Strokes of bad luck.....

[Killroyan]

Everybody has had them. This is your place to vent them. I have 2 stories.

First story is where I wanted to play the americans where I had the choice between washington and Roosevelt. I thought expansive and charismatic is nice, lets try that. And what do you know, I end up isolated . I wish I had picked Roosevelt there and then. Still won the game with a space victory but industrious/organized is 10 times better when isolated if you ask me.

Second story is a game I played yesterday on great plains (yes it is almost cheating). I was doing very nice but although I was connected to 4 civs already no religion ever spread to me. Since I was having some happiness problems in my big cities (size 17 capital) I though lets research philosophy and get taoism. Succeeded in that and spread my religion. After 5 turns buddishm all of a sudden spread to 3 of my cities in the same turn Now since I was taoist the buddhist block was not amused with me. First Alex declared war on me. And after that Louis and Saladin backed him up even though I was leading in every way. My land got pillaged and 2 cities conquered. Damn diplomacy and religions.

Share your pain stories over here.

 

[stuge]

My first report in Imperial Trash A+ speaks for itself. (Post #16.)

 

[Leventis]

Well, in BtS, the random event about Attila the Hun killed me off at 2000BC. I had just put my 2nd city up, and was starting on some axes when all of a sudden 4 barb horse archers appeared and marched to my capital!

 

[Killroyan]

Hehe, Stuge, I read your report already. That really sucked. Such a random event should never occur that soon.

 

[46852]

Well, in BtS, the random event about Attila the Hun killed me off at 2000BC. I had just put my 2nd city up, and was starting on some axes when all of a sudden 4 barb horse archers appeared and marched to my capital!

Oh, it's an event... I never quite figured out where did those 6 bard HA's appear and roll over my city, better keep an eye on the log in my future games

 

[Refar]

Well, in BtS, the random event about Attila the Hun killed me off at 2000BC. I had just put my 2nd city up, and was starting on some axes when all of a sudden 4 barb horse archers appeared and marched to my capital!

I actually had some luck with the Atilla event once. He and another guy (forgot the name - same but with Axes) came up about the same time. They stacked up with some 'regular' barbarians from the Fog of War to a total of about 15 Units.

Two or 3 Turns later i completed the great wall (It was a "Raging Barbarians" game, so i started the Wall quite early, before they came up).

The Barbarian SoD bounced of my borders, turned and Killed Bismark who was my neigbour. I found it quite funny.

Not exactly bad Luck - at least not for me.

 

[Killroyan]

Hey any bad luck for any leader is allowed as far I am concerned. Nice story

 

[AlessioCerci]

Random barb spawning event 3200BC, followed by a slave revolt next turn. :suicide:

Game restarted.

 

[vicawoo]

My first report in Imperial Trash A+ speaks for itself. (Post #16.)

It's pretty bad, although I think going for pottery so early killed you. If you don't have horses nearby, you're asking for trouble.

 

[xanadux]

I think you are underestimating the power of the Charismatic trait. Even on an isolated start, it means +2 happy per city until astronomy. That is a huge advantage.

And in the second game you cited, I think you overestimate the benefit of religion for raising the happy cap. Since another early religion was quite prevalent, fouding your own and adopting it was asking for trouble. When you found a late religion and adopt it, you can be sure to have diplomatic penalties with everyone. If you are not prepared for that militarily, it's a bad idea.

 

[Gooblah]

Worst one ever was an Isolated start as Qin, miles away from everyone else. To make matters worse, there was room for like, 5 cities. Woohoo. They had Optics before I had CoL since my economy sucked!
Then , when I actually got a trade footing, a world war erupted on the other continent where the Buddhist bloc and the COnfucians began a hissy-fit. A City got captured and razed, and soon the war was being fought on tiny little island nations (like my cities) after Confucianism spread to my cities. A demand that I convert to Confucianism from an AI went unheeded, and then that AI declared on me. I had a DP signed with a Buddhist bloc member who was relatively untouched (slightly isolated, seperated by 1 ocean tile). He declared and soon I was bombed outta existence. It REALLY sucked.

 

[r_rolo1]

First story is where I wanted to play the americans where I had the choice between washington and Roosevelt. I thought expansive and charismatic is nice, lets try that. And what do you know, I end up isolated . I wish I had picked Roosevelt there and then. Still won the game with a space victory but industrious/organized is 10 times better when isolated if you ask me.

