Worst Random Events

[Helghallen]

I listen to the stories, I relate to my own experience, and I laugh about it. I think of them as funny little stories that people share. We revel in our collective misfortune and we laugh at each other's misery, then we start a new game. You can turn them off, or not, but if you leave them on you really have to laugh when that volcano goes off for the third time, no?

Decided to turn them on, the "good" ones are fun. Never seem to happen enough though. Wonder if someone could code that in?

I've had vesuvius on my continent/island go off 3+ times in one game...freaking annoying. The increased range on fighters is fun though....

 

[attackfighter]

I don't play to win or anything, so I like them. They make the early game a bit more exciting, and they rarely screw me over so badly that I quit, so they do more harm than good to me.

 

[Powerslave]

Hey, I play with events on, and I love events. The only event that really pisses me off is the barb uprising, because it's so unfair (not to me, but to everyone). Sometimes, when I get the event, the barbs just wander off to my closest neighbor, and he gets hit by them. That's just as unfair as when it happens to me. So, I've thought often about just disabling that one event. Maybe I finally will, since it's so stupidly coded.

When you've got the Great Wall, however, you usually end up praying for a barb uprising, just so that you can laugh hysterically as everyone else in the world gets slaughtered, one by one, by that single barb event.

I loved the event system in Alpha Centauri, and I'm glad to see it make a belated comeback.

 

[Kanzera]

Once, I had the worst luck with the tornado event...I had a wheat farm, and it got destroyed by that event about 5 times in one game. It was so annoying...

And another time, a really weird thing happened. It was about 3800 BC, and I got the event with the "soldiers returning home from the war and are celebrating with a baby boom," and I was like, What war? It's 3800 BC; I haven't even met anyone yet!

 

[attackfighter]

Alpha Centauri events were best, there weren't a whole lot of them and they were all pretty cool. The only one I really hated was that solar storm one, that destroys all your orbital defence pods (I think that's what they were called...).

 

[chris.]

On my first Monarch game, I had just founded my third city when a random event caused 4 barbarian spears to form at my border, razing the city guarded by only 1 warrior.

 

[r_rolo1]

Alpha Centauri events were best, there weren't a whole lot of them and they were all pretty cool. The only one I really hated was that solar storm one, that destroys all your orbital defence pods (I think that's what they were called...).

Are you sure? I have some pretty rough memories of getting my core cities being hit by a meteor

 

[attackfighter]

A meteor

Well I don't remember that, although I only played vanilla so maybe its an alien crossfire thing?

 

[r_rolo1]

No, it was there since the beginning. Basically inserts a Garland Crater somewhere in the planet. If you are really unlucky, that place is the core of your empire

 

[attackfighter]

But Garland crater is the crash site of the space ship (Garland was the captain), so it should be there before your empire.

 

[Pembroke]

Unless you enjoy an event titled "you lose" that simply exits the map for you, you can't possibly argue in favor of the current barb uprisings.
...
Seriously, perilously little care was taken in the creation and balance of random events.

So true. Even surviving you are crippled at that early stage where the compounding growth matters most. Pointless to continue so it's truly a drawing the "surprise - you lost!" random card which is just stupid.

The idea of barbarian uprisings itself is kinda neat, though, and if it wasn't a game breaker it would be cool. Surprise war, excitement, risk, stirring up the game situation -- all the elements are there. The implementation just sucks.

What would be a "good" barbarian uprising? I mean in the sense that it would still be a major shaker event but without causing the automatic loss.

Would it work better if it didn't target a single civ but all civs equally? The barbarians aren't really a player in the game. You don't play against them as you do with the other civs. Barbarians are more like part of the game board. So, what if in a barbarian uprising event every civ in the world gets simultaneously their own equal sized hordes targeting them? They would still have to be survivable hordes, of course, but because they attacked all civs at the same time it wouldn't be an automatic loss event. Everyone would suffer major losses but that's ok from the game balance point-of-view because it's everyone and not just you. I think that major random events in a game can be big events and have those grand "stir the pot" effects. They just shouldn't be game killers.

Is such a mod possible? And more to the point: would it work the way it should?

 

[Renner]

I've been playing with random events off recently. Kind of sucks since some of them are decent, but i've lost too many forges to fires and mines to collapses to want to turn them back on.

 

[fantsu]

is there a complete list of all random events somewhere?

 

[r_rolo1]

But Garland crater is the crash site of the space ship (Garland was the captain), so it should be there before your empire.

I used the wrong words. It inserts another crater area in the planet, that is graphically alike to the Garland crater... as there is another SMAC event that inserts another volcano besides Mount Planet ( that one is normally not too bad because it normally happens in the sea )

 

[Zero-Sum]

lol last game the English and their lonely London where destroyed by you gussed it, barbarians. Do all events occur for AI players too ?

 

[DMOC]

Yes they do.

 

[sydhe]

That's why you sometimes see a civilization die in 3700 BC. They got hit by the Vedic Warrior event.

 

[KaytieKat]

lol last game the English and their lonely London where destroyed by you gussed it, barbarians. Do all events occur for AI players too ?

Hi

For me events like that can be THE worst. I dont mind events really and kinda enjoy them. Ive had about like five games or so where because of an event at bad time I either lost or it just messed me up so bad I said heck with it and gave up (usually something like losing my forge when I am LITERALLY less than 5 turns from completeing collossus or lighthouse when THAT close to finishing GLH and either get set back like 20 plus turns to rebuild the forge of getting beat to GLH. Which isnt a HUGE percentage considering I must have played like SEVERAL hundred games by now.

But by FAR the toughest games have happened where one civ gets wiped out by barbies then their closest neighbor gets HUGE. Their was one streak where Poor Izzy had it happen to her like 3 times in a row. But what made it bad for me was in two of those games instead of expanding she focused on building stonehenge and founding religions so fater beuilding henge and founding two in one game and 3 in other. She lost her empire to barbies and then by time I got to that landmass in one Ghengis and in another JC had HUGE 60 plus city empires fuled by dbl or triple shrined cities. Tallk about annoying hehe.

Kaytie

 

[CHEESE!]

I think that for a huge Barb uprising, they should all gather at a particular spot- Barbarian city or just FoW. And it should reveal that tile for you, and all other players. Then you would have time (if it were not too near the capital) to build defences, and you would know where they were coming from.

 

[Helghallen]

Have come across the "citizens of X have taken to the hills after you razed their city" event. Right now I'm really enjoying that one as its free XP for me basically, but I could see that one being a PitA.