don't you hate it when...

[QuantumPion]

You have a game that seems to be going well, you have good city placements and had an early lead in tech, but then for some reason everything just goes to crap and all the AI's just springboard ahead? That's how my latest game is going. I did the civil service bee-line successfully, and got alphabet first and used it to get trade for all the earlier techs. But land-wise I got boxed in bad.

Now I managed to whoop the ass of my nearest neighbor, but I'm still in last place by a wide, wide margin. It's 1000 ad and my score is only 800, the other AI's are 1800 and 2000. This is on monarch, by the way.

Anyway I figured even if I beat my two nearest neighbors I'll be so far behind the others I wouldn't have a chance. So before quitting for good, I opened the worldbuilder to take a look at the rest of the map. Egads my starting location was even worse then I thought! It was a miracle I made it as far as I did! Most of the other AI's had clear, large, contiguous areas to spread in, each have 8-12 cities without having to war with each other. Meanwhile, me and my two neighbors are stuck in a tiny penninsula less then a third the size total of the other AI's individually, and I am smack stuck in the middle. No wonder! Maybe my next game I'll have better luck.

[xxFlukexx]

Yes, I am disappointed in the Pangaea map generator(dunno what map type you used though), I rountinely find small islands or very weird shapes and large lakes. I select low sealevel and still get some weird map shapes.

I find that the balnced map type under custom game is the most fair land map available. Although sometimes you do get 100% screwed and it places you surrounded by tundra or jungle or desert. Lakes and other 100% land maps are good, but they are so huge that the AI gets a gigantic advantage by being able to settle many more cities than I could ever dream of while still teching like a fiend.

[Son of David]

Yes. It sometimes feels as if things are out of control. But even when I don't win (which is, admittedly, most of the time) a game can still give a few hours of fun, particularly when there are chances for early wars.

OTOH I haven't played through many satisfying industrial/modern periods, because it almost always descends into a tech/space race with no time to appreciate the various units.

[BigWilly1974]

I agree with the Space Race issue in the late game. While I've been toying with turning it off. Your point is right on the mark...as soon as you get the modern units in many games, you can't afford to build enough to wage war or you're probably going to lose the spacerace to someone.

[Veritass]

I have had this happen as well. You just need to understand that you may not always get to be king of the world, depending on the world you start with.

I have almost always been in the lead throughout the entire game; it is how I figure out if I am working the game correctly. However, it is times when I was not in the lead that I learned things. Kind of like a metaphor for life, eh?