Things You Used To Do (and are embarrassed by)

[Simpson17866]

I've got plenty of boneheaded mistakes in my past that I can only imagine made my games a lot harder than they needed to be, and I'm wondering if anybody else might like to share their own.

To start things off:

1) I used to think that I needed to put mines on Gold in order to get access (this misunderstanding, I figured out pretty quickly).

2) Having been a committed YuGiOh addict, I used to think that the attack and defense stats in this game worked the same way: that Fortified meant "in Defense Position," that not Fortified meant "in Attack Position," and that if I, say, sent a Greek Hoplite into the wilderness, popped a goody hut, and was attacked by Barbarians, then my unit would only have 1 Attack because I wouldn't have time to "put it in Defense Position.

As such, I didn't recognize the value of combined-arms stacks (Archers/Spearmen, Longbowmen/Musketmen), and I thought that certain units were better or worse than they really were: I thought that the Japanese Samurai's defense boost over the standard Knight was a waste because "why not just leave it in Attack mode?" and I thought that the Byzantine Dromon always had 2 against an enemy Galley's 1 as long as I didn't "put the Dromon in Defense mode"

It took me an incredibly long time to figure out that the combat engine didn't work this way

3) I never realized how important Rapid Early Expansion was until I started watching "Lets Play"s on Youtube (this was long after I'd stopped playing, and I still haven't gotten back into it yet), and I always liked turning a small-to-medium number of cities into Cultural powerhouses...

... but towards the end, my favorite to play as was always the Mayans

Since getting back into studying the game (though not quite back into playing yet), I've learned that you do not get a Civilization more carefully tailored to dominate at Rapid Early Expansion than the Mayans, and I always forced them to do the opposite.​

... Anybody else done any of these? Done anything else that's not quite as bad?

Done anything that was a lot worse?

 

[WeirdoJoker]

I used to (*gasp*) automate my workers. When I stopped doing that, cities started working a whole lot better.

 

[Nathiri]

I used to think that I should irrigate all tiles adjacent to a city, and then mine the surrounding tiles. This was really just because I had a perfectionist concept in place, that I wanted farms close to the city and plenty of food, but I didnt understand the despotism tile penalty at the time, nor proper food to shield combinations.

I used to always build a Barracks first in a new city, regardless how long it took. It was a build order I had placed that was a must. After that was usually a granary.

I used to think that I should not mine tiles with wines, sugar, cattle, wheat at all. As I said above, I didnt understand the despotism tile penalty. This was just a perfectionist thing again. I just thought that why should a mine be placed at a ranch? or a land for agriculture?

I used to think that I should not mine an iron tile, but just road it, as it seemed to me to make it exhaust quicker . I had similar odd ideas with other resources for some reason too.

With these ideas at the time, it meant that my production was lacking early game. At the time I was wondering why the ancient era was so short that I couldnt launch any attack on anybody, and why I couldnt do any sort of attack till the late 2nd era, or even 3rd era.

I'm glad such stupid thinking in my younger years is behind me . Although in one case, my ignorance worked out. In the Middle Ages Conquest, I remember just raging war with everybody as the Vikings (usually by them threatening me, and me refusing), albeit an easy difficulty, but I was able to just conquer a lot of people without worrying about my lack of inefficiency or the consequences of waging so many wars at once.

 

[tjs282]

I used to try and play as a peaceful builder, which to me meant a military composed primarily of defensive units, while also putting up every building (and Wonder) I was able to. In every town. Even after I came to the reluctant conclusion that warring was a necessary evil, and I needed more attack-units, I would still go through 2 or 3 Anarchy periods per game (typically Despotism —> Monarchy —> Republic/Communism, just like I used to do in CivDOS). And still built every building I'd got the tech for.

And then I'd wonder why (at Regent level) everyone was picking on me, and/or I never had any resources and/or was always broke / behind on tech, and/or all my cities were rioting from war-weariness...

And then I found CFC...

 

[Civinator]

When I started playing Civ 3, I somewhere did read, that you can get better results in bombardment when properly targeting the enemy unit with the cross wires at a 'neuralgic point'. I made a lot of experiments if it is better to aim at the middle of the attacked unit or in the front - but without any considerable results.

In my mod I have nearly completely abolished landbombardment, but even today when my bombers have two missed attacks in sequence, I tend to change the attacked place in the citysquare, to find the location where the enemy unit is hiding.

I used to think that I should not mine an iron tile, but just road it, as it seemed to me to make it exhaust quicker .

Yes, I have the same feeling. Nearly always my mined iron resource is the resource that is depleted first.

 

[r16]

uhm , why embrassed at not mining resources like iron ? In my latest game ı built the equivalent of Iron Works . But the iron in the city Radius is not mined , not even roaded . Because ı play the Dwarves . Who are kinda dumb when it comes to techs and ı don't have a clear shot at wonders . Am pretty sure the game engine would kill that iron right at the moment ı was beating some other AI to the wonder .

 

[Lanzelot]

Am pretty sure the game engine would kill that iron right at the moment ı was beating some other AI to the wonder .

But the Iron Works are a Small Wonder, so everybody can build it (as long as iron & coal are within the city radius)?!
However, that is indeed an interesting question, whether the Iron Works can be finished, if iron or coal get exhausted while building it. In my study about these mechanisms, I didn't come to a definite conclusion. So if you can contribute any clues here, it would be welcome.

