Your experiences with random events?

[axident]

Civ ripped some of those random events off of Master of Magic, the best game of its time and still a great game even by today's standards. MoM may have ripped it off someone else of course.

 

[Bongo-Bongo]

That's really powerful. I've only had that free Shock to existing and new Pikemen. Was that for all units too, or only existing, or only new?

The promotion came to all melee units, both existing and new. It was a very pleasent suprise, especially as Sitting Bull was one of my neighbours.

 

[civictor]

My first game it seemed like events were there to torment me since they were pretty much all bad. Then I started saving gold to choose options and statistics have been better over more games. On the whole, I think events are to your advantage if you have gold to select the best choices.

 

[Javewa]

I'm pretty sure that means your Corporation adds 40 to its host city's gold output modified by buildings. That's 120 per turn in a Wall Street city, which isn't too shabby.

Ah, you could be right. I took a look at the xml files and it said something about "profits expected to skyrocket". 80-120 /turn would actually be worth a war or two.

Note to self: More reading, less clicking...


Got the Meele Promotion for all Axemen in my current game. Too bad I was alone on a whole continent and didn't see anyone 'til Astronomy.

 

[sydhe]

I see the burning forest oprion quite a bit. I'd rather have burning jungles, of course.

I've twice gotten the larger shields to protect me against archers. Got the barbarian uprising once, didn't see them for a long time and thought they'd gone off to attack someone else. Then five swordsmen appeared out of nowhere near my only copper supply. Oh-Oh.

 

[Michael17J]

I think one's bugged - the Holy Mountain quest. I was England, 6 cities on the mainland, I especially settled Ireland (3 cities) and south-coast America (a lot more than I'm used to) for this quest, I had far more than the 22 temples (a monsastry counted for four, or three, too), yet I still wasn' t told where it was. Incredibly annoying - enough to make me turn them off next time.

My London factory burned down, so I increased safety instead of spending 100 gold to re-build.

A fire burned down my theatre two turns later, killing some of the audience. I chose to re-build rather than investigate.

The Arabs were at war with someone, apparently, and celebrated the end of war with a baby boom.

There was a barbarian uprising, which I sent some Red Coats to quell, near Greece.

Not a nice night for my capital, but everywhere else has had a good time. (I can't stand the Holy Mountain Quest; it's impossible. I fulfilled the conditions at least twice over.)

I also had my entire army strike, costing me money - the units still defended the cities when I told them to.

 

[Lord_Azazel]

did you still have the quest in the quest log?

 

[dh_epic]

If I can make it out of the ancient era in decent shape, they're a lot of fun.

 

[Martinus]

I love the events. The most pleasant surprise so far for me was when I went to war against Hannibal, who at this time was the owner of the holy city of Confucianism (my state religion) - the event "Crusade" popped out, with my holy leaders entrusting me with a quest to liberate the Holy Confucian City from the infidel. Don't know what the reward is since I have not completed it yet (plan to continue the save tonight) but it was a hell of a "wow, that's great" moment.

 

[Martinus]

This is a odd one. What has the Statue of Zeus to do with Colosseums?

Olympic games were celebrated in the name of Zeus, King of Gods.

 

[Don Euclid]

I love these events. Here's a few of good ones...

"Your people have domesticated prairie dogs and are selling them as exotic pets!"
They only give you one choice there, the equivalent of "Umm... that's good, right?" +1 gold in that plains square.

The "Horse Whisperer" quest is fragging awesome. It challenges you to build 7 stables in seven cities you control. When you complete the quest, you get one of three choices:
1) Use your new knowledge of equines to recruit Horse Archers (You get 7(!) free horse archers immediately in your capital)
2) Upgrade all existing mounted units with the "Sentry" promotion.
3) Put your uberhorses to work - every city with a stable gets an extra food per turn.

There's a "mercy to the enemy" quest that can sometimes show up in the best situations. I was stalemated with Monty over some blasted piece of crud city and wanted peace - of course... he's Monty... no peace. Then an event pops up, something like this:
"A benevolent gesture toward the Mongolian wounded by your troops leaves a chance for peace." Declare peace?
Well... yes. Not only did I get peace, it gave me a +1 "Events have brought us together" bonus with Monty.

 

[RedRalph]

Yeah I've got lucky a few times with wars ending, I think the RE are well balanced between good and bad, even the worst ones arent going to cripple you, the best ones arent going to catapult you into the lead if you arent doing well already. Also the incentiuve to have gold reserves is interesting. I've got a 25% reduction in inflation in my present game, cause the relevant RE came up right before I was going to do a mass upgrade. Very handy.

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

in the current game im playing, saladin got a good random event almost every 5 turns. as a result he leaped frogged me in the points and now has a 200point lead. i on the other hand have only had a handful of random events. most of them forest fires and such like. ahh well!

 

[scu98rkr]

The Colosseum one gives you a choice of

Colloseums +4 culture
a Golden age
and something else could of been a great artist

I didnt have the statue of Zeus

 

[AriochIV]

Many of the negative events allow you to pay gold to prevent their effects, so the negative effect is minimal.

 

[Grey Fox]

I love them! - makes you have to make more choices. Do I save up some cash in case there is an emergency, or do I risk it? Etc.

 

[Huxley Hobbes]

I love random events. They really add something to the game, and the fact that many of them offer options for you, and that there are both good and bad events, helps a lot. Plus, I dig the missions, even if they don't seem to scale with map size.

 

[Pikkis]

I had one that gave all my melee units the cover promotion for free. I've also had one that gave me the option to add several beakers to my current research, or add one beaker per turn to the library in the city.

I've also has some stinkers. In my game as the Khmer, I got tired of smokers burning down my theatre, and in my first game, bandits kept destroying the same rice paddy over and over again.

EDIT: It wasn't the shock promotion that my melee units received but the cover promotion. I just got the two muddled up.

I also had that beaker random event. Which one you took? I took Library adds +1 beaker per turn. You edited the post. That explains. All melee Shock would have been much better than Pikeman Shock (Cover is still much better, but there aren't two versions of same promoting, one minor and one major, according to posts this far).

Olympic games were celebrated in the name of Zeus, King of Gods.

That's true, but Colosseum was Roman, not Greek. They should have Amphitheatre building (renamed Colosseum) and Flavian Amphitheatre WW. They would make more sense in the quest.

 

[sneaky]

I like the new random events. They give the game something special, that makes replayability greater and adds flavor.

 

[Onagan]

I had bad experiences with events, mostly bad ones, sometime good ones. the last event i had i lost my Destroyer + Warlord unit
I quit the game and start three days later agian, this time without it.