Tell us how bad you were when you first started CIV.

[Flying Mathias]

In my first real game (not counting the one where I randomed America and got destroyed by barbs in about 20 turns) I randomly got Louis of France, and set to work expanding my empire. I settled a large area of land, and set my workers to build improvements everywhere, even in areas outside of the range of a city. I also built roads on almost every tile.

However, Egypt (Ruled by Hatty) unexpectedly declared war on me. I called in on my Russian allies for help, but they were too far away too do anything. Despite having a tech advantage against Hatty (I had longbowmen, she was still using elephants) the war went disastrously as she pillaged several of my tiles. Luckily, I managed to convince her to go for a white-peace.

After that, I decided that I really needed to build up my defenses. I rushed to rifling, and set to work on building the Great Wall of France. However, this Great Wall was not the wonder that you know and love, I simply sent my workers to build forts on every border tile I had, and set one rifleman to defend each fort.

Hatty later declared war on me, and managed to break through the Maginot Line by sheer numbers, utilising her hordes of elephants. I was forced to give up a city.

I don't remember how that game ended, but I believe that I rage-quit when Hatty beat me to the new world.

Your story?

 

[rfcfanatic]

I remember a little bit my first "real game" in September 2010: Earth map, Elizabeth of England, Settler difficulty.

I had absolutely no idea how a city worked its tiles so I believed that even a presence of farm "nearby" a city was enough for a city to benefit from it. When my conquests led me to Siberia, I built lumbermills several tiles away from surrounding cities.

Then I didn't even know that such thing as battle odds existed. I fought all battles blindly. An enemy city was defended by longbows - I thought that so what? - I had tanks and modern armor. As a result, several type of events happened. That was the first time I asked a fundamental question about civ4 combat system - how in the world can a longbow destroy a modern armor?

While doing many things without knowing how they worked, it's strange that I out-teched anyone in the world to the point where I had modern armor vs longbows.

The key of success was maybe because I was obsessed with hammers from the very beginning. I just loved to build things quickly. It led to neglect of cottages, but I captured these from the AI anyway. So I guess that's why I had modern armor vs longbows.

I conquered most of Eurasia in that game. Only India and China were left on the continent. Still, I didn't win Domination, but Space Race in 1999 AD.

There's one particular situation I remember. I sent a settler and a cannon to South America while being at war with Aztecs. Monty stole my settler, but my cannon survived. Monty had a small stack of catapults and jaguars. I couldn't figure out why the cannon didn't kill Monty's troops but only damaged them every time I attacked. That cannon and that Monty's stack stayed there basically till the end of the game.

 

[jarhead_leif]

W.Billy and I were best of friends. We always played the game together and defeated the enemies in 3 ways.

1: Once, Boudica declared war on me. When her massive gallic warrior SoD is only 1 tile away from my city. Out of nowhere, It just vanished.

2: Then, I D0Wed Mao but I figured out that he has CKNs and my maces will be toasted. The next turn, Beijing was captured by barbarians (equipped with modern armors).

3: Lastly, Ragnar launched a continental invasion against me. His ships were filled with fearsome Berserkers while my defending units that time were only axemen. And then, I... I.. .

No, really.

 

[Drakarska]

Game 1) was exploring w/my starting settler for a "primo" city spot to settle, and walked my settler right into an awaiting barb... oops.
Game 2) settled a city right off the bat, forgot to que a warrior, barb just walked in and took over the city..... Nutz.
game 3) New settler ( who is now understandably paranoid) settled good spot, qued a defense. City up and running just fine. Hmnn, look at all that coast with absolutely no navy to defend it...Crap, size 4 city makes a pretty bonfire.

Solution; visit civfanatics S&T thread and then bang my head on the table at my stupidity = settlers now happy and trusting in their overlord again... Hopefully.

 

[calibur]

my first game wasn't that bad. I already had a vague grasp from playing revolution on ipod.
I played as Saladin, founded 4 religions, colonized the new world extensively, and won on a time victory. on chieftain. I was, however, highest in score by far the whole way through.

 

[Quintillus]

I don't remember my first Civ4 game. I remember that I started out with Noble difficulty, and did respectably. But that was because I had Civ3 experience. I didn't finish that many games then, because I always wanted to play Huge maps and my computer was not powerful enough for that in Civ4. That's part of the reason I went back to Civ3.

I should also note that that was in late 2005 with Civ4 Vanilla 1.00. The AI was not as good back then as it is now.

