What are your biggest military blunders?

[Lord Kid]

I brought this up in my Alex vs. Cathy thread, but it deserves another mention. I was playing as Cathy on Noble, on a terra map and by the luck of the draw I got an area of the old world where the only land access was through a small 1 square connection, so I quickly built a city there and fortified it to no end. I easily had 10 units between archers, axes and swords in that one city, with a few outside to protect some key resources, namely copper and ivory. Well my border just happens to be next to Alex, who mopped me up in my previous game.

Short story long, he attacks and loses his forces quick. Then I see a galley sneaking behind my area to land at the back side which was all desert wastes, so I sent a contigent of swords to guard my flank. He proposes peace a turn or so later, and promptly declares war on Saladin, who had a few axes in my territory, so he sends them to the colony in the wastes and razes it. A few turns later the declare peace, with Alex dropping in the race for power.

All is well until Kublai Khan asks me to go to war with him against Alex, and I was ok, let's do it. We defeat Alex easily and I am tending the wounded and cleaning up the "gate city" when Kublai declares war on me and decimates my capitol with a force of swords and cats which he innocently moved into the wastes during our war. I was so shocked I quit the game, disgusted with myself for falling for such an obvious trick.

 

[3 EMS]

My favorite mistakes involved barbarians. I once sent a stack against a barbarian city. They were decimated. Now, somewhat angry and ever more determined, I built and sent a second stack. Same result but this time I noticed that the barb city had defensive bonus. It never occured to me that I might need cats to take a barb city.

Another time there was a barb city close to my CIV. Great I thought, a free city. I tried to take it and failed. Good thing for the British though. I weakened it just enough so that their one nearby unit could take it.

 

[Garand]

I don't know if it's my worst blunder, but I did pull a bone-headed move last night in a multi-player game with my friend. We were playing on marathon speed with raging barbarians, which was a bad idea. It was early game and I was unable to build up my military fast enough due to the marathon speed. My second city was overrun and captured by an archer-warrior attack. I had only one warrior defending. My capital had one defender - a very good archer with the drill 1 and 2, 25% vs. archers and %25 vs. melee upgrades.

I knew I had to get my city back ASAP or the game would be a lot harder. There was a half-strength barbarian warrior defending my taken city and another barbarian warrior preparing to pillage a cow pasture, which I could not afford to lose. So I decided I'd try to kill two birds with one stone by sending my archer out from my capital (leaving it undefended), killing the barbarian before he could pillage my pasture, and then move south to my second city and attempt to recapture it. Out goes my archer, pride of my army, and I assault the warrior the same turn - result was a narrow, but catastrophic defeat. I did not have slavery yet, and no units available to defend my capital. It was taken two turns later and I was effectively eliminated from the game.

My lesson - never play with raging barbarians and slow turn speeds... it results in being overrun and not being able to build reinforcements fast enough.