My saddest discovery

solo · May 20, 2001, 22:20

My saddest discovery came one night well after my bedtime, a moment after clicking “buy it”. Most of my gold was gone, and I had just completed Cure for Cancer instead of the last few shields of a spaceship structural.

What’s yours?

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It is more pleasant to live in the corner of a housetop,
than in a wide house with a brawling woman.

finbar · May 20, 2001, 23:00

A long time ago. The first time someone else discovered Magnetism, extinguishing my Lighthouse wonder, while I had a number of triremes out in the ocean miles from any land.

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Founder, ACS Pedantry Institute
Founder, ACS Gourmet Recipe Exchange
Horse and Hydey Wrangler
Mono Rules!
#33984591

Rufus T. Firefly · May 21, 2001, 01:28

Well, I can't count the number of times I've "accidently" built the Oracle because I start a city on it intending to switch to the Wonder I really want, then forget to do so. But that's not sad, it's just dumb. No, my saddest discovery was in the first game that I won at deity, when I discovered that, regardless of my spotless reputation, regardless of my possession of the UN, regardless of my peace treaties with one and all, everyone will sneak attack me, using nukes if they've got 'em, a turn before I land on AC. Goodbye, population, hello pollution, goodbye high score.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder
[This message has been edited by Rufus T. Firefly (edited May 21, 2001).]

rah · May 21, 2001, 08:46

1. Missing the Odeo year, not once, not twice but three times in an MP game. I swear it wasn't the beer.

2. I sometimes sleep my catapults when they're in cities. Once while obviously not paying attention. Built a ship, slept the pikeman and settler, moved the ship across the ocean, discovered a great city site on a mountain with two whales in reach. (and not being used) It was almost in the middle of an opponents territory who didn't have Mapmaking so couldn't see the two whales. Great place to build a city and launch some heavy harrassment raids. Anyway, I go to move the units off the ship and lo and behold, all I have on the ship is a pikeman and a catapult. Bummer. I swear it wasn't the beer.

3. Early ship cruising along with two diplos. Move up to enemy city to establish an embassy and hopefully choose a tasty tech. By accident move the ship instead of the diplos, ship attacks city and loses. Three units lost, and no embassy or tech.

I swear it wasn't the beer.

4. While routinely trading maps with one person during an MP game, clicking the wrong civ and trading maps with your opponents. OK, this one was probably because of the beer.

5. AND my most common, forgetting to unfortify a unit that was laying a trap for a retreating barb king, so the barb king gets away. Or chasing a barb king for 7 turns and finally corner him against the sea and having him dissapear. Or new barbs showing up to cover him and destroy your two chasers. Now, beer may be blamed for the unfortify but had absolutely nothing to do with last two.

RAH
There does sound like there is a moral here, but I can't see it. (thanks to the beer)

La Fayette · May 21, 2001, 09:20

Rah's list is 5 items long (without beer).
Mine would be 500 (with beer and wine and brandy).
No spamming allowed.

rah · May 21, 2001, 10:01

Well, list the top 5 for our amusement.

RAH
OK

Blaupanzer · May 23, 2001, 16:42

Gone to all the trouble of building/launching a carrier with bombers on patrol to protect it; then moving the carrier before recovering last turn's bombers. The game seems to be mocking me as the sound of planes going into the drink comes from my speakers. Also using a nuke to search for a ship that I know is out there (I use like RPVs) and accidentally nuking it. I wanted to know where it was, not waste a nuke on it! Doh!

War4ever · May 23, 2001, 19:20

leaving that unit fortified in your opponents territory for a millenium without a stacked partner...i swear it wasnt' the weed.

moving your caravan away from the city instead of into the city.... i swear it wasn't the weed.

sentry that trireme with caravans and forget to move them for the trade bonus...... i swear it wasnt' the weed.

using the caravan for a trade route instead of rushing the wonder, i swear it wasnt the weed.

trying to steal tech with a civ that you have an embassy with and forgetting that they have no new tech... that point in the game its probably the weed.

i could go on but i can't type anymore ...... its probably the weed

rah · May 23, 2001, 20:46

LOL, Ethnic C, or is it war beaver, or is it war4ever or is it the Mongols, I keep forgetting, it must be the beer.

