What's your biggest blunder?

[pat1968]

Last night, i was forming tank armies, and moved a tank out of one of my big productive core cities to go join up with my army.

Un-noticed to me, was an enemy cavalry in range, who gratefully took the undefended city.

 

[americanpotatos]

biggest blunder?

probably back when i first got the game.
i didnt know how commerce, military, and science worked, so i kept making cavalry and as soon as i had about 700 cavalry, 1000 workers, and only maybe... 20 cities, bordered by at least 3 countries, i was invaded. and then... at that point i realized that my enemy already had tanks/panzers... i was anhilated in about 8 turns but i put up a hell of a fight. after that i joined civfanatics and lost my account so now iv got this new one

 

[char81]

One of my biggest blunders was when I first played the game, I had one city for a while and when I tried building another I everywhere was already settled up and the civilization I build New York on declared war on me and destroyed my civ in 3 turns.

Or was it 5

 

[bob rulz]

I can't recall my biggest blunder ever (I just picked up the game again after not playing for about a year), but in my recent game I loaded 2 transports each with 6 tanks to take out a couple of island cities from which the enemy kept bombing me. I then sent the transports towards the island, completely undefended, and naturally they were bombed into oblivion...in 1 turn...and therefore I lost 12 tanks.

Not quite as embarrassing as some of the others in here but still pretty bad for an experienced player...

When I first started the game I didn't know what the manual meant when it said talked about citizens working the surrounding tiles so I didn't pick up on the mechanics at all. I don't think I built a single mine until the 3rd or 4th game I played.

EDIT: OH! I remember my biggest blunder.

It was very early in the game, and I left my capital undefended for about 4 or 5 turns while I sent out a settler to build my 2nd city. Sure enough, a foreign warrior happened to be passing by at the time, taking that opportunity to take my city and ending the game before 3000 BC...

 

[del62]

I dont know about my biggest blunder ever, but yesterday I just lost the all my cavalry by trying to capture a russian city that was out of reach, it was a bit like the charge of the light brigade, and now i will have to rebuild my army

 

[Jayrad]

My biggest Blunder was when in a modern world scenario. What happend was i was U.S.A. and I tried to nuke the russians and i didn't know they had an SDI and 4 of my nukes were intercepted. Then i put alot of my units in one city to load onto an transport and Russia nuked that city in the middle of the turn and i would have lost if the A.I. cold do amphib landings right

 

[Brucha]

My biggest blunder was recent in my AIO Soviet story - I am playing with two real-player commanders acting as army commanders. I sparked a war with Japan to take their outlying islands south of the Japanese mainland. Before declaring war, I had spied on both island cities to check on the amount of enemy units that would have to be killed in order to take the cities. One city had 3 units, the other had 5. Armed with this knowledge, I emailed my orders to my commanders, and dropped off both forces on their target islands to attack. For the island with the larger garrison, I planned on using my large Russian fleet to bombard the city to reduce and wound the units before my commander-player attacked.

Unfortunately, I somehow mixed up the islands. The result was that the island with only 3 Japanese units were shelled by my fleet then attacked by my player-commander (he easily took the city since the Russian fleet damaged them so badly - I even had an email exchange with him about the chances of taking the city because of my mistake), while the Japanese city with 5 defenders was not shelled by my Russian navy, and my player-commander broke/lost almost his entire force of 9 units trying to take the city (because all 5 units were at full strength).

 

[Bowsling]

I just had my newest one. I had a massive stack of workers building am mine, and I was getting impatient, so I was clicking on the mine button very quickly.
I had two sources of iron, and was giving one to China.
Very suddenly, I reach the end of the worker stack, and the next unit is a knight.
I'm still clicking the button. Which is now the pillage button. And the knight is on top of one of my iron sources. Good thing military tradition was only a few turns away.
Since then I've used keyboard shortcuts.

 

[Sashie VII]

I just had my newest one. I had a massive stack of workers building am mine, and I was getting impatient, so I was clicking on the mine button very quickly.
I had two sources of iron, and was giving one to China.
Very suddenly, I reach the end of the worker stack, and the next unit is a knight.
I'm still clicking the button. Which is now the pillage button. And the knight is on top of one of my iron sources. Good thing military tradition was only a few turns away.
Since then I've used keyboard shortcuts.

Sorry, but I find this really amusing Somewhere in my civving past, I've had this happen to me too

And now I use keyboard shortcuts exclusively.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Thankfully I have yet to do the pillage my own improvement. Though I have come close on an alarming number of occasions.


My biggest blunder was probably clicking through a worker stack while watching TV and using a Great Scientist to rush a Temple with 2 turns left(a specialist city where I wanted some extra happiness, had 4 hammers per turn if memory serves) . That was the first time I ever wished I had autosave enabled .

