Most memorable defeats.

[50_dollar_bag]

I always play to win, that's the aim of CIV right? Normally I give up long before the actual defeat date, e.g. being sneak attacked by Monty (not that it's unpredictable) and having to defeat a stack of 40+ Knights with 6 longbows 2 spearmen and a warrior, that kind of thing.

But every now and again you have to fight tooth and nail for a domination victory or come from behind for a spacerace but still get beaten, but have a lot of fun in the process.

My last game was like that. I randomly got Suryavaman(sp?) never played him before so it was a nice surpise, decided to give my second try at emporer BtS a shot, was a fractal map standard size and opponents.

Drew an isolated start on a reasonably sized island with pretty good resources, I got all the strategic resources luckily. Expanded steadily whilst trying for a couple of wonders managed to get the Hanging gardens but got beaten to the Pyramids so settled into a cottage economy.

Set a beeline to optics, lightbulbing Philosophy along the way for a religion. Caravels meet Mansa :rolleye: who shared an island with Suleiman, Louis was being a wonderhog on his own isolated island. Brennus, Justinian and Pacal shared another landmass.

Got quite a few good trades from everybody mainly Mansa and Pacal, Suleiman was pretty good for a while too mainly because even though he had a shared religion with Mansa he was still willing to declare war on him . That pretty much was my main aim from then on, keep Mansa in a war and go to space. It was a bit easier than I thought because Louis decided to jump in on his own a couple of times and give Mansa a hard time. Brennus worried me for a while as he was unhappy about my heathen religion and trading with his worst enemy but Justinian and Pacal were his whipping boys thankfully eventually capitulating both while Suleiman took Mansa.

Now there was a key moment in the game which I overlooked initially, you know when the horns of war sound on the interturn and you get about 10 notifications of war declarations, a hell of a fright, and burst eardrums. More about this later.

Anyway I keep teching along nabbing all the lategame wonders, optimising my path to a spaceship and generating a varied supply of great people for late golden ages. I've just discovered composites queue up the SS casings and only need Ecology and Genetics for the last 2 parts. So I bang out 2 successive GA's for the win.

But that's not to be.

The next turn I get the notification that Gergovia has gone Legendary I know it not from excessive wonders as Louis's been building them all, a quick showing of the victory screen show that Tolosa the lowest of the 3 was at 44000 culture and he was pulling about 500 CPT. Bummer. I launched the turn before he won .

Anyhow the major world war that broke out earlier I'm pretty certain was Suleiman's last ditched attempt to do some damage to Brennus's Big Three. I tried my own I cranked a few transports of Modern armors to try and take him out but they would never have survived the interturn as none of his Big Three were coastal.

The moral of the story is: keep checking the victory screen.

So does anybody else have any memorable defeats?

 

[Gaius Octavius]

My very first game of Civ 4: I lost to Victoria and a space race win BY ONE SINGLE TURN!!!

 

[bonafide11]

I've never lost other than when I've retired or quit

Edit:
Perhaps I should add that since BTS, I've had a couple close finishes though. One game when I was going for domination, Gilgamesh launched his Spaceship while I was still at peace with him. I had to declare war on him right away and send a massive stack to his capitol. Once I took his capitol, his spaceship failed and he had to start building it all over again. Eventually he capitulated to me and I think that gave me the Domination victory.

 

[Garand]

Had a game in Civ IV as the Greeks. Shared a medium-sized continent with the Incans, and had only about 14 cities or so (low for Civ III). I had two cities in the far north on a distant continent completely ruled by the Celts where I had settled for oil access. Late game rolls around and I'm neck and neck with the Hittites in the space race, except they start pulling ahead in research.

After some thought, I decided to wage war against Mursillus and the Hitties, my primary goal was to weaken them through strategic bombing of resources and cities, while taking an isolated island city that had the SETI wonder. I had a massive navy (50+ ships), a similarly large airforce at the time, so I build up an invasion force of 3 full transports for just the one city and let my navy and airforce do the rest. My hope was that it would be enough to set him back so I could retake the lead and launch my ship first.

