What was your biggest mistake(s)?

[Tecibbar]

1. Building too many workers. In early game, when I reach pop cap, I build workers. They cost maintainance, and the hammers could be invested in better places.

2. Research pottery/build granary too early. Land first, then development.

3. Not enough military. I usually bribe warmongers to attack each other, too much a gamble.

4. Retiring when things go wrong. I really should have tried to make a comeback after I lost half my cities.

5. Not spying enough before and during war. I could have taken a capital with my knights in 2 turns. Instead, I waited until my catapults healed.

 

[Ray Patterson]

2. Research pottery/build granary too early. Land first, then development.

Sounds familiar. Granaries are so crucial it's tricky to find the right moment to build them.

 

[i_imperator]

My most recent mistake was in my first conquest game as welliam where i screwed up on the granary's and slavery mechanics. I also was running specilists when i should have been growing my cities and cottaging them, and i build the mids without stone.

I also lost LHC peter to churchil who got a space victory.... I got lazy and was'nt paying attention to the tech screens and diplo (I had to restart when churchill DOW on me at pleased.) Then again this game was my seccond attempt at noble.

Xmass before last (Back when I didnt have BTS just vanilla) I played a game as Qui back in the good ole days when he looked like Kublia khan and had the inca's traits (Industrius and fianical). For someone who just started civ4 i didnt know what i was doing and i was attacking the japs with modern armour when vicky won a space race!! I reloaded the game but lost to her again. The mistake i made here was simple.... i did'nt know what i was doing or what victory i was going for!!

Another good one..... I got a domination win as Inca a cuple of months ago and as i was attacking babylon i accidently nuked his and my SOD's away (Luckly mine was small and consisted of about 4 tanks and 3 mariens.) Now that is the funniest and most stupid thing i've ever done with civ4!!!

 

[misterfilmgeek]

I crush Monarch regularly (and am learning Emperor), but I still find myself not building the right buildings. For example, I won a game without ever having built the Moai Statues and not putting a fishing boat on a clam in my capital! On the other hand, I try to build too many "normal" buildings like Banks, Libraries, Grocers, etc... in every city instead of keeping up on the power graph with units.

For the longest time, (even some games now), I didn't build a good farmed up city for workers/settlers/whipping, which should be done no later than the third city.

 

[robvollman]

My biggest mistake was to use WorldBuilder in 1000 AD to give me a massive army of Bears and Lions, which I used to cause mayhem and destruction.

Wait a minute - that was the most awesome thing I've done, not my biggest mistake!

 

[evoke]

I find my biggest mistakes are my longest range ones, principally involving playing my traits and opponents rather than the map, REXing because I have a creative/spirtual leader when an early rush would be more optimal, even so, or rushing because I drew someone like Monty when really, I could REX and then still win a later war against a cramped opponent. That costs me games every so often.

My more common mistakes are laziness thinking I know an opponent's styles and habit settings vs looking it up in the stats, and recollecting wrong.

And forgetting to beg. I wish buffy would reminder when beg percentiles are in 60+ percent territory, but it's mostly my fault. I keep forgetting to set reminders adequately enough, as optimal begging isn't quite so much X turns as X +- Y a bit depending on what your after and the state of politics.

 

[roguepro92]

I used to think any tile that was within your culture border was automatically contributing to your empire. Then I had my mind blown with the fat cross.

amen...
first 1-2 months i didn't realize this forum existed
so i just went around improving every tile in my entire empire and be confused why my cities aren't getting better xD

and

im always the last on power graph...
never building enough soldiers cuz im too busy wonder making. i can get sh,oracle,pyramid, basically all the early wonders while defending with archer/axeman still when others have grenadiers and cavalry. because i dont upgrade or make more soldiers...

 

[Sian]

my only 'big' problem is that i'm prone to slack off on the units, and being fairly unwilling to war since i don't build enough units ... though i'm still able to pull an Spacerace from a decent start on Immortal.

 

[alex15]

When i started playng civ4 for the first time

my biggest mistake was not building siege weapons,because i havent read civilopedia and i thot they are are same as regular units i mean i didt know about bombarding and corratel damage - so i was losing big stacks of units when attacked citys, i was like "omg civ4 battle system is only good for defending, and conquering some one is impossible"

i mean in civ3 when u played at deyti difficulty you could kill your nearbs by big stacks of 1 type of units

another mistakes

1) not using slavery
2) not mixing army - i.e using units by one or two types of units
3) building too much buildings/wonders instead of army (i wasnt doing this mistake in civ3)
4) retiring in the begging of game if some thing went wrong
5) havent read civilopedia properly and didnt knowing all hot keys

 

[tijup]

necrology

biggest mistakes:
_ Bought Civ I 18 years ago..
_ Starting a game persuading myself I would play only one hour per day casually.
_ Too few workers.
_ Waiting too long to DoW an AI (overbuilding military units)
_ Not emphasizing enough on diplomacy (maybe because I keep playing at noble instead of monarch)
_ Not micromanaging enough (especially true while at war)

