Your most humbling moment or your greatest escape..!

[=DrJambo=]

I thought it might be an interesting idea to find out the moment when you were most humbled by the AI, or when only the greatest of escapes from certain doom allowed you to recover and continue...!

Pray, tell all...

On that thought i'll start by telling you of a lucky escape...

Rashly, in the early modern era (large map, 12 civs, monarch level) i refused the babylonians a demand and they went to war with me. They were situated on a continent with just themselves and Egypt after freshly booting the Greeks from the bottom corner. Myself (Romans), the English and the Germans were situated on the other continent and were all equal powered. THe Babs and the Gypos were easily the most powerful of the remaining civs with the Bab's freshly conquered Greek cities lying through the Gypo empire nearest my own continent.

So i proceeded to launch an amphibious assault on the recently taken Greek cities, since they were separated from the other Bab cities by Egypt. After successfully taking them, i started building them up and transferring units across by helicopter and airlifts.

Nothing happened for many a year, until we were well into the modern age.

Then, just when i thought 'this is dull' from out the corner of the Egyptian empire strolled 200+ Babylonian units (mainly mech inf and longbows the daft bas****; now i have longbows upgrade to riflemen ). My outpost cities on the their continent looked doomed!

Soooo, in a moment of rashness, i dumped an ICBM on them and wiped a lot out and weakened many...THEN all the other Civs declared war on me; now i am truly ****** i thought! So i released the another ICBM on the same stack of Bab units and one on London, muwhahaha.... and prayed for the best.

Needless to say things got worse. 16 Gypo battleships started bombarding my coastline ruining everthing, Gypo artillery and units assaulted my outpost, which promptly floundered and perished. The English and Germans invaded with bombers, infantry and all sorts and a backs to the wall defensive was started. Plus someone had the nerve to drop an ICBM on one of my main cities...

I manged to barter peace with the Babs and persuade them to fight the Gypos, relieving me of their bloody bombarding fleet, this left me to cope with the English and Germans. Just when my resources were no more through bombardment and my aluminium decided to run out, i managed to barter peace with the Germans and fight out a stalemate with the English...

The recovery period was massive, as most of my network was obliterated... My lack of aluminium is causing me to slip behind in the space race and the high tech units. I have lost ground and gained other against the English as i make my hopeful way to one of their sources of aluminium. If i can only get hold of that i may yet be able to pull off a last ditch space victory although i am now 4 pieces behind the Babs... The diplomatic victory is totally out of the question once that last world war broke out and nuclear weapons were used!

The Gypos or Babs are the hot favourites for victory now..

Cracking stuff, sometimes its really fun to be up against it!

Your turns now..

[Solver]

I like the idea . I have been through quite some fun moments, but had one great comeback.

Has to be my game as the Americans, where I started in a Jungle, surrounded by some Mountains, on what I would call a small continent. It's southern part was pretty nice, but it was occupied by Japan. Somehow I managed to get an army and attack Japan. The war lasted for some time, and I signed 3 Peace Treaties, getting some money, and broke them afterwards.

After I conquered Japan I continued my strife for expansion, but, it was pretty slow - having a Jungle in start position... well you know what is it like.

Only as I got to the Middle Ages I met another civilization, Persia, from whom I bought communications to all the other nations. After having all the communications, I called up the Foreign Advisor and saw that everyone strongly dislikes me. Also, compared to the others, I was not too advanced, nor did I have a big army - I was an average civ, everything wise.

I was developing, trading with other nations, eventually gained some realtive trust from the others. And then end of the Middle Ages came. I was pretty stong by now, no longer average, and was three techs short of Industrial Age (Military Tradition, Theory of Gravity and Magentism). And then Xerxes, the world's number one, came and attacked me! I controlled all of my landmass, so invading wasn't too easy, but still, I was given some trouble, especially by his newly developed Ironclads that bombarded me. Moreover, 3 turns later Xerxes signed an alliance vs. me with Joan, and now there were two enemies pondering me.

Eventually, I fought this offensive off, but I had to turn my science almost to nothing. When the war came to an end, I discovered that most other nations are in the Industrial Age by now, 4 or 5 techs ahead of me. I almost managed to catch up by trade, was now only 1 tech behind of the most, and started building Newton's Lab. I was, however, beaten to it, and soon came another war and yet another period of great depression for me.

As I played on and on, I finally was the second to get to the Modern Age, convicned the traitor Xerxes pretty much to my side, and somehow completed the Spaceship.

One final thought on this game - I was very lucky I was Industrious, this helped me with the Jungle so much!

[Solver]

Yeah, DrJambo, you completed that game already, or? Sounds hillarious!

[Boris Godunov]

Wow, totally awesome!

I myself had an incredible World War experience. I was playing on a huge map of Earth with correct civ locations (thanks, Gramphos!) as Germany.

