Your most embarrassing mistakes...

[DynamicSpirit]

Go on - own up. I bet everyone's done something really silly at some point while playing civ. And I want a laugh

FWIW, here's mine:

1. Switching to theology to get the XP in my units when I didn't actually have any religion in my main unit-building cities.

2. Razing a captured city coz I thought it was too close to one of my existing cities. Except I'd completely miscounted the squares separating them - there was actually no overlap at all in the two city radii. About 10 turns later I was somewhat sheepishly founding a new city on the exact same square as the razed one.

3. Founding a city in the early game specifically to take advantage of the perceived production bonus of 3 ivory in its radius. Except the ivory was on desert, the only other squares in the city radius were hills, plains, and sea. There was not a single square around capable of producing more than 2 food, and therefore no way to ever work the ivory squares without killing growth. (In my defence this was back in late November, I'd only had Civ4 for about 2 weeks. I don't think I'd make the same mistake now...)

 

[thordk]

hm, common one: rush pyramids and then forget to switch civics for 2000 years ^^

 

[Bevertje]

beelining to a tech and not using that civic/building you research for 100 turns, common one


I once had almost an entire island for myself, but the americans build a city on my shore. Without checking his power, I attacked the city, only to be invaded 5 turns later and losing the game 30 turns later.

 

[9mmjustice]

I had generated a great merchant, I decided to drop it of on the far side of hatshepsut's continant and "explor" its way to her capitol for a trade mission. she had not cleared all her barbarions, and sure enough they ate my great merchant. embarrassing and heart breaking. I was sick.

 

[diablodelmar]

In order to win a domination victory with the turns ticking down steadily, I massed an army on my allies shores (he was on an island, with his borders not leaving any square free on the whole island) with the intention of launching a surprise assault on his city. I declared war on him---to find that my entire force of 15+ modern armour and mech infantry had been sent back to the nearest availible neutral square, about 25 squares away across the entire flipping ocean!

 

[Brighteye]

same again, not changing civics.
I get one, say to myself 'in a few turns when such a city has finished its build' and then forget for 500 years.

Another favourite: I'm throwing units at a city, and the computer selects the incredibly experienced unit I'm saving to get XP from the last defender on 2 health, and I throw him in without realising I wanted to keep him. Oops, time to start going for West Point all over again.

 

[Willem]

I once had almost an entire island for myself, but the americans build a city on my shore. Without checking his power, I attacked the city, only to be invaded 5 turns later and losing the game 30 turns later.

I had a similar one. 2 civs at once tried to build a city on the fringes of my empire, after 2 more had already tried earlier. When I attacked them both, I suddenly found myself at war with 2 other civs who decided that they were tired of me declaring war on their friends. Since I had already been at war with 2 more civs before all this happened, that put me at 6 civs against 1. Needless to say the game didn't last long after that.

 

[Possibility]

My worst mistake:

In a multiplayer game I took Elizabeth, a philosophical civ, built the parthenon, great library and heroic epic in my capital very quickly, and then shot straight to philosphy tech to switch to the philosphy civic to get the +100% great person growth rate. All of this went well, but 2000 yrs after getting philopshy I realized I didnt have a single religion yet, and they were all taken and I was on an island alone. With no religion, the philosphy civic was getting me no bonus, just the extra cost to keep my units around

Possibility

 

[automator]

In a recent game I was UN Secretary General, but everyone hated me. I was kind of rushing through the game and concentrating my energies on my massive war machine, crushing civ after civ, hoping for at least a domination win.

Unfortunately, when the "Put measure up for voting" screen came up, I mistakenly selected the diplomatic win ...

My hopes were crushed in the next turn when Hatshepsut won the diplo win with everyone's votes except mine. Whoops.

 

[Karnor]

Watching my opponent bring a stack of units next to my city and thinking I'd better deal with that, but first I'll just sort out this worker over here. Sort out worker and press turn...

 

[ditb]

I still automate workers, so that may well be considered a running mistake.

I also tend to click the wrong button when moving units, sending them in the wrong direction and whatnot.

On a bigger scale, when I was playing my first game, I was going for a cultural victory. Unfortunately I only went with the first civics I had access to, and my culture didn't quite cut it.

Spaceship for the victory, though.

 

[bobtheflob]

For some reason I thought I had 2 warriors in my capitol when I only had 1. I built a settler and sent the warrior to escort it to my second city. About 10 turns later the first barbarians appeared by my capitol and only then did I realize it was unguarded. That was one of the few times I've loaded an autosave.

 

[cthom]

right! now i'm going to build knights and trample those ****s. where's my horses???????

 

[Traflagar]

With me it's always forgetting to upgrade the units in at least one of my cities, usually with an improtant resource and have it taken by an enemy with tanks up against a warrior and an archer. Or something stupid like that.

 

[EmperorQuaestor]

A classic from all the way back (Civ1):

Building a battleship (or other major unit) to patrol a lake hardly big enough for it to turn around in.

 

[thordk]

just remembered one mistake:

i was at war with saladin for pretty long as cesar declares. after some rounds i settled peace with both and pushed out some more units. planning to get rid of isabella and saladin at once. war with isabella went so well i declared war on saladin during this war... i should have checked the diplomacy screen. saladin and cesar had went for a defensive pack. and cause i was at war with 3 civs by this time, huayna and monty decided to join the fun.
has been a nice world war and i lost 30% of my cities Oo

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yeah yeah! I know it's spelled "Trafalgar". My bad tpying and speling caused that error. I was pretty surprised that nobody already had that name.....it appears that they did.

LOL! Good one! That is so ironic given the topic of this thread

 

[Jarrod32]

Similar to one mentioned in the first post...I was waiting for some religion to come to my civ so I could adopt and spread it...I finally got a religion in a few of my cities...I switched to 'Organized Religion' because I was going to be building a lot of city improvements...well...I did get some missionaries built and got the religion spread through my empire, but I forgot to actually assign a 'state religion'...so I was running a high-cost civic with no benefits for many, many turns...

 

[Mordraken]

Ahh, these stories warm the cockles of my cockles... I though I was the only one to do things like not upgrade units, press the "end turn" button my mistake, or forget to build military.

My personal worst was when I was leading by a wide margin in a game, and around 1950, decided to invade a neigbouring island-nation. I figured I had the technology to take him down, so I devoted my massive machine to producing military, all the while maintaining my science output. After a long back-and-forth battle for a beachead, I finally got one of his cities, and got my bombers. I lowered my science for about 3 turns to upgrade units, and then went along my merry way - only to notice that my ally Mana Musa was building spaceship components. I slowed my military production to develop spacship components while continuing my offensive... after-all - I had a 1000 point lead over Mana Musa. I continued to roll, and eventually had half my rival's nations, with 8 turns left, I was going to finish my last component in 3 turns (after having to wait for some technologies to be able to develop parts). Mana Musa finished the spaceship on his turn, and I lost the game to a space race... 3 turns short of my completion and with over a 1000 point lead.

 

[cthom]

A classic from all the way back (Civ1):

Building a battleship (or other major unit) to patrol a lake hardly big enough for it to turn around in.

in civ1 that's not a mistake, but good strategy! i did that to massacre enemy land units: battleship (18pts?) v infantry= no contest