Bad Habits

[rah]

When I first started playing, I didn't understand just how helpful it was. I could still win, but it took a heck of a lot longer. Now I know better.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

bad habits??

being the best player here should pretty much tell you I dont have any. Savage has a few... but that makes it fun!

[Mercator]

Originally posted by rah
That's the Cardinal Sin.

I know!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by My Wife Hates CIV
bad habits??

being the best player here should pretty much tell you I dont have any. Savage has a few... but that makes it fun!

Please, someone tell me that EyesOfSunshine isn't going to respond to this one.

[Specialist290]

My principal errors:

1. No trading (or only minimal, at least).

2. I try to build every improvement in every city with no real thought to the pros or cons.

3. I just build new cities in any location I think is good, not giving a thought about 4-special locations, building cities on isthmuses, etc.

This might explain why any game above Warlord is too tough for me (Right now I'm playing a Prince-level game to see if my desire to win can overcome my desire to do these dumb things.)

Habits that I no longer have:

1. Irrigating every Plains and Forest tile around every future city site before actually founding the city (including my first one).

2. Roading to every new city site (again, before I found the city).

3. Railroading every square because I had nothing left to do (though in the only game I got high enough to actually get Railroad, I had conquered most of the world and reduced all of my enemies to 2-3 cities).

4. Not having a coherent war strategy i.e. waging war like the AI.

5. Not building artillery units of any form (Catapult, Cannon, etc.; in fact, I usually built exclusively mounted units).

6. Always signing a peace treaty with AI civs and sticking to it through the rest of the game out of a sense of "honor" even though it makes me miserable.

[rah]

Originally posted by My Wife Hates CIV
bad habits??

being the best player here should pretty much tell you I dont have any. Savage has a few... but that makes it fun!

Who have you been practicing with.

[Elephant]

1. JOMT (Just One More Turn)...

2. Playing past 1am...

3. Neglecting family...

4. Thinking about Civ games during boring meetings...

5. Sucking fun out of Civ with late-game perfectionist micro-management...

That the kind of thing you were thinking about?

[-Jrabbit]

We all do those things...

[Elephant]

...doesn't make them GOOD habits...

[-Jrabbit]

I think the thread is meant to address matters of lazy or thoughtless playing style despite knowing better.

But your self-flagellation over game obsession and ignoring job and family for Civ is duly noted.

[Specialist290]

Another error I managed to come up with about my play style...

I often sadly neglect micromanaging my empire when I get to more than 20 cities. Sometimes in a game where I have around 60 cities (which has only actually happened once, mind you), I often will begin to WLTPD, then a few turns later wonder why my biggest city is on the brink of starvation when 6-7 turns ago it had a surplus of 11 food.

OOC: I think JOMT is common in all of us here (even the guy who's too young to drive, who happens to be posting this).

[rah]

Originally posted by Elephant
5. Sucking fun out of Civ with late-game perfectionist micro-management...

Try for a record points game and truely learn how to suck the fun out of the late game.

[Zedd]

1. I don't create three trade routes per city, i generally will not have much luck with trade, the largest bonus i have gotten is 300G and 5 beakers /turn. So I just stick to checking whats demanded and finding the largest city that will produce it.

2. I allways mess up ship chains.
3. I will loose intrest in the game about 1700-1800 just before My AC landing or military conquest, Iknow i am going to win so I stop playing for a while and next thing you know I have forgotten what I was dong in the game. I suppose i prefer the first 1500 years.
4. I don't make enough caravans to finish a wonder, I just use them to speed up the process.
5. I usually limit diplomacy to signing peace agreements, no tech trading, unless I want something

[Marid Audran]

Just finished my first Diety level game. Early game was the most difficult stage before it stream-lined into more familiar terrain during mid-game, and ipso facto felt more like an average Emperor game. I've actually had some Emperor games give me more trouble than this one.

I played the Japanese and was bequethed no special favors; started with NO technology. I was located on a medium-sized island with two neighbors, the Spanish and Sioux. Space tended to be at a premium and everyone wanted to infringe on everyone else's borders. Luckily I constricted my rivals and forged a larger bronze-age empire. War soon followed in the iron age though my rivals lacked weapons and numbers so they were muscled into the history books.

Taming unhappy citizens was a signifigant challenge in this game, even with the assistance of the wonders I had (Oracle, Michaelangelo's Chapel, J. S. Bach's Cathedral). Citizens started to become unhappy from pop one so quickly it was pointless to found a city without an accompanying military unit willing to stay there, and quickly rush-build a temple or phalanx before the city grew! Technology also came at a snail's pace. I b-lined to Monarchy, was able to trade along neglected tech lines with my short-lived neighbors, and snatch up the Great Library to appease all this.

Sometime in the 18th century I went straight to Democracy from Monarchy and never looked back; didn't even bother with Republic (felt like the old days of Civ I). I hate dealing with intermediary unrest and corruption whilst "waiting" for your government to re-form.

My only real rivals were the Celts a continent over with their own comprable empire. They become the standard enraged idiots you expect of the AI in the 20th century but other than that behaved themselves for the majority of the game.

A nice finish; my 40,000 colonist spaceship landed in 1958, I finished with a pop just shy of 40 million, and had a civ score of 167%, my highest to date!

[duke o' york]

At Deity the percentage score is much higher than at other levels. I can't remember exactly how the percentage is calculated from the Civ score you get, but the information will be on the site somewhere. There is a different modifier for each level so that a big score on Chieftain will get a percentage rating of much less than the same score on a higher level.

I think that in your next game then you should definitely go for the Hanging Gardens. This is the mainstay of most people's deity strategy, and avoids the problem whereby you have to stop founding cities because of the unhappiness. It'd be better to build the Gardens than the Library. You're right to go straight for Monarchy, but then Trade ought to be your next target.
These are just guidelines that can and should be adopted and amended depending upon each different game, but you'll find that they will set you up for a great chance of winning the game earlier and earlier. Then you can start to set yourself challenges....