I declare war and in catch him unprepared. His city falls and I am devastating his mainland cities and terrain improvements. Then everything falls apart. Mursillus had a huge treasury of over 50k gold. He bought off the Egyptians to help him out, who were fairly strong. They were far away though so I figured I could sue for peace before anything breaks out. Next turn, two more Civs join the fight including the Celts.

So now I'm at war with four Civs, but the worst by far are the Celts. They are behind technologically but have massive numerical superiority... they completely control two full, large continents, and my only oil access is on those continents. Yep, they throw wave after wave of old cavalry units against my infantry and mech infantry that I am airlifting in every turn to hold the cities. To no avail though, the cities fall on the same turn and now I am without oil, which means no new modern ships, no airplanes, no tanks... can we say game over?

And the biggest kick in the nads? I was the only one with a nuclear arsenal. When things started to get bad, I diverged from spaceship techs to ensure I could build tac nukes. No one else had made nuclear weapons yet. I built four nuclear submarines and put them off the coast of every major enemy with tac nukes aboard. I kept them there as an insurance policy... since Civ III was notoriously bad for computer cheating, the very turn the other civs declared war, they sent out destroyers, magically found my subs hiding far off the coast, and sank them. No more arsenal.

Worst. Ending. Ever.

 

[Stylesrj]

My most fun defeat ever is actually a win.

I left Domination Victory on by mistake and as I was trying to win a Space Race Victory, I realised my mistake when a turn later, I had dominated a large portion of the globe! It was my first BTS game too! Arggghhh!

Although I did have fun building my empire. Just that the ending sucked because I dominated, not launched, which I wanted to (with a full ship)

I have no memorable defeats because I won all my games or I gave up early or that one time where I cheated to have the Earth crack like an egg in Next War

 

[aronnax]

It was the most fun defeat I ever had.

I had began to invade Ottoman lands using three 20 unit stacks, they launch at Samnsun, Edirne and Ankara. Now I had captured Ednire and Samsun easily, But I was having trouble with Ankara. It was well defended unlike the other two. I decided to give up the siege on Ankara and move to Konya after half my army perished. The Samsun and Edirne Army then began to move to Istanbul, leaving only one or two defenders in the captured cities. It was quite far away.

It was a mistake...

Suddenly, Ottoman Units from Ankara attacked the army heading to Konya. Then a stack from Konya finished it off. A calvary I overlooked recaptued Samsun and Ednire. I rushed half my stack back to recapture it. Oh then the horror began. The night of the Cannons and Catapults began. It seemed Suleimen was a little bit crazy and built a whole stack of artillary. Anyway, the cats and Cannons hurt, and his main army started attacking. My army was destroyed and he began to proceed to my lands. 20 turns later 4 cities fell and my capital was undersieged. Then the worst thing happened.......

Louis won a cultural victory.....

 

[ButSam]

My most fun defeat ever was also a cultural victory. There are so many more dimensions to defeat in BtS!

It made me have to stop and think of methods to counter cultural victories.

I have not yet lost Diplomatic, nor AP. I won AP once, but it took a lot of work. Come to think of it, the only ways I have lost so far are Space Race or my civ being taken over (or mostly taken over, when I usually restart). I did lose once to raging barbs in a WotM with the Lakes map, that was my most depressing defeat! It was also my first game on Prince, so that may explain it

Sam

 

[toft]

I once thought that I could attack China (power-leader) because China was at war with 2 other of its neighbouring countries... I thought wrong. I took 2 of their cities, and it seemed pretty easy at first. But suddenly 1 SoD appeared and I got a little worried - I managed to kill that stack, but suffered heavy losses. And guess what, then another SoD appeared. I was pretty much toast. They took their cities back, razed some of mine and took a little too... I finally managed to get a peace treaty. Eventually I lost... Mao is evil!

I think BTS is way more fun than any other version of civ, because I can loose half my cities but still be somewhat competitive.

 

[eewallace]

My most surprising loss was my first game after getting BTS--I, too, was surprised by an AI cultural victory. I'm pretty sure the AI never even tried for cultural victory before BTS, so I hadn't been keeping track of it at all!

My most humiliating loss, on the other hand, was trying an ill-conceived axe-rush against a bunch of skirmishers...

