Biggest mistake you made

[Qwertqwert]

I declared war on someone who had defensive pacts with 4 people. I didn't know they had defensive pacts with anybody.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
I declared war on someone who had defensive pacts with 4 people. I didn't know they had defensive pacts with anybody.

That's not a mistake

It just saves you the trouble of having to declare war on them all individually

[Veritass]

My biggest "Doh!" moments:

1. I was playing the Russians, and falling behind, so I was beelining and going for a Cossack run to try and make a comeback. I didn't have horses and figured I would trade for them when I got close to being able to make Cossacks. They only problem was that there were no horses on the entire planet. Game over.

2. I played a one-city challenge on a standard-sized map, and was doing quite well. My original city was on a nice landmass (think Madrid on the Iberian peninsula). I was starting to get beaten back, because the other civs weren't limited to one city. I wasted two dozen turns researching flight and building several planes, before I realized my planes could not touch anything. I had destroyed any cities that were within bombing range, and I wasn't on the coast so I couldn't build a carrier to move them on. I finished this one out, but it was mainly a stalemate to the end.

[samspock]

My biggest mistake that I have repeted a few times is going for a CS slingshot, building a library and only after I finish the oracle do I realize I forgot to set up any Scientist specialists in the library city, so no GS! Doh.

I was wondering why researching COL took so looooong!

[DrSpike]

I'm sorry I can't think of one.

[Badtz Maru]

I'm always forgetting to switch civics after building the Pyramids or slingshotting to Civil Service. If it's a significant period of time, I'll get so frustrated at the loss of turn advantage that I'll scratch that game and start over.

[samspock]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
I'm always forgetting to switch civics after building the Pyramids or slingshotting to Civil Service. If it's a significant period of time, I'll get so frustrated at the loss of turn advantage that I'll scratch that game and start over.

I have done that too. Usually happens when you get the civic but cannot switch yet because of a too recent switch so you forget you can. I miss switching on Pyramids a lot when I capture it.

[Arrian]

I've switched to Organized Religion but have forgotten to actually convert to a religion! I typically don't convert right away (to avoid early diplo hits until the benifits of the religion - needed happiness, civics) catch up to the downside of being an infidel.

-Arrian

[Adagio]

The biggest mistakes I can think of right now is this:

A few times I have saved up a great engineer so I can finish a wonder, but I often forget about the GE until I'm close to finishing it
One time I saved this GE for a very long time, trying to get some inventions that makes it possible to build a wonder, but me being too stupid to actually look at which wonders has been built I got lots of techs where the wonders had been built already (I would have researched other techs if it wasn't because of the wonder-hunt)... in the end I finally chose to merge the GE in one of my cities, and the next turn I get a new GE

[Solver]

I hate this one. Discovered the tech for some civic I wanted (Free Market?). Didn't change to it immediately, as I couldn't afford an Anarchy just then, I wanted to wait for some 3 turns. Of course, then I promptly forgot to switch at all, for quite a while.

[TheArsenal]

Not often, but often enough, I fall into the same trap: Land Greed. I carefully plan a war only to expand past my original goals and move on to gobble up a few more tempting cities - mass unit loss, war weariness, declining coffers, depleted defenses, cities in danger of flipping, is usually my punishment.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Arrian
I've switched to Organized Religion but have forgotten to actually convert to a religion! I typically don't convert right away (to avoid early diplo hits until the benifits of the religion - needed happiness, civics) catch up to the downside of being an infidel.

-Arrian

Similarly, switched to Theocracy for the unit experience bonus, but didn't have a religion yet. Kept wondering why religions were spreading to the civs around me but not to my cities. As my happiness became essentially unmanageable, it dawned on me: it was my own civic choice that was keeping any of my cities from getting a religion. Doh!

[Bobtoad]

For repeated mistakes I always forget to switch civics when I want to if it doesn't pop up with the question box (i.e. after building the Pyramids).

The biggest mistake though? It came during a hot seat game with my girlfriend just after I had gotten the game. I played on Noble but only put her on Chieftan or Warlord, can't remember. But she got two settlers, a couple workers, and a ton of technology from huts. Added in with Kublai's creative borders her point lead was impossible to catch. She certainly rubbed it in too (even though I had a better empire, she only understood the point representation she saw). And I couldn't even declare war or she might've gotten a sour taste of the game and not have fallen in love with it. *sigh* Never again do I allow people to play on lower difficulties!