My first Civ3 game was the real first Civ game experience. Expanded way too slowly, way out-teched on Chieftain, and was only saved from annihilation by being isolated on Australia. Good times.

Game 1) was exploring w/my starting settler for a "primo" city spot to settle, and walked my settler right into an awaiting barb... oops.
Game 2) settled a city right off the bat, forgot to que a warrior, barb just walked in and took over the city..... Nutz.
game 3) New settler ( who is now understandably paranoid) settled good spot, qued a defense. City up and running just fine. Hmnn, look at all that coast with absolutely no navy to defend it...Crap, size 4 city makes a pretty bonfire.

Solution; visit civfanatics S&T thread and then bang my head on the table at my stupidity = settlers now happy and trusting in their overlord again... Hopefully.

Gotta love those barbarians.

 

[Drakarska]

I don't remember my first Civ4 game. I remember that I started out with Noble difficulty, and did respectably. But that was because I had Civ3 experience. I didn't finish that many games then, because I always wanted to play Huge maps and my computer was not powerful enough for that in Civ4. That's part of the reason I went back to Civ3.

I should also note that that was in late 2005 with Civ4 Vanilla 1.00. The AI was not as good back then as it is now.

My first Civ3 game was the real first Civ game experience. Expanded way too slowly, way out-teched on Chieftain, and was only saved from annihilation by being isolated on Australia. Good times.



Gotta love those barbarians.

Yep. I have a healthy respect for barbs, especially when I chk raging barbs option. The 3 main mods I play ( RI, ROM AND, HRW) have nasty barbs who are evil, mean rotton, and have a habit of taking my toys and kicking dirt in my face.

 

[Quintillus]

Yep. I have a healthy respect for barbs, especially when I chk raging barbs option. The 3 main mods I play ( RI, ROM AND, HRW) have nasty barbs who are evil, mean rotton, and have a habit of taking my toys and kicking dirt in my face.

What do those mod abbreviations stand for? I'm familiar with several of the Civ3 mods (TCW, R&R, DYP, etc.), but only know a couple of Civ4 mods (namely C2C and EE2).

 

[traius]

RI is realism invictus, ROM is Rise of Mankind, not sure on the others.

 

[Drakarska]

ROM AND = Rise of Mankind; A New Dawn, and HRW = History Rewritten. Out of all three of those mods, I would have to say RI Barbs are probaly the most evilist SOB's I've ever encountered in a mod.

 

[lymond]

I played Civ off and on for about a year before ever finding CFC. I was terrible. I played lower levels and pretty much did everything Sid's tips told me to do, including changing civics...ha

I actually played more of the scenarios for some time - Warlords and BTS. Basically had no clue why anyone would play random games when you have these scenarios.

When I found CFC, after dropping the game for a bit, I did not find S&T right away. Instead, I found Fall From Heaven and played that avidly for several months to complete all the scenarios. Basically playing sucky and reloading constantly.

Found S&T and everything changed.

 

[CivNoobie]

ah! i remember my first game i completed on civ4.

it was the Charlemagne Scenario and I picked Alboin, I remember naming my cities 'jersey shore' and 'snooki-ville', spammed wonders and getting those holy pikemen from the holy pope. then the bavarian leader and the saxon leaders repeatedly declared war on me with their knights and i was OVERWHELMED by them and lost 2 of my cities as I had no clue what it meant when they wanted me to switch to Hereditary Rule and how diplo worked back then. I remember it was on chieftain (2nd lowest) difficulty.

 

[lymond]

ah! i remember my first game i completed on civ4.

it was the Charlemagne Scenario and I picked Alboin, I remember naming my cities 'jersey shore' and 'snooki-ville', spammed wonders and getting those holy pikemen from the holy pope. then the bavarian leader and the saxon leaders repeatedly declared war on me with their knights and i was OVERWHELMED by them and lost 2 of my cities as I had no clue what it meant when they wanted me to switch to Hereditary Rule and how diplo worked back then. I remember it was on chieftain (2nd lowest) difficulty.

Ha...I played that scenario a lot when I was noobtastic. It brings up another point to display how bad I was at Civ. So back then I really knew nothing at all about combat odds and unit counters. Pope kept spamming those Papal Pikemen at me constantly. I thought...wow..these units most be blessed and super-strong. So I went around trying to take cities with those Pikemen. Epic fail!