 

[Premier Valle]

Well, I remember when I was in the space race against Hatti and Caesar, it was still Warlords, I managed to keep Caesar at bay with spies and thankfully some other civ started a war against the romans, and about Hatti, I barely managed to sabotage her production (like three times, on her last spaceship part), I was like two turns before launch when out of nowhere Caesar managed to launch his own spaceship.

Or that other time when I was playing Izzie, and managed to get myself at war against the whole other continent, they were sure to beat me, so I decided for the Manhattan Project, built a few nukes, and nuke'em back to the stone age , however the price to pay was a world depression, bad civ relations, and Global warming like I've never seen before, I never ended that game.

 

[Stylesrj]

If Caesar launches his own ship, you go out and build an even faster one! You don't give up at the launch! That's the whole point of the space race! You build a faster ship and win!
Or did Caesar have everything on his ship?
Move in, take his capital.
Victory!

 

[Cornhog]

I mis-posted my most memorable defeat in the Strategy section a week ago or so. I lost with a score of zero (yep, zero) when I had a random event of a massive barbarian uprising outside my city. It was the year 3000 BC. I only had a worker. Needless to say, the barbarians killed the men, raped the women and deposed the despot (i.e. me). I got a score of ZERO.

I was gonna post a mock strategy thread with screenshots and saved games, all for a game ended that quickly. Unfortunately there weren't any autosaves.

 

[Premier Valle]

If Caesar launches his own ship, you go out and build an even faster one! You don't give up at the launch! That's the whole point of the space race! You build a faster ship and win!
Or did Caesar have everything on his ship?
Move in, take his capital.
Victory!

I know, but it was "warlords", not too much I could do.

 

[GeneralMatt]

Haha, good thread. This is actually my last game I played, have been busy.

I didn't actually lose, but that is because I did not want to wait 26 turns.

Ok, set it up, I am Elizabeth, Big and Small map type, island mixed in. Turned on permanent alliances, thought it might be good, but it was my undoing.

I start in a good position, with the Ottomans to my south, Ragnar north, China NW and a bunch of others on different continents/islands.

I fight a couple wars with Ragnar and the Chinese on and off, and blocked of the Ottomans to my south in there little area though we were great friends, got to friendly near the end I think.

Eventually Ragnar declares war on me again, and I take him out pretty much, driving him off the mainland onto his Island paradises. I am now the top score wise, and I vassalize him. I am quite ahead in Tech to, I was taking out his longbows and muskets with rifles, airships and later infantry.

Just at the end I get tanks (Beeline as I knew I was ahead).

Then, to my chagrin, the Togukawa and China made a permanent alliance, and now since Japan had more techs he actually had more points by himself than I did. Time for a desperate gamble, there was maybe 100 turns left and I do not mind score victories. No one, not even the Ottomans who were friendly with myself even wanted to create a defensive pack with me, so a Permanent alliance was out of my reach.

I declare war on the alliance, deciding that if I take out China totally, I will have more points that Japan, and win. It was easier than I thought, my tanks and later Modern armour slowly moving up the Chinese archipelago (It was long and thin). I then go island hopping to finish him off by turn 50. I also was making colonies all over, by the time China was done I had Washington, Churchill, Frederick, De Gaulle, and one other I cannot remember as colonies, and Ragnar to.

So with my superior fleet I take out a couple cities of Japan, and would invade them but they have a gigantic SoD in the nearest city. They may be tanks, but there was enough..

So I make peace, get that city for the peace, and am sitting comfortably on top score wise with 26 turns left. After having my gamble as it was at the time, pay off, I was ready to celebrate. But then, you guessed it, Hannibal and someone else I cannot recall became permanent allies. I considered it, and as they were too far away to reach and destroy in 26 turns, I resigned..

So as you see it wasn't really a loss (Though I did lose when I resigned) but it was extremely disheartening.

