely complex, intriciate, and intensive given how many hundreds of hours of practice it took. Your definition of the word is not the one shared by most people. Some who love Crusader Kings 2 may play it "casually" by their definition of the word, but it would not seem that way to the majority of viewers. When I use the word casual, I refer to the definition used by an average person. To my mother, Civilization 4 looks like math homework, not a game by any means

You assume I am doing it well. Practice has nothing to do with wanting to make sure cities aren't founded on top of resources or overlapping because it's ugly or running under your limit because you find the green miasma to look ugly when you zoom in. Bottom line is that while I micro a lot it's far from practiced, optimized or even effective. And so practice is not required.