Ok, this was way back in Civ 1 in 1992, but it could as well have happened in Civ 3: when I started playing Civ, I used to build settlers on end in my early towns and then joining them back in right when they completed. I thought this was a clever way of growing my cities faster than they would normally grow... It took me quite a few iterations until I noticed that while joining in a settler indeed increases the city population by two, building that settler had first decreased the population by two and therefore the net effect was zero... (Well, not quite zero, unfortunately: 40 shields production were just wasted for nothing... Yes: in Civ 1, a settler had cost 40 shields.)

 

[r16]

iron works in the scenario is an important boost to shield production which then allows to beat the AI whenever there is a great wonder to build . Finished Iron Works without touching that iron . And no roads and mining as well . Whenever city grows or there is pollution ı laborously re-arrange the city screen , keeping that tile pristine . Out of irritating experience that whenever ı have 2 turns to finish a wonder and an AI city has 3 , something happens to my city , pollution , invasion , whatever comes to mind . AI finishes first with me still 1 turn to go . The iron is put to work only then . (Of course, one must also remember ı save 10 times every turn .)


as far as ı know you can finish units/buildings if you lose the resource , like starting a swordsman and a barbarian pillages the road on your iron . On the other hand in the favourite scenario of mine there is a great wonder that requires 5 walls . Involved in a war , retreated from a couple of weak towns ( meaning ı gave them to a different AI , prevents money loss and kind of personal shame ) and my great wonder project immediately stopped . And while exactly not about the question , if you make a wonder to auto produce units and you require a resource to build it , like horses , the wonder provides whatever cultural benefits but stops delivery of the auto-produced unit if you don't have horses on the exact turn . Say , you are to get Knights every 5 turns but horses are lost on the 4th , no knights . Re-establish link and turn 10 should produce one .

 

[Smellincoffee]

I used to attack with Spearmen, because my head was in Age of Empires 2, and for me they were the 'cheaper' attack units, who had a bonus against horsemen.

 

[r16]

my favourite scenario again . Elves have stronger units , Pikeman equivalent is 2-5-1 against the normal 2-4-1 . AI brings out catapults , not captured from others but produced for by itself . If no catapults , their 2-4-1 units join the attacks against my towns , one dies each turn and no more . So , it might not be so embrassing that not even the AI does it .

 

[iguana1]

My favorite one of these if from back in the day playing civ 1 - pretty much as soon as you discovered the tech to build temples, your advisers would start telling you to build temples to keep the people happy. Then shortly after that, when I had ignored them, my cities would start to riot. Not understanding the happy/content/sad citizens, I associated the rioting cities with not building temples. Therefore, the logical conclusion was to simply never learn the tech to build temples until absolutely necessary!

Similar line of thought, we never knew you could adjust science/tax/luxury rates until playing with a friend and we were changing spots on who was driving and one of us accidentally hit the shortcut key that brought up a window to let that happen. Before that we would play entire games with tax/science at 50/50.

I don't think I have any of these specifically from civ3, however.

 

[iguana1]

probably the biggest one in civ 3 was playing to always maximize long term city growth. I have almost always played a more peaceful/perfectionist type of game. As such, I always wanted 20 tiles available for eventual expansion. It took a while to realize how much space I was wasting until very late in the game since getting from 12 to 20+ size cities isn't happening for quite a long time.

 

[r16]

would filling the map with 1 population cities and abandoning them later in the game work ? Clearing place for your bigger cities ?

 

[justanick]

would filling the map with 1 population cities and abandoning them later in the game work ? Clearing place for your bigger cities ?

In a less extreme version certainly. Keep in mind that aggresive settling may make the AI attack you.

I like to found permanent cities that are supposed to utilize about 17 tiles each once they are metropolises and found a few nonpermanent cities that are supposed to fill in the gaps until hospitals are available. Hospitals are quite valueable, but they are not available for about the first 200 turns out of a total of 540 turns. Often enough the game ends long before turn 540.

Please keep also in mind that rank corruption depends on the amount of settlements closer to the capital. That can become a huge incentive to minimize the amount of settlements. In extreme this can make it reasonable to leave gaps on purpose because the gaps left by the lack of hospitals contain tiles of low qualilty and lower corruption in settlements more outwards helps with tiles of higher quality, also it helps to finish buildings where they are needed in the long run.

In the short run having more settlements than reasonable in the mid to long run helps as it increases the net output of food and increases free unit support. Unit support is major concern in the ancient age and the early middle age.

In the middle of the industrial age and certainly in the modern age maintance of buildings becomes a major concern. More than 30 gtp per metropolises is quite possible and often enough reasonable.

 

[Kirejara]

For me it was allways wake up all aircraft on my carriers using "wake transported" and thereby cancelling each and every time my fighter cover (as they need two turns to get operational).

And then I was frustrated, that my fighters never intercepted even one enemy bomber.

Now I seperate my carriers into defensive (fighters only) and offensive ones (bombers and fighters), so that I can move the defensive ones out of formation before waking the attack planes.

And suddenly the air over my carrier forces is a much less secure space for enemy bombers...

 

[tjs282]

For me it was allways wake up all aircraft on my carriers using "wake transported" and thereby cancelling each and every time my fighter cover (as they need two turns to get operational).

IIRC, and in fairness to yourself, it was your own modding-tests last year that uncovered that irritating behaviour. So it's not like anyone would have known any better...

 

[Lanzelot]

And suddenly the air over my carrier forces is a much less secure space for enemy bombers...

Thanks for this confirmation! For a long time I have been wondering, whether the air superiority even works on a carrier, or only at land...
Good to know that it can be used to protect fleets!