 

[niels251]

Once i was playing as Justinian. To the North of me was Ragnar and Zara Jacob. To the west was Shaka and southwest Jao. I build an nice coutry and seen that shaka was an rampage on this continent vasselize a lot of civs and became really really powerfull but he had the same relgion so he left me alone. Ragnar and Zara Jacob had the same relgion also. Jao attacked me but i repelled. Joa losing a lot of units. And i had a some wars with ragnar. Than i got my special unit that cavalry unit forgot the name. I completely had it with Ragnar so i almost conquered him but than he asked shaka to help him. The fist few stacks i managed to repell. BUt than he keeps comming so i had to bring my invasian force back from the war with ragnar. My forces where to late and he captured my capitol. Then he gave my capitol to Zara Jacob so i could not get it back with my forces unless i declare upona Zara Jacob but than i would be very toast. So after that sneaky move from Shaka i quited.

 

[Stylesrj]

My first Chieftan game where I decided to stop regenerating the map. Things were going well, but I had no Iron or Copper. Bismarck declares war on me. Fine, I rush some Chariots and killed an Archer. Monty then joined into the war, against Bismarck (so I had Monty on my side, he has Jaguars! YAY!)

Ok, two turns later, Saladin attacks me and he's like another civ's border away,but he brought Axemen and Spearmen. ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Without Iron I was going down, so I quit, but still I think it was a defeat. I couldn't survive without Iron! (or copper!)

EDIT: On the bright side, I DID build the Statue of Zeus. Eat War Weariness!! But I quit anyway, so ir does not matter

 

[Bobbalouie]

On one my first BtS games, played after a long Civ IV absence, I was actually the last person steamolled in a conquest victory. Domination victory was turned off.

I started as Boudica i think, on a little penisula on a large pangaea map. Was going to try for an early war, successfully took too many cities and crippled my economy. Spent the rest of the game trying to get back in, and preparing to take out a neighbour who had 2 vassals and was seriously ahead with tech.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Justinian, who is the sole christian on a continent of hindus, is constantly at war with everyone. I was really not even caring what was happening in that part of the world, expecting that he'd be wiped out cause he was fighting everyone. Then people started becoming his vassals. He kept going, the juggernaut was on. Basically, all that was left was me and the nation i was originally going to try to break through. They vassaled too.

When the Cataphracts arrived I was conquered in about 6 turns.

 

[guyb]

In my last BTS game I was on an island with Gilgamesh. I realised quickly that it wasn't going to be big enough for the both of us and tried an axe rush - he had copper too and Vultures so that was out. He also had Iron and Horses which I didnt.

The rest of the game was like the Defence scenario, The most military units I've ever had in any civ game, stacked in my capital (London) mainly archers with catapults and swordsman (I discovered some Iron eventually) to mop up the survivors. Occasional peace broke out but never long enough.

Napoleon turned up with Currasairs and macemen while I still had archers. He took one of my 4 cities which I took back the next turn after he left one maceman in charge but it took a toll.

The next turn, a SOD turns up in Gilgamesh's colours including trebuchets and at least six macemen - It was over but I had such fun playing as the underdog.

 

[Minmaster]

i've been beaten few times by weak civs who decided to stop research and pump everything into culture slider. somehow, the AI knows i am about to win space victory, because there were times that their last city reached legendary a turn before my spaceship was about to land. one time, i was even beaten by a civ that was a vassal of my rival. he only had few cities, but again he put everything into culture and won, beating civs that were 2x, 3x his score. BtS definitely made the AIs think about winning culturally more, and doing so factoring in human players' closeness to victory.

the lesson i learned mostly from those losses were to just conquer them when i had the chance.

 

[Inky]

I thought I was doing well in this game. I'd finally cleared all the barbarians out of my end of the continent and filled the area with nice cites. My neighbor, Roosevelt, was pleased with me and shared my religion, so even with the close borders penalty he seemed pretty safe. I'd finished the Apostolistic Palace, and was trying to spread my AP religion to everyone. I had two civs to go on that project. Even if I couldn't just win via that, at least I'd have the diplomatic clout to protect me from aggression.

Wrong ;-)

Peter declares on me, and gets Tokugawa to join in. Peter is on the other end of the continent, and I figure that his couple of little stacks are no threat. Tokugawa was the other side of Roosevelt, and was a bigger threat but my macemen would stop his swords, right? Apparently, though, Peter made a big SOD commitment, and had enough troops to take out my cities one by one.