That reminds me one of my first vanilla games: i wanted to try the preat rush with JC..... some exploring and I discovered that I was alone in a icy small continent ( something like if you had pushed Australia to the place of New zealand ) Ok, change of plans: tech towards Optics.... Find GK that dows me and lands in my only iron mine.... Clean up, land troops in GK territory ( Lib Astro ) conquer one city and QSH ( that hates GK and is pleased with me ) dows me , wipes out my troops in his continent and lands a army in the iron mine ... Clean up, make peace with GK and raze QSH coastal cities ( wasn't strong enough to make a stand in the larger continent )... Izzy Dows me and lands troops in the same iron mine ( ). Clean up, conquer Izzy's capitol ( buddha shrine, how unusual.... ) make peace with her ( she made a good buffer state ( didn't had OB's with anyone and like that protected my shrine city from QSH ) ) and continued to war with QSH ( that wanted cities for peace... ). Somehow in the middle of this mess i managed to win by Space by a nail against mansa and a oversized Peter ( that eated a big piece of Izzy's territory with vanilla cossacks )...

Traumatizing? No .... The fact that I can still remember this after almost 2 years doesn't proof anything

 

[Diamondeye]

Starting on an archipelago with only 3 tiles with 2+ as Greece isn't funny. Say, I was teching somehing in the vicinity of writing when the first Ai comes around in caravels... EXIT TO MAIN MENU!

Also had a game where I had a very important battle with Asoka about a city. Two of my attackers died at 99,9%, so the city survived with a pike and a longbowman, each at 0,1 hp left. I saw 2 fully healed longbows outside the city and thought: ". .. .. .. .! I'm not going to take it if these guys get to go in!" Anyway, I couldn't do a thing, so I skipped turn - the two fully healed longbows ran into another city and I beat up the two wounded defenders... What a moron Ai...

 

[uncarved block]

I'm just curious why you consider Great Plains as almost a cheat. Sure, you can steamroll a bit, but diplomacy is a pain, and you usually have to defend in all four directions-- both Barbs and AI. Or maybe that's just playing with the Toroidal option. I can't even imagine the military the AI can create on a level like Emperor. But then I've always felt a little out of step in Civ4

 

[CivCorpse]

I played unrestricted leaders and had Monty as a neighbor. Or should I say Montezuma caeser of Rome? with iron in his BFC....do you really need the details?

 

[Diamondeye]

I played unrestricted leaders and had Monty as a neighbor. Or should I say Montezuma caeser of Rome? with iron in his BFC....do you really need the details?

how fast did you die? 1500 BC? 2000 BC?

Seriously, considering Strokes of good luck, I played an online game as Rome, popped BW in my first hut and IW in my next and had Iron in my BFC... quickly settled 2nd city while hooking Iron up, and now here comes the good part: First enemy I killed was Celts, next was Egypt (see a pattern concerning reallife?) Then one more, and then Byzantinium and Russia united in wiping me off the map with maces and lbows. Duh.

 

[stuge]

It's pretty bad, although I think going for pottery so early killed you. If you don't have horses nearby, you're asking for trouble.

Sure, kick a man when he's dead.

 

[gettingfat]

re. OP: Charismatic/expansive IMHO is not that bad for iso start. You've got extra happiness and healthiness to have some big cities. The barbarians alone will give you a 8 xp unit easily for heroic epic. In fact, one time I picked random leader and drew Julius. I remember I popped BW from the hut and quickly researched IW very very early. The iron showed within the fat cross of my second city. Everybody, feel the wraith of my praets! Great, right? Then my warrior came back and tell me I got iso

Besides some barbarian uprises, the worst case was when I planned to axe rush Mansa because he choked me (I had land for only 3, at most 4 cities if I want lots of tundra), I received two slave revolts, and a mine tragic incident event (on my copper) in a row. When I finally came up with a dozen of axes, marching towards Mansa's capital, I saw Mansa was given the "bow master" event. Suddenly all of his already tough skirmishers get an extra combat I. I tested on the rush...... 12 CR1 or combat I axes killed by 3 skirmishers, 2 skirmishers stayed alive. At least 4 of my axes died by FS so they didn't even cause a scratch. Game restart.

 

[alpaca]

Argh yeah this reminds me of the time when I wanted to steal Rifling from my neighbor with a 73% chance and it failed seven times! The probability for that is on a scale of 10^-4 (1/10000)

 

[tycoonist]

there are some pretty bad ones here, my worst was probably bringing ten city raider axes to take a 20% culture city defended by two archers. first four axes died without causing damage. then the next four died and the archers were still at low health. the final two attacks were with city raider 2 axes at odds of about 95% each. needless to say, they both died and when i returned i found two archers with 5 promotions each. bummer dude.