What is the worst hammering you've ever had?

[godot]

I played a game recently on the medium premade world map and got HAMMERED! I got stuck starting on Australia and made three very early attempts at getting a foothold on another continent. Each time I got creamed because, apparently, I didn't kiss the other leaders' *sses enough to avoid getting obliterated. They were eveywhere with elephants and archers and.... It was horrible! I ended up resigning, sigh.

I'd like to hear your horror stories...

[finbar]

Sounds like you reckon Australia is a pile of crap to be escaped at all cost. Join the club.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by finbar
Sounds like you reckon Australia is a pile of crap to be escaped at all cost. Join the club.

LoL. I remember getting put on a south pole that was all glacier. Ouch. . In fact, I don't think it was possible to win. . Of course, in that game, I got Alpha, CoL, CB, Monarchy, BW, Currency, Trade, and HB Riding as starting techs.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

*sigh*

A while ago, not as long as I'd like to pretend, I was playing on the earth map, Civ 2.42 - 7 Civs. Started as the Aztecs and had nobody bothering me except the Germans, who started in South America (a restart, I think).

Now bearing in mind that this was in my 'peaceful expansion' phase, I figured I was all set. Lots of space, nobody bothering me... perfect. Except I kept getting messages that the Carthaginians (the b*st*rds) had started X or Y wonder. Naturally, I had stored up plenty of caravans for just such an emergency, so I still managed to grab the key wonders. The first real signs that I was in trouble were those Carthaginian ships cruising my shores - frigates, when I was still driving around in caravels. Those musketeers on my shores were pretty hard to get rid of, too... never saw _those_ before!

Anyway, to make a long story short, I was unable to eject the Carthaginians from my shores, and managed to lose some key cities (one with Colossus, and HG I believe) through some foolhardy attacks ("but there was only a tiny sliver of red left on his shield - he shoulda gone DOWN"). Before I gave up, I cheated and looked at the world map. Carthage was huge. I'm talking most of Africa, plus Europe, stretching into India and Russia. I don't remember the city count but I recall it being at least 40 - they were well into the 'leftover' city names...

Now, I wish I'd saved that game, just because it would have been satisfying to win it now. Anyway, my best guess is that Carthage managed to wipe out France and Babylon and steal their techs. I can't see them getting that big and that advanced that fast, otherwise.

Why the sigh? The game was on King level

STYOM

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

Hmm ... I don't recall ever being wiped completely from the map, but I have gotten into several nuclear wars with AI civilizations. It's really bad when they have nukes and you don't — nor can you defend against them.

God, the planet looked like hell after a few large-scale and multiple exchanges. (I was playing a large Earth map at King and Emperor levels.)

CYBERAmazon

[Chris 62]

BC Wipeout...

The first time I played on Diety, as the Americans, I had just built my second city, and had a unit built in it delivered from my capital, when it hit. Barbarians showed up, wiped New york off the map, and sudenly two Mongol chariots showed up, and wham, America was down the drain. What did I learn from it? That the AI can be a bastard! (But it did make me a better player )

[The Mighty Asterix]

Once I start getting hammered I lose interest and start another game...

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Nuclear war, global warming... Once I built my grand empire on extensive coastal plains, safe behind rough terrain. While I grew and grew, all seemed to go well. Then as the modern era approached, the Germans on the other side of the mountains crushed all their neighbors, then turned hostile on me. After a while the nukes started flying, and the AI never cleans up pollution in time. Global warming hits, and my almost-fertile lands turned to desert and coastal swamp. Cities shrank as half my population starved. It was ugly. Needless to say, my power rating dropped as the corpses piled up. As the cities starved, my engineers were disbanded, so pollution couldn't get cleaned up. I waved the white flag after a while...

[Ecthy]

Hi!

I never got wiped out, I always retired early enough

[Devil's Advocate]

I once lost a game I had just started. I had used my settler to build my capitol, and barbarians came and took over my city before I could stop them. How embarrising.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Mary-Ann
I once lost a game I had just started. I had used my settler to build my capitol, and barbarians came and took over my city before I could stop them. How embarrising.

I never heard of that happening before. That must be a first!

[Captain]

Hi there,

I've never lost a non-scenario Civ 2 game, even on deity (but Civ 1 was a different story) - though admittedly I have failed to achieve complete victory by not conquering the whole world in time or launching late (Not the worst, but the most frustrating was this one nomad game where I missed AC by only 0.5 years!!!) Still, I've always been the most powerful in the end game b/c when I realize there's no way I can win totally, I just start pounding on the most powerful civs - my own civ goes to the crapper but theirs are usually so much worse after the onslaught!

But I've never played a full MP game (so hard to find other players to keep up such a long game), so it's not as impressive when you know I'm only beating the AI.

I have lost a couple of times in civ 1 when I was a total newbie. My "best" hammering story is when I was building this nice peaceful society on a mostly grassland island. My most powerful unit was the knight. I had four of them. I had 8 cities, all between 5 and 8 in size, defended by 2 phalanxes each. I thought I was doing well, tech was coming maybe every 5 or 6 turns. Built a couple of ships and started exploring. Maybe six squares away, I hit trouble. Aztec? (were they in civ 1?) cruisers blow my navy out of the water. A few turns later, mech inf and tanks land on my shores. My best efforts to reclaim my island or even just hold my cities is trashed completely within a few turns.

It seems the conditions for midgame-lategame loss were mostly the same, isolation on an island.

[Dr.Oogkloot]

Probably in a scenario....maybe WW2 with Spain....

[Paul Hanson]

4000 BC: The English found London
3960 BC: German warriors take London. English are wiped out.

Bugger.

[Fistleaf]

I was playing OCC Deity level on small map. The aztecs built the Copernicus and Issac newton wonders because I have no money to rushbuild. Because of that I failed to increase my technological superiority. Then the Vikings turned fundamentalist and swept through the whole map, destroying all the other civilizations. I gave the other civs all the military technologies but it was too late to save them. The Vikings eventually gained Space Flight while I was lagging by one or two techs. Since I have already lost, I built many nukes and launched them on the Viking cities, but several of them had SDIs. After that, the Viking conquered the whole world.