All I need is an ally, or for the nice AP to come along and say "stop picking on me". Well, I get the nice vote, and it doesn't work. Peter defies it. I had the votes too, would have kicked him back and recovered my two captured cities as well, barring defiance. Then, apparently he talked Roosevelt, my buddy, into declaring on me.

Now, my diplomatic situation isn't ideal, so I figure I'll change to the religion of my next best ally, Willem. Unfortunately, I have no cities left with the religion!

I had a caravel and missionary on the way to convert the last civ, but Roosevelts triremes caught it. I was on the shortest course, which naturally passed through his coast.

I didn't have time to try to pull of an AP "cheese" victory, because my cities were being overrun by a dogpile (a couple more "friends" joined in the war). Even if I could have done it, I no longer would have had the votes (and friends) to ensure victory.

I'd counted on my solid AP control and friendly AI's for security, and both failed me.


A barbarian uprising ate one of my OK starts. I wasn't too sad when I heard that the English were destroyed. But when the pile of barbarian axes and archers came after me, who didn't yet have copper hooked up, I got sad fast. My warriors simply couldn't stop them, not even whipping one a turn.


I haven't hit it yet in BTS, but in Warlords/Better AI (a close predecessor), my vassal Ghandi won a cultural victory. As my vassal, I couldn't attack, and though I used spies to mess up his culture cities, and even started a war hoping that some AI would do something about this, he still won.


Then there is my current game. I haven't finished, so I might be able to pull a win out, but it doesn't look good.

We're into the space race, but I've been coping with problems and am not truly a competitor in that. OTOH, I own the bottom of the tech tree - computers, robotics, genetics - and figured that my Internet and Mech Inf would take care of a lot of problems. I'm playing Joao, and while my homeland is secured by a single-square isthmus from land attack, it isn't all that big or productive. My highest production city has the Moai statues to make it that way. I've been pounding down Louis's French to the south, and I've taken all their off-mainland cities and taken - but not held and I didn't want to raze - several others, including Paris. But his numbers and overall size gives him an edge. Still, no oil or uranium for him, so I was just about to smash him to death with my new Mech Inf (and soon after, Modern Armor).

Zara Yakob has been tech leader all game. He's got about 1000 points on me, and I have about the same against the next (Louis), with Hannibal a little behind. Zara holds the Romans, Celts, and Carthigians as vassals. I have Washington, which is nice but I believe is that actual root cause of my disaster. His territory is interleaved with Zara's. This is enough to get Zara to declare war, attacking him. My territory is hit half-heartedly. One island city is bombarded by destroyers. He has nothing at all within sight of my main territory, or even my other islands. His vassal's ships plunder a couple fish, but otherwise, I'm untouched and unthreatened.

But I know where the powergraph lies here. I've got a tech advantage, if I have time to use it. The Internet will give me a big tech boost, and soon I'll be in parity in the space race. But not if my cities get taken out. My production and territory simply can't match my enemies. I'd love to finish off the French while I have the chance, but I obviously can't afford it. The other two independents, Victoria and Sitting Bull, wouldn't be much more than snacks if Zara's block got serious, though having another target would protect me some.

If Zara was run by a human, I wouldn't have a chance. I know, due to spies and general recon, what his force numbers are like. A lot of tanks and infantry, plenty of destroyers, a lot of air units. Mech Inf gives a nice edge, but not enough to make up a huge disparity in numbers. I'd been killing the French 5:1, and they didn't have tanks of their own, or aircraft other than airships. It wasn't enough to take them down.

My secure "fortress" city won't block a good naval invasion. A human would do that, and my edge in tech wouldn't stop me from losing cities to raiding transports with marines and tanks.

Fortunately, no nukes so far, but the possibility is there. I figure Zara is against them, and would block them with the UN (his block dominates, but isn't quite enough to control the vote. Oh well, Washington would vote to defy, I'm sure )

Even if I don't get killed out, Zara's space race lead is likely to pull ahead in the war. He can afford to keep cities producing ship parts. I have only a half-dozen high production cities, and I'll need them all to make war.