Well except for "sentry that trireme with caravans" i've done all the others, CUI Civing Under the Influence.

Rich
I hear this still counts as a post.

Scouse Gits · May 24, 2001, 05:46

Are we really restricted to five?[list=1][*]Losing the oedo crib[*]Finding the crib and then missing the year (twice) - rah: when I miss it three times I define it as an 'experimental game'

[*]Sending a caravan on a scenic long-cut through the nearest mountain[*]Forgetting to reload the cargo when a transport dashes through a canal city[*]Moving a ship chain element the wrong way

[/list=1]
I suspect the depths of our miskeying are as yet unplumbed ...

rah · May 24, 2001, 08:50

Yes, after printing out over a dozen crib sheets, I finally bookmarked the thread and keep netscape running when I play so I can switch over and look. I always remember them for monarchy, but get confused when it's time for republic. Definately CUI.

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=17:27

RAH

Campo · May 25, 2001, 13:23

In my very early days:

Working on a wonder -- I think it was Adam Smith -- when I got the message that an AI civ had just built it. I went into the wonder city screen and saw that I still had the option to buy it. So I figured maybe I could supercede the AI and blew my whole treasury to rush-buy it. The game let me spend all my money on it but still gave the wonder to the AI civ.

I shouldn't have expected to steal the wonder, but I felt cheated that it let me waste all my money.

Howitzer Al · May 25, 2001, 13:40

My saddest discovery would have to be that I've been playing CivII for 3 hours and my wife is getting angry.

Blaupanzer · May 25, 2001, 13:42

Campo, your NEXT wonder is pre-built. Small compensation.

Campo · May 25, 2001, 13:53

Now that you mention it, the situation was aggravated (and so was I) by the fact that there was no other wonder currently available. I ended up leaving that city wasting shields for a couple dozen turns until I got a new wonder tech.

Bereta_Eder · May 25, 2001, 22:18

My saddest discovery was during my first game of Civ 2.

Some civ managed to launch their spaceship before me.
I thought there wasn't any problem because I could capture their capital and the spaceship would return (like it happens in civ 1).

I spent the rest of the game chasing their capital which was changing all the time.

They finally relocated in an island in the middle of nowhere just 1 years before their spaceship laneded on AC

shade · May 26, 2001, 05:54

my saddest discovery?

first:that it is impossible to get an alliance with one of the AI-players(maybe except when you give him anything you have)and that they make alliances against me like it is the simplest thing in the world.(this means when attacking one of them you get a world war against you)

second:the AI seems to know everything,having a civilization with over 100 cities and 99 of them have SDI they succeed in nuking just that 1 city(no other unit or spy has been near that city since it was build)

third:the AI seems to be building stuff at only half the cost I have

Juggler · May 26, 2001, 11:54

My saddest discovery:
1) assembling a huge army for thousands of years, getting ready to attack America from Europe. Later I found out that the Americans and the Aztecs were small and weak, mainly because of their wars. I had no fun at all in that game.
2) I searched all of Asia and Africa for Vikings, not realizing that they just might have been in Scandinavia

Dry · May 28, 2001, 07:38

My saddest discovery is one or two years old. I discovered that I played so many years underestimating the power of WLTLeaderD in governments like Monarchy, Communism and Fundamentalism.
I had to play SMAC to discover the power of the Golden Age. I then went back to Civ to see that it is as powerfull here.
I started with Communism and found it was easier to maintain WLTKD than I expected, so I tried it also with Monarchy.
Later (six month ago), I had to play the eastwind, rain scenario to discover that WLTHighPriestD *was* possible in fundamentalism (I always thought that in fundamentalism there was no unhappy, no happy people, just content, making all WLTLD impossible).

