What are the most common play mistakes?

thadian

thadian

Kami of Awakened Dreamers
Joined
Sep 27, 2006
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Location
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Im not talking about settling a bad city, DOW at the wrong time, or not building an army. Many things can cause you to win or lose from one decision, but what are the real mess-ups that can cause you to lose? Here are some of mine.

Not knowing WHO to have mad at me (Quit trading with this guy!) Often places you in a lose-lose situation, where you will get NO +1 no matter what you say. Often i look at the power rankings and decide my neighbor is in the right, unless i can beat him.

Go to war with this guy! I always used to say no, but lately i have said yes if i think i can milk 10 turns of nothing before peacing.

not researching bronze working early - it can be difficult to know what tech order your starting situation calls for. sometimes i research it too early. (like when i have no workers to chop and what i need is roads anyway)

Keeping troops in my cities until im DOW'd. Lately i have kept 2-3 troops in my cities at most (obselete ones) and my real army sits on the borders, preferably in forested hills.

Not building enough units - and getting smash-faced for it.


Building too many - and falling way behind in the tech era.

Everything is so situational, so i want to take a look at what play mistakes some of you other guys make, what you learned from them and what you did to play better - maybe i can get above monarch some-day. Should i just go down a level and learn the mechanics a little better? I never play bad - but sometimes i will be in the lead (no tech brokering) then somehow, somebody jumps up 200 points without wonders, or vassals.

Lastly --

Being afraid to go to war with the superpower. Often their vassals leave them, and you can make them come to you. Especially if you have the statue of Zeus, just war them and let them come to you and never accept peace. Especially if you can play defense, you can often watch the superpower lose all their vassals, then get another person or 2 at war with them. then you can peace them, knowing they should be kept in check, warring again ONLY if you see your neighbors about to be their vassals.
 
Neglecting your navy.
Not specializing your cities.
Forgetting to change civics or using the wrong civics.
 
Neglecting your navy, theres a good one.

not specializing my cities - thats one of my flaws i normally can only pop out 1-2 specialists even with all my food tiles in use. building "only this" type of building really does give you a lot of room to keep up the units though
 
Polluting my GP farm with undesirables.

Building the Red Cross in a city that already has a NW; then can't add West Point etc.

Forgetting to put air units on auto-search (or renew the order) to spot enemy navies long before they are chewing up my fish nets with their prop's.

Forgetting to F4 after studying new tech.
 
Specializing cities? All of my cities specialize farms and hammers, thereby creating balanced cities with superior infrastructure. Specialization for me simply entails where to put each National Wonder for maximum effect. or maybe specializing a particular building type in less productive cities.

I think the biggest mistake is not adapting to each game. Every so often, you should pause, look around, and ask yourself, "Self, what can I do to get out of this mess?" And then, of course, find a solution, whether that's liberating a colony, moving your capital, birthing a particular GP, going to war, ending a war, changing religions and alliance blocks, changing civics, etc...

Sometimes, it's simply a matter of stopping to reflect, instead of just plodding on oblivious to our impending doom.
 
Supr49er said:
Neglecting your navy.
Not specializing your cities.
Forgetting to change civics or using the wrong civics.
Click to expand...

How much city specialization are we talking about here? I've seen this one discussed a million times before but I think EVERY city should have a forge and later a factory (even if it's a research or gold city you can always turn that extra production from forges and factories into more gold or research, right?) and most can use markets, grocers, banks (all the commerce buildings unless it's a total backwater with no incoming commerce) and I usually stick a courthouse in every building (at least once I start corporations to cut down on the maintenance costs).

The only buildings I don't spam to all my cities are barracks, libraries (and universities, labs, etc...), and religious buildings. Is that enough specialization or do the pros out here in the forums do it differently?

Back on-topic though...neglecting the navy is always bound to come back to haunt me if I let it slip. Also, failing to expand enough in the early years...I just had a game where I went from top to middle to dead because while I was busy pumping out the wonders (I'm an admitted wonder-whore) my neighbors were scooping up all the land and I just kept thinking, "well, I'll just take their cities by force!" But that proved much harder to do when I had only 4 cities to Kubli Khan's 13 cities. I just couldn't keep up the unit production even with all my cities trying to kick the new recruits out the door!
 
^^Most of the times it is not a matter of WHAT you build in a city, but of WHEN to build it. A forge is useful everywhere, but if might not be advisable to build it until other time... it is better to do a bank in a commerce city prior to a forge, right? ;)
 
think the biggest mistake is not adapting to each game. Every so often, you should pause, look around, and ask yourself, "Self, what can I do to get out of this mess?"
Click to expand...


Very good one, i am guilty of this myself. lately i have been analyzing each 5 turns (or when a gamebreaker or AI event happens) as a seperate "metagame".

Sure i need troops when shaka is my neighbor but sometimes i build so many i forget my buildings, or i will overcommit to a certain tech only to see the AI already has it.
 
Being too nice to my neighbors.
Not looking at the clock when I play.
Not learning from my mistakes.
And not rubbing out Monty the first time I see him.
 
Got to be the naval side, I just never seem to have enough ships or they individually positioned on picket duty and easy picking for even smaller less advanced fleets.

Also I mass land army's prior to an attack OK, but again neglect the naval side or have them way out of position and results in all fish, clams etc get done by others leaving my masses (unhealthy or starving).

All time worst, thinking "What Mine Is Mine What Yours Should be Mine"

I just find it hard to give things away and I cannot remember the last time I paid gold per turn for something
 
Typo "What's Mine Is Mine What's Yours Should be Mine"


:mischief: Should also add in read posts before submitting them
 
forgetting stuff because i drank and smoked a bit to much :)
 
Lemon Merchant said:
And not rubbing out Monty the first time I see him.
Click to expand...

In my last game, Monty got stuck on a peninsula of mostly jungle hills and a neighbouring large island of mostly plains. He was a complete non-entity for the whole game, so in my infinite mercy I contented myself with turning the island to England. :king:
 
For me,
-Expanding cities too soon;
-getting caught up in wonders races;
-taking nation relations for granted if my army isn't sufficiently built up enough.
 
many good tips, and i just made another one to add:

Not playing the "Era" i am in.

(refusing to tech up and obselete a few of my wonders way too late)
 
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