 

[Aabraxan]

I just had my newest one. I had a massive stack of workers building am mine, and I was getting impatient, so I was clicking on the mine button very quickly.
I had two sources of iron, and was giving one to China.
Very suddenly, I reach the end of the worker stack, and the next unit is a knight.
I'm still clicking the button. Which is now the pillage button. And the knight is on top of one of my iron sources. Good thing military tradition was only a few turns away.
Since then I've used keyboard shortcuts.

Yup. I've done that one, too. I'm pretty sure I've told the story in one of these blunder threads, too. If I remember correctly, I had one cavalry guarding a stack of workers that was roading iron on a mountain, so mine went:
road
road
road
road
road
road
pillage

 

[Sashie VII]

road
road
road
road
road
road
pillage

I can't recall where exactly you posted that, but it certainly rings a bell

 

[Aabraxan]

I'm pretty sure I posted it. I'm also pretty sure that that was when I started using the keyboard.

 

[Sashie VII]

Was going to post this in an edit of my previous post, but since you've replied..

Here it is

 

[Smellincoffee]

During my first time playing an Earth map, I attempted to invade the island nation of Greece (Australia). I soon realized that with roads, Alexander could throw every offensive unit he had at my stack of doom. I lost five ships' worth of cavalry to knights and such after he wore down my few defenders -- defenders I'd brought only to serve as garrison troops. Lesson learned -- if one MUST attack island nations, bring plenty of defenders and artillery.

In my first game ever -- applying Age of Empires II thinking -- I decided to not bother with swordsmen, and instead build up an army of Spearmen to attack my neighbor. Accompanied by Jaguar Warriors, it would be invincible!

...yeah, Age of Empires II is really different than Civ3.

 

[TheOverseer714]

A good one I just pulled in my current game. I had captured Kyoto and was going to gift it to my ally the Celts. In a fit of inattention, I gifted them Tokyo, which was a valued city on a natural bottleneck.

 

[Andyflower]

Bard, I trust that you didn't provide links to malware or unwanted information. I am sorry for implying something so misleading.

However, my point is this: "please spell it out". By explaining the link and its relevance, it will help us trust your intentions, and make us sure that it is not simply the spam that it was in earlier months (and I say this honestly even if things are much more different now: back then, it only seemed like you were promoting an irrelevant political agenda). After all, a large number of us are not familiar with the contents of your link, including the banners - even if that link comes from a senior member, posted many times beforehand

 

[Lanzelot]

I'll join in this chorus, too. When you've got large stacks roading and railroading, this is what drives me nuts:

Right click.
Activate worker.
Build road.
Scroll right from the far side of the world.
Locate stack that I'm looking for.
Right click.
Activate worker.
Build road.
Scroll right from the far side of the world.
Locate stack . . .

I can't verify it at the moment, but I think a "fix" for this is: right-click the stack and fortify it. Scroll back to the stack and re-activate it. Now all the units in the stack become active one after the other. Also works for artillery/bombers.

Ok, here's one of my biggest blunders: I'm playing a 20K game in PTW, where MGLs can still rush Great Wonders. (In fact this was one of my GOTM submissions a while ago, trying to get the 20K Award.) Finally after a long time I get my first MGL and decide to turn it into an Army, so I can then build the Herioc Epic. There is this enemy town on the adjacent continent which is protected only by a warrior. I put a knight into my new Army, load it into a galley, load two more knights into a second galley and sail over to the other continent. The plan is to unload the units, load the other two knights into the Army next turn and then score the first Army victory to enable the Herioc Epic. The question now is: should I play it save and unload my units on a close by mountain where the Army would need an extra turn before it can strike at the warrior, or should I unload directly next to the town and be able to start HE one turn earlier? "Nah", I say to myself, "that town is miles away from their capital, only a warrior in there, nothing to fear...". You guess what happens next: it turns out there is an archer in that town in addition to the warrior. It attacks my stack of 3 knights, and of course the knight inside the Army gets selected as the target and dies!

When all I needed to do was either just unload my ships in save distance from the town, or, if I absolutely want to be one turn faster, just don't put that first knight into the Army yet! Then the archer could have chosen any of the 3 knights and my Army would still survive.

But the story doesn't end here... Later in the game I finally get my second MGL. This time I am careful and manage to get the long-awaited Army victory and finally start the HE. Still a bit later I get my 3rd MGL. It makes it home to the capital savely and waits outside for the current wonder to be completed. (It had only 3-4 turns left, so of course I don't waste an MGL on it.) Then the current project finishes, I start a new wonder, move my MGL into the city, press that button for rushing the project --- and a nice new Army happily waves at me with its flag!! I had mixed up the two buttons and pressed the wrong one!

Now I had already 3 MGLs (normally I get only 1-2 per game, even if I'm militaristic and conquer the entire world), and still not rushed a single wonder...

Lanzelot

 

[The Professor]

Thankfully I have yet to do the pillage my own improvement.

I have most definitely done this. I have also accidently mis-clicked and bombarded my own territory.

 

[Desertsnow]

I have most definitely done this. I have also accidently mis-clicked and bombarded my own territory.

I misclicked in a game and nuked my own territory.