 

[Killroyan]

Hehe, so many mistakes:

1) Wonderholic
2) Buildingholic
3) Not building an army with Alex, Shaka and Monty around
4) Diplomacy, bwah, who needs it!!!!!
5) Slavery is a bad civ. It will cost me population. That is really a nono hahahahahah

 

[Seraiel]

I have to grow all cities to size 20.
I must not use overlap.
All my opponents have to be IMP because IMP is such a weak trait .
Will those 20 Quechuas win against that Shock-Axe?
Just one more day.
No, I cannot wait. I must whip here, and there, and now, and next turn also, and...
Prince -> Emperor was too easy, lets play Deity .

And many many more.

 

[Manco Capac]

1)Attacking a neighbour recklessly too early
2)Trading with WE
3)Forgetting AP and AI wins it
4)Not pop-rushing a wonder when I see the AI getting a GEngineer
5)Forgetting about my fail gold wonder and end up building it. Better when it's a NW ending up in wrong city.
6)Forgetting my navy in some endangered city.
7)Forgetting part of my defending army in the navy, which in turn is in the endangered city. Damn you deity Pacal II with railroad fuel cavalries!
8)Playing up to 3 AM and I have work in 3-4 hours.
9)Ignoring tasks to be done bc of civ4
10)Joining a SGOTM team when I couldn't deal it
11)Starting game threads obviously no one cares and persisting thinking the inverse
12)Not entirely quitting Civ4 after 26 attempts. See under my user name! Why am I here godammit!?

 

[Robert FIN]

Umm..Well, I just lost two settlers to barbs. In both cases they got ambushed by two archers so the escort warrior got owned. It happens to me too often. I underrestimate the power of barbarians.

 

[Lennier]

My biggest mistake was GE-rushing the UoS and then switching to FR within 20 turns (marathon). I was even the HRE and misses out on founding Mining, Inc because I didn't have a GE before MM discovered RR and founded it instead.

 

[Sanguivorant]

Countless times I have lost workers and settlers because:

-I didn't escort them when they were in the wilderness (Even though the game hint told me to do this countless times)

-I told a worker to continue making an improvement even though it stopped obviously because of an imminent threat. Usually I notice what I did a millisecond after I click the button. I really gotta slow down sometimes when playing.

-I left a worker sleeping, and assuming that a barbarian horse archer was too far to take it.


The biggest mistake that I make is not finishing the games I start. The last game I finished was last June. I have started at least a hundred games since then, but haven't finished one.

Here's what usually happens.

1. Start game.
2. Precise focus and micromanagement.
3. Be extremely successful in my first 150 turns, often conquering a neighboring civ.
4. Start to loose focus and tap enter repeatedly. Eventually, I become a builder.
5. Get bored, quit, delete save, rinse and repeat.

 

[Killroyan]

Another one is seeing that Alex is my worst enemy. "oh he is on the other side of the Island, what could possibly happen?". Next turn, horns. "what? Crapppppppppp" Alex enters your borders with 6 phalanx and 2 spears against your cities with just 1 archer max.

 

[Manco Capac]

The craziest I have seen was having a military partner making peace with the common foe, then the common foe bribes it onto me and that traitor brought another traitor. On PLEASED stance on top of that. That was crazy!

 

[Wegason]

My biggest mistakes before reading articles on this site and playing Nobles Club (some of these mistakes I still do):

1) Not using the whip
2) Wonder spamming
3) Not building enough military units
4) Not building enough workers
5) Building spamming
6) Not specialising cities (I still don't do this enough but I do now focus the National Wonders and Buildings a lot better)
7) Leaving attacking armies in conquered cities instead of freeing them by replacing with defensive units
8) Neglecting to protect/escorting my workers and settlers in the BC era
9) Playing up into the early hours despite having a toddler who could wake me really early and work next day
10) Not immediately changing to representation after building the Pyramids, often going many turns until I realise.
11) Waiting too long to start conquering

 

[TheMadFiddler]

My biggest mistakes before reading articles on this site and playing Nobles Club (some of these mistakes I still do):

1) Not using the whip
2) Wonder spamming
3) Not building enough military units
4) Not building enough workers
5) Building spamming
6) Not specialising cities (I still don't do this enough but I do now focus the National Wonders and Buildings a lot better)
7) Leaving attacking armies in conquered cities instead of freeing them by replacing with defensive units
8) Neglecting to protect/escorting my workers and settlers in the BC era
9) Playing up into the early hours despite having a toddler who could wake me really early and work next day
10) Not immediately changing to representation after building the Pyramids, often going many turns until I realise.
11) Waiting too long to start conquering

Also guilty of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11
and
not chopping effectively because I hate sacrifice [well, maybe I will wait for Math then chop, etc.]