What's your worst military disaster?

[3 EMS]

My biggest military disaster is one I repeat often. I'll be merrily building my empire when all of a sudden I hear the horns. Someone has declared on me and I have neglected my army. All I can do is try my best to slow the AI down but the outcome is certain.

One of my most memerable losses came at the hands of Isabella. I over expanded and my units had been disbanding. I was starting to turn the corner when a hugh stack came from the north. Her stack spread and was pillaging everthing in sight. Then she'd take a city. More pillaging then another city. I couldn't build units fast enough and with each city lost it got worse. That was one slow painful death. At least it gave me a feel for how much I can let my economy suffer before I have to fix it.

Another bad military loss came from Napolean. I could see one of his coastal cities and noticed all the ships it was collecting. I had already experienced large French armies so I was eager to eliminate that threat. I built my army and navy. I put my army in a friendly civ on his continent. Moved it into position and declared. My army entered his territory and got close to its target city. Then came the counter attack. Went on for ages. All that effort just gone. I would say ' in a snap' but it was more like 15 minutes. What a waste of hammers. I won the game but when I see the French I always make it a point to beat them down early.

 

[hunterai]

So, a cursory review of this thread suggests that most Civ4 military disasters can traced to
1) miscalculating how many units are needed to take/hold a city
2) surprises (upgrades or DoWs, or being surprised by a game feature you didn't know) or
3) nukes.

(3) can be avoided if you ban nukes. (2) is a function of experience - the good players recognize when an AI in WHEOOHRN has them in its sights, for example.

(1) still happens to me when I have no choice. My crushed expeditionary force was trying to prevent a culture victory. Time was of the essence and I probably didn't have enough of it to build 5 more Transports and 20 more units, which would probably have won the day. At the higher levels, I suspect that there are times when you have to stake all you have on a desperation throw.

I didn't notice any stories of military disasters wrought by clever AI moves...

Should be noted that you have to ban nukes BEFORE it is built. As I have disastrously found out -- nukes built prior to the ban can still be used even with the ban in effect. I got my multiple prongs task invasion force wiped out in a turn by that mistake.

 

[banson]

i play with diplo victory off and the nuke ban never comes up. i like the motto live free or die hard

 

[Antilogic]

i play with diplo victory off and the nuke ban never comes up. i like the motto live free or die hard

Three words for you, man, just three: play Broken Star.

 

[Sincro]

Was playing a huge tectonics map at Noble. Got to construction and started merrily making my war elephants and catapults to crush Justinian. I was Confucian, he was Hindu. No other civ was Hindu, and no other civ particularly liked him, which was good because the enormous Buddhist cable, led by Kublai Khan, had about 5x my power.

I do a final check of the diplo screen when I have my army ready to go, everything still looks good, and I send the troops.

Next turn: Justinian has become a vassal state of Kublai Khan.
Kublai Khan declares on me.
Slight pause with the spinning globe indicating something is loading, then:
Charlemagne declares on me.
Hatshepsut declares on me.
Victoria declares on me.

I was crushed like a bug.

-Sinc

 

[banson]

such fun.. lol that was funny

 

[Kanzera]

At least you were a good sport about it. I think.

 

[ICNP]

Road to War, 1936 Nazi Game

I control Sweden+Norway and a few Balkan cities (open play). The winter is gone and I've got my massive stack of units ready to take France. However I forgot about Dale's combat mod and I wind up unable to take Luxemborg despite my 35 str Tanks due to all the collateral from the Artillary. Lucky I had a backup save so I can remedy my mistake. I know its cheap but I had thrown every spare unit I had to take down that city since it had EVERY SINGLE bomber deGaulle had, didn't want to have to deal with that next round.

 

[Zero-Sum]

Just played a game, built the UN, but Ghandi kept winning the elections, putting the same resolution (emancipation) for vote all the time. I was planning an invasion had a nice large fleet of battle ships, destroyers, transports, tanks, artill, and infantry, ready to strike Ghandis second biggest city, because his capital just reached legendary culture. Then he built the Manhattan project, so I immediately sent my fleet, which Ghandi nuked. My line in the power graph took a small dive

 

[sabo]

What??? You have access to recourses with forts? Are you serious, is that true?? So that's why my automated workers build forts on recourses out of cities' reach???

You can use them as airbases and naval ports too, it kinda sweet if you got snakey continents and you hold a cityon the ONE square peninsula of a long continent, you got your own Panama Canal

 

[Navarre]

Just played a game, built the UN, but Ghandi kept winning the elections, putting the same resolution (emancipation) for vote all the time. I was planning an invasion had a nice large fleet of battle ships, destroyers, transports, tanks, artill, and infantry, ready to strike Ghandis second biggest city, because his capital just reached legendary culture. Then he built the Manhattan project, so I immediately sent my fleet, which Ghandi nuked. My line in the power graph took a small dive

Your military was pwned by Gandhi ? I would so kill myself in shame.

 

[kretes]

I've had an interesting war, which while not the most devastating for me, really impressed me in terms of what the AI can do.