 

[jarhead_leif]

I played Civ off and on for about a year before ever finding CFC. I was terrible. I played lower levels and pretty much did everything Sid's tips told me to do, including changing civics...ha

I actually played more of the scenarios for some time - Warlords and BTS. Basically had no clue why anyone would play random games when you have these scenarios.

When I found CFC, after dropping the game for a bit, I did not find S&T right away. Instead, I found Fall From Heaven and played that avidly for several months to complete all the scenarios. Basically playing sucky and reloading constantly.

Found S&T and everything changed.

That's very inspiring.

 

[joanne]

While I was playing the vanilla civ4 tutorial I panicked when a barbarian lion ended its turn right next to the worker who was cottaging ("wth is the use of this cottage 'improvement' anyway? It just gives one coin, no big deal...") then feeling really dumb after I learned that barb animals can't enter cultural borders.

Then for one of my first games I sent my entire army (i.e. a lone axeman) hoping to kill someone, leaving my capitol unguarded and threatened by barbs - and being hungover from civ3 I thought they'll just get some gold for themselves then vanish into non-existence after their brief visit - you know what happened next

 

[CocoIsKing28]

My first game, so long ago.
It started with a watching of the fantastic opening video for regular civ, hearing Baba Yetu and being absolutely electrified by this very first experience with any of Sid's works. With no idea what to expect, I clicked single player, then Play Now! I chose the Greeks, led by mighty Alexander.
I hadn't any clue how to actually play, so I pretty much winged it. I expanded, built some units, not many workers, and the ones I did build I used to build improvements outside of the cities BFCs. Mansa Musa was to my north, and when he demanded a tech or something from me, I declared war on my bigger, stronger, smarter foe. He took a few cities, but I continued to build spam units to throw at his stacks. Eventually, he stopped. By the time I had rifling, he had tanks, and declared war on me. I still somehow held him back and survived until I got tanks, which I destroyed a lesser Saladin to my south with. I believe the game ended with a time victory for some leader, maybe Augie or Cathy.
Even though I lost so terribly, this first experience was by far the most magical and fun.

 

[shakabrade]

Had some experience with civ 3 so I started playing on vanilla prince. I remember I won around 1980. Also, never overlapped cities, found almost every religion and built all the useless wonders but didn't build GLH, which I considered useless.

Noob.

Also, didn't whip cause slavery is ethically wrong, and didn't chop because I liked forests and didn't want to lose health bonus.

Meganoob.

Surprisingly, didn't have trouble with Monarch. Very forgiving difficulty level.

 

[nerdfighter13]

I started on Noble, because the game said civ veterans would be fine on it. I lost quickly, not realizing barbarians could take cities until too late. I then regressed back to chieftain for a while. After coming across this site looking too improve, I went to warlord. Became a member and went up two difficulty levels in two months! In fact I just won my first prince game.

 

[Apricottage]

Starting out, I wasn't BAD so much as generally suboptimal. That is, nothing hilariously wrong, just a lot of minor mistakes that added up to a general inability to play well. I'd played a little of CivII and CivIII before, so I generally knew how the genre worked. I think I started on Warlord or Noble, kinda meandered through the tech tree, always made sure I was in the green regarding research, built too-small armies, and so on. I think I got up to Monarch before actually looking up any advice on how to play, although I was starting to vaguely comprehend that Slavery might be a viable option at that point.

 

[Quintillus]

RI is realism invictus, ROM is Rise of Mankind, not sure on the others.

ROM AND = Rise of Mankind; A New Dawn, and HRW = History Rewritten. Out of all three of those mods, I would have to say RI Barbs are probaly the most evilist SOB's I've ever encountered in a mod.

Thanks. I actually have heard of Rise of Mankind, I just didn't recognize that abbreviation in a Civ context. Not familiar with the other two.

While I was playing the vanilla civ4 tutorial I panicked when a barbarian lion ended its turn right next to the worker who was cottaging ("wth is the use of this cottage 'improvement' anyway? It just gives one coin, no big deal...") then feeling really dumb after I learned that barb animals can't enter cultural borders.

Then for one of my first games I sent my entire army (i.e. a lone axeman) hoping to kill someone, leaving my capitol unguarded and threatened by barbs - and being hungover from civ3 I thought they'll just get some gold for themselves then vanish into non-existence after their brief visit - you know what happened next

It is indeed strange that barbarian animals respect cultural borders. Although it would be even more embarrassing to be defeated by a Lion than a Warrior.