By the modern era, I controlled all of continental Europe except Italy and the tip of southern Greece. I had all of Britain, having destroyed the English early on. The French had been routed to one lone city on the northern extreme of Scandanavia (?!), and I had pushed Russia across the Urals. I also seized all of Northern Africa from the Egyptians, and Arabia from the Babylonians. The major powers besides me were Persia (occupying Turkey, northern Iran and a large chunk of central Asia), America, India (which holds India and all of SE asia), China and the Zulus (which held all of southern Africa). The secondary powers are Egypt (locked into central Africa), Babylon (confined to central Asia), Russia (Pretty much just siberia), and the Aztecs (alone in S. America). The minor states are Rome (just italy and corsica), Greece (the Peleponese and Crete, and two distant central asian cities near the Aral sea?!), France, and the Iroquois (pushed to Micronesia of all places by the Americans).

So here I am, running neck and neck with America and Persia in the tech race. I place a slew of spies, but my spy in Japan gets caught. Japan declares war. Since they have some western asian mainland cities that are divided from Japan by China, I figure it will be easy to pick those burgs off. However, Japan has a MPP with India. So when I attack, India declares war. India is pretty tough, so I know now I need help. Although I had fought the Persians earlier and they were furious with me, they take a relatively small bribe and go to war against Japan.

So the next turn, Japan and India attack my forces. This triggers MPPs I had with Rome and Russia, so they declare war on India and Japan. Persia attacks Japan, so India declares war on them.

Then comes the nasty surprise. Japan signs an alliance against me with America, who is majorly bad-*ss. Uh-oh. Now I'm in trouble. Persia won't go to war against the USA. So Lincoln sends his pretty big fleet into the Atlantic and begins bombing the heck out of Ireland and England, pretty much decimating the improvements there. My sea and air power is woefully inadequate, as I stupidly never anticipated having to fight America. So I have no choice but to mobilize my economy. I set all my Baltic ports to sub and cruiser production, and all my European cities to air unit production.

I then am able to get the Zulu to go to war against India. India brings in Babylon on her side as well as the Iroquois. I kick em right back by getting China against India and Japan. Persia and I pick off the Japanese cities in Asia quickly, but are now fighting the Babylonians. I have to fight India on two fronts, both in south central asia and in the north fo central russia, where they had managed to set up 3-4 cities. Thankfully, for some unknown reason Persia now decides to declare war on America. Persia has a large fleet in the Mediterranean that they send out, and that bodes well for me!

I seize India's Russian cities, but it's a stalemate near Babylon (which I captured a while ago). Their bombers are keeping me busy and making advance difficult. Plus, their cities are in the Afghanistan hills, so its sloooow going. But, I have 4 armies, each with four modern armors, on the way!

Japan is reduced to her lone island and is no longer a threat, but America manages to land an invasion force on the southern tip of England. Thankfully, I rush produced a bunch of bombers, so I use those to soften up this force. Eventually it is wiped out, and I am able to sink the transport that brought them. However, American bombers are still decimating my countryside. My fleet is slowly being produced and moving towards the Atlantic with all due haste.

By this time, France and Greece have joined the otherside, and I get the Aztecs to go to war against America. I hoped this would alleviate some pressure on me. And a bunch of other war declarations transpire. So now it is Germany+Persia+China+Russia+Rome+Zulu+Aztec vs. America+Japan+India+Babylon+Greece+France+Iroquois . Egypt is the only non-warring country. This is fixed when America convinces them to go to war against the Zulu (but Egypt doesn't declare war on me...chickens).

Well, the tide turns when I send 2 AEGIS cruisers and 2 subs to near the coast of America and spot the carrier where they are launching their bombers from. AHA! I make an all-out effort to get that SOB. It's protected by a cruiser and a battleship, though. Somehow, with luck, I sink it. After that, no more bombings. Looking at my spy's report, I see I destroyed nearly all of their bombers in sinking that carrier.

From then on, the Persians and I annihilate the American Atlantic fleet. Lincoln is the first to sue for peace, even though he hasn't lost one city. I get a small amount of gold out of him.

Next, I capture 3 of India's major cities with my 4 big armies, and they fold as China takes some of their eastern most towns. Japan, which had been rendered ineffective, also makes peace. Meanwhile, Egypt has been half destroyed by the Zulus, America has almost wiped out the Aztecs, Babylon is cut down to 2-3 cities, and I destroy the French finally. I also reduce Greece to just their city on Crete.

After a while, it's back to world peace. Woo, but it was scary for a while. At about the time the American landed their force in England, I was being hit by huge civil disorder problems due to war weariness. If I hadn't pushed them out of the war when I did, I think it would have overwhelmed me. Thank god I sunk that carrier!

[Solver]

Boris - wow, very fun. Wish I had more World Wars - generally I only had one, and that was pretty much all vs. one civ . Maybe I'll try more agression later on in my games .

[Jack_www]

A long time ago I played as the Germans on the huge earth map. I started off in south america, and as an idiot, instead of building my capital city right away, I spend several turns trying to find a really good place for my capital city. I then Find that the Chinese are in upper South America, and bacilly controll the largest part of it by the time I get in connact with them. There are no civs in North America, so I decided to build cities up there and try and build a forbinned place there as well. It takes a long time to build it, and because of all this I am way behind everyone. In the modern age I decided that I was going to attack China, that did not turn out to be such a good idea, and they got the americans to attack me who had a couple of cities in North America, and they started to bombard my land up in North America. After that I decided to end the game since I knew I was sure to lose.

But after a couple of games were I did not do so good, I have been able to kick the AI butt every time.