Game misconceptions, blunders, goofs, etc

[Albert B]

The "how long to understand civ" thread mentions starting this so here it is...

Along the lines of "I remember trying to kill a buffalo with a warrior for about two hours on my first night and becoming highly frustrated with the whole experience", what are your favorite (funniest) memories of game goofs from your early days of learning Civ (I or II).

I started with Civ I, playing with a couple of friends, one kind of knew the game and the other was true beginner like myself. We either didn't have or didn't bother to read (more likely, but I don't know which) the manual. Anyway, these are some of the things I recall doing that now seem somewhat comical many years later:

1. Avoiding researching ceremonial burial, monotheism and construction because the each "made the people unhappy" and the advisors would "force you to build" temples, cathedrals and coloseums...

2. Accidentally discovering the the adjust trade windows (there use to be 2 of them) by bumping the +/- keys on the keypad with a beer (after having played quite a few games)... Also, we had know clue what "luxeries" where and thus decided our lowly peasants NEVER needed any...

3. Getting mad at the "bug" that wouldn't let us build nukes even though we had the proper tech!

4. Getting fed up with global warming game after game because we had no idea that you could clean up the pollution.

I'm sure that their are quite a few others that have slipped my mind but I'm sure someone will spark old memories with their post. By the way, we had no idea what our "goal" was for quite some time but still enjoyed waging war after war, discovering new techs, building new units/improvements, etc.

[Father Beast]

Re: Game misconceptions, blunders, goofs, etc

Originally posted by Albert B
4. Getting fed up with global warming game after game because we had no idea that you could clean up the pollution.

Ohh, that's a good one. I had a friend who was addicted to civ2. then he told me, "The only problem is that towards the end of the game, all your cities start starving when the land turns to jungle"

it took me a moment to realize he typically had nuclear war every game.

[KrazyHorse]

I guess this was more of a misconception than a mistake on my part, but at first I was afraid of the upkeep that temples colosseums, etc. cost, so I would never build them. To me, the best way of avoiding unhappiness was to build settlers so the city stayed below size 4. I looked at a saved game I downloaded, and was amazed; some of the cities were size 15 or larger, and were producing at a rate I would have thought impossible.

[KrazyHorse]

Note: the above occured in Civ 1.

[Scouse Gits]

In an early game I found the discovery of Radio allowed airports - so I built a few. Then, I really needed this unit the other side of the world. I pressed the "L" key only to be greeted by the message: You can't airlift ships silly

Now if that AEGIS had only been there the Mongols would never have ...............

--------------

SG(2)

[Exile]

A Victorian World gone MAD!

I played Civ1 for several years before finally breaking down, buying a better computer, and getting civ2. When first installed, I thought I knew what to expect, so I just dived right in. Forget about reading the manual.

I was captivated immediately by the Jules Verne scenario, and began to play that one to the exclusion of everything else. I noticed that after several turns the political/diplomatic/military situation would heat up, and little wars would start breaking out all over the place.

Then my government would fall!

I had no clue what was causing this. I thought it was a function of the scenario! Every game, I would tentatively try to fulfill the conditions of the scenario, and then boom! My government would fall and it appeared to me that this was the end of civilization as we knew it! The British Empire was always in Demo, so when it went to Republic or Monarchy, there wasn't enough money to support everything, and stuff would begin to disappear. The more stuff disappeared, the more difficult it got to pay for things. In desperation, I would always start up a war with the Continentals and, not having the sheer military might to really crush them, I would start pillaging everything with airships.

Civilization collapsed every game.

Later I learned about governments in civ2.

Salutations,
Exile

[zyxpsilon]

1) The perfectly swell city building without mining, irrigating or anything!! Only to find out, more resources COULD be available when one does the above.

2) NOT attacking the barbarians from fear of being "overrunned" by their armies.

3) Kept on clicking the citizens icons hoping they would automatically change to Elvis, Einstein... etc.

4) Building boats in a "small lake" city! Thus wasting good shields on a useless trireme.

5) Palace moving from city to city... how should i have known what the "real" purpose was?

6) "Trying" to attack a plane with a submarine (Oh, yes... i did that!!!!!)

....) this list could be much longer, but i'll stop right here!

[The Mad Monk]

When I first lent my copy of Civ2 to my brother, I told him that's it's easy--use your settler to found a city, build more units, go on from there...

Two days later, I called him to see how he was doing--turned out he gave up three hours in; I asked him what the problem was, and he said "I moved my settler all over the place, but I could never find the city..

[catullus]

First memories of Civ1:

I want my empire to look good. Every city should have a palace. I'll build it in all my 5 cities.

Lemme see. Irrigation on this lousy hill brings food. Mining brings more shields. I'll irrigate first, and mine later.
(turns pass)
Hm. I thought I irrigated this square before mining. Oh well, I guess I forgot. I'll irrigate it now.
(turns pass)
Hm. I thought I mined this square before irrigating. Oh well, I guess I forgot. I'll mine it now.
(repeat)

C.

[Sean]

I played civ one for ages before I relised you could actually enact new governments (like monarchy).

Now I usually read the manual, or play the tutorial (if there is one), to get a grasp on a game.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Before I even started the tutorial, I read the manual front-to-back several times over, so I understood the game (or so I thought). In one of my first games, I had a horseman unit attack. It got promoted to veteran status, but it got damaged enough that it only had 1 MP. I thought that it was a "veteran" because it was old and slow...

Also, when I was experimenting with the cheat menu, I accidentally deleted my own civilization And this was before I learned how to save the game

[Henrik]

I was very young when I played Civ 1, I used to never switch govt since I didn't know you could.
Then when I learned how to do it and switched into republic I came to the conclusion that Despotism was superior to all other govts, since all cities just started revolting in other governments.
Atleast I got funny looking advisors in the modern age

I would also constantly hit the games limit for units since I would build hundreds of guards in every city (but very few improvements), I remember something about getting upsett whit about my poorly defended city whit only 16 mech infs in


I can't remember any things like those in civ 2 right now (there must surely have been some), apart from the fact that I never built caravans (untill finding this site).

[St Leo]

I remember sending rambo cannons against enemy cities one by one and slowly losing ground to the AI in my first game.

P.S. Civ2 was my second computer game after SimCity 2000.

[Ming]

In my second game (my first game ended in just a few turns when a roman chariot came up, demanded a science, I refused, then it wiped out my only city) I lost a ship at sea loaded with a unit and a settler. Not knowing any better, I thought ALL ships could get lost at sea... needless to say, I wasn't a big fan of naval strength for a few games

[jake03]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
When I first lent my copy of Civ2 to my brother, I told him that's it's easy--use your settler to found a city, build more units, go on from there...

Two days later, I called him to see how he was doing--turned out he gave up three hours in; I asked him what the problem was, and he said "I moved my settler all over the place, but I could never find the city..

he lasted 3 hours before his settler got wiped out