I am now trying to develop an 'early fundamentalism' strategy that seems to work quiet well.

Scouse Gits · May 28, 2001, 17:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Dry
I am now trying to develop an 'early fundamentalism' strategy that seems to work quiet well.

Doesn't it just ...

Caesar the Great · June 3, 2001, 00:39

1. Nuking the enemy tank right next to my city.... seemed like a good idea at the time...

2. Sending on fighters on suicide runs against bombers that had attacked my city, realizing they were one move short to reach.

3. My oponent was 2 turns from building Miches, I was 40 sheilds away, missing still 21 gold if I sold improvements... I got a caravan from a city that was only 2 road squares away, I was like oh yeah you're gonna lose sucker, I go to the city with the caravan...... I establish a trade route by accident....

4. Spilling coke on my keyboard right in the middle of a game, this caused weird effects, half my keys stopped working and half were locked down..... my comp went to hell and back again...

5. Landing 6 triremes full of vet crusaders next to an enemy city... THEN canceling the alliance....

Bereta_Eder · June 3, 2001, 12:36

LOL Ceasar hehehe

4 has happened to me too and it messed up my brand new microsoft internet explorer optical sensitivity state of the art mouse. Now it's crap.

mad max · June 8, 2001, 08:19

Ones I concered a City and thought about what to do with it. I decided to buy a Unit to defend it, bought a palast and changed the production to the unit I wanted. Ah, no I forgot to change that and the palast was build.
I didn´t care about this, it was the last turn for my spaceship to reach AC, so what could happen?
Next turn my new capital was concered and my spaceship was destroyed.

rixxe · June 8, 2001, 08:46

I was trying to conquer the spanish city of Madrid, to take control of the Leo's workshop. The whole spanish empire was located on a big island filled with jungle, so the only thing I wanted was LW,...

But, unfortunately, I destroyed the city,...

The Mad Monk · June 9, 2001, 12:26

This is actually a 'happy' discovery, but I just have to answer this:

Quote:

second:the AI seems to know everything,having a civilization with over 100 cities and 99 of them have SDI they succeed in nuking just that 1 city(no other unit or spy has been near that city since it was build)

Since SDI's have a three square range, it's possible for the SDI of one city to protect other cities, if the spacing is just a little tight. I once had a game where I put a city on a small island between two large cities, just to keep the AI from building there; a nuclear war happened, and this small city was one of a half-dozen without the SDI, and the closest one to the enemy civ. The AI tossed nuke after nuke at it, because it didn't have SDI, and nuke after nuke failed, because the larger cities had it covered with their SDI's.

It was fun to watch the AI waste soooo many nukes...

My saddest discovery to date is that rush-building in each and every city in a single turn with an 'extra large' civ makes for and exceptionally long and boring 'next' turn...

rah · June 19, 2001, 08:28

Shameless bump.

There are too many good stories in this thread for it to fall to page 2.

I would love to hear some stories from the zoners. (Oh, that's right, they're so good they never make mistakes)

RAH

Campo · June 19, 2001, 13:10

Okay, I've got another one that I've done a couple times.

I move several catapult and a few musketeers up to a hill or forest one square outside an AI capitol. I fortify my musketeers because my settlers haven't built a fort yet, and I'll lose the whole stack if one of them gets defeated. (I don't attack the same turn because, even with roads, the catapults lose attack points when they move.)

My musketeers withstand whatever attack the AI mounts during its turn.

The next turn I attack with the catapult wave, the final one capturing the city. In my self-satisfaction, I forget to activate the musketeers to move them into the city. I hit "enter" a second before realizing my mistake.

During the AI's turn an archer kills my lone defending catapult, recaptures the city, and the AI takes gunpowder. My 500-year military tech advantage evaporates immediately.