I had a nice little empire on continent A, while all the heavy fighting was going on on continent B. At the end of the Renaissance only three superpowers remained: Russia (me), Byzantium and Germany. My plan was to get Combustion, build a small number of tanks to support my infantry, upgrade my navy to oil-based and attack Germany, while hopefully having Byzantium on my side and off my back. The plan was fool-proof ... or so I thought.

The first problem arose when Justinian gave into his primal fury and attacked Bismarck without my consent. He immediately demanded I join the war. My war preparations weren't complete and I was one turn short of Combustion, but I complied anyway to get the diplo bonus and "cannot declare war" thingie.

Two turns into the war I get a rather boring message: "Your fort has been destroyed by enemy spies" (or something like that). The AIs have been sabotaging my farms and towns all game, no biggie. The next turn, I get covered in menus stating that tank production is canceled. I am initially confused, but soon realize that Bismarck simply destroyed my only fort with oil. I am impressed by this dastardly move, but I figure that it's just a momentary setback. Well, no dice. I rebuild the fort, it gets destroyed again suprisingly. I send a spy for extra espionage defense and rebuild my fort yet again. Bismarck decides that three times the charm. To add insult, Justinian decided to bail out of this war.

What this meant was that my offensive soon turned into a defensive. I couldn't produce tanks for about 15 turns, which ruined my battle plan. Moreover, I tried getting extra troops from continents A to B, but had my galleons and frigates (which I couldn't upgrade) sunk by battleships and transports. The rest of the war Bismarck's fancy oil-based ships spent harassing my fishboats and coastal cities. Eventually, I did win, but my war campaign was far more clumsy than the blitzkrieg I had envisioned. I did, however gain a newfound respect for the BtS AI (or maybe it's the AI from the Better AI mod which I was using?).

 

[mariogreymist]

My worst military disaster (happened too many times to count, going back to civI): I decided to go to war when I shouldn't have. Yes, there are many variations on this story, but most disasters begin with this one bad choice.

 

[6K Man]

Mini-disaster - I just screwed myself up a little bit. Was busy killing Cyrus, when he vassaled to Elizabeth (who was also busy killing him).

Him vassaling wouldn't be so bad if my carrier task force (4 loaded carriers, 3 Battleships, 6 Destroyers, 2 Subs w/ 3 missiles each, 2 Attack Subs) hadn't gotten culture-locked into a 2 tile stretch of ocean outside the last Persian city I captured. Cyrus is in no mood to open his borders.

I'm also at war with America, and FDR's ships are merrily bombarding my cities, pillaging my seafood, and generally being anuses. That task force would have come in handy (now it has to sit and wait until I'm ready to take on Liz).

 

[Silu]

Mini-disaster - I just screwed myself up a little bit. Was busy killing Cyrus, when he vassaled to Elizabeth (who was also busy killing him).

Him vassaling wouldn't be so bad if my carrier task force (4 loaded carriers, 3 Battleships, 6 Destroyers, 2 Subs w/ 3 missiles each, 2 Attack Subs) hadn't gotten culture-locked into a 2 tile stretch of ocean outside the last Persian city I captured. Cyrus is in no mood to open his borders.

I'm also at war with America, and FDR's ships are merrily bombarding my cities, pillaging my seafood, and generally being anuses. That task force would have come in handy (now it has to sit and wait until I'm ready to take on Liz).

Gifting that city back to Persia could work. Sounds like it's not contributing too much to your empire's prosperity as it is.

 

[6K Man]

Gifting that city back to Persia could work. Sounds like it's not contributing too much to your empire's prosperity as it is.

I might just do that, although I am busy airlifting units into it against the day that Cyrus and Vicky get their just desserts. Might be more valuable as a bridgehead, frankly.

 

[binhthuy71]

After a years-long hiatus from playing Civ I loaded up the new-to-me BtS and started a game at my old level. Everything went fine until an Apostolic Palace vote to declare holy war on my next door neighbor, Genghis, with whom I'd successfully cultivated good diplo relations. Without knowing the consequences I clicked "Never". On the next turn I was at war with three other civs. I don't remember who won, I do remember who lost.

 

[r_rolo1]

My worst military disaster ....

Well, I would had been happily surprised if we had won this one But AI with nukes in AW is definitely not a pretty sight

 

[banson]

i lost my last game to japan. it was a highlands game and i had 4 citys. i thought every thing was ok for the moment but i had bad relations with japan. and after he killed mongolia and was busy killing purtugal, i knew i was next. theb barbs practicly was killing every one else so it was just me and port that could stay alive. yeah this was like turn 500 or so on a mara speed game. i built enough pratorians or so i thought. soon enough im fighting for my life with toko and lost 2 citys fast. one was a good prod city. well 2 citys left could make enough units to defend and no matter how many he threw at them he couldnt kill the pratorians.
but after like 10 sod hits on my capital with cats and everything else i just gave it up cause i knew i would lose once he was able to bring macemen to bare.

he jst expanded at a huge pace and had 10 citys or more by that time.

 

[Zero-Sum]

Your military was pwned by Gandhi ? I would so kill myself in shame.

I was surprised, early in that same game he declared war on Pacal on his own and took one of his cities.