What Sid Meier has taught me

[Inverse Icarus]

Civ2 taught me that if you manage to get troops onto enemy railroads, a train automagically appears where you need it and you can just ride it into their city, practially unscathed.

Civ2 taught me that combined arms is a load of crap, and that all you need is ~20 artillery (well, howitzers) to end a war quickly.

Civ1 taught me the only way to contact an enemy civ, even in the mdoern era, is to physically send a diplomat to their cities.

Civ2 taught me that the eqyptian heralds were all genetically engineered super babes.

Civ3 taught me that Cleopatra was not one of them.

GhengisFarb corrected previous assumption, WITH GUSTO!

Civ3 taught me that Joan of Arc (or, Jean d'Arc) was the best ruler of france, evar, despite never actually ruling france.

civ3 reinforced the fact that combioned arms is a lot of bull by making knights 4-3-1, and pikemen 1-3-1. arillery units before ACTUAL artillery are utterly useless half the time.

Civ3 taught me that millions of people must have died on the floodplains of the nile, due to disease, setting back their colonization of the rest of egypt by 10 turns or so.

Civ in general has taught me that time slows down as it goes on.

Civ3 taught me that if you make a game you can put your faces all over it.

Civ3:PTW taught me that "Multiplayer" doesn't mean "Multiple Players".

Civ3 taught me that you could base a game on an existing engine (SMAC), and retain none of the positive aspects of the game (SE, raised terrain, unit workshop).

Civ3 taught me that no matter the stating locations of a civilization, their traits and special unit will always be the same, despite the fact that their traits me completely worthless in a given area. the people will still proudly build scouts on an 8 tile island.

Civ3 taught me that the English sure do suck, have crappy traits, and a unit that can't do anything and becoems obsolete within 15 turns.

Civ 2 taught me the dominat power in north america was the Souix.

Civ3 correct that, now the Iroquois.

Civ3 taught me that the Americans actually started on an even playing field with the Iroquois, and they were no match for thsoe mounted warriors.

Civ3 taught me america can't get a golden age by bombing people.

Civ3 tought me that irragation just doesn't work until you overthrow your despotic leader.

Civ3:PTW has taught me that "Out of Synch Errors" have had major impacts on history, often leading one side to say things like "**** this, i can't play without bombers!", or "WHY DOES IT KEEP DOING THAT!?!?", and storming out of the game, leaving the other with a strategic victory, but an empty feeling.

Civ3 has taught me that startign next to the germans is never a good thing.

[Sava]

This is the best thread I've read in a long time!

Civ3 taught me that even though I can instantaneously transport an infinite amount of armored units across a continent on rail lines, I cannot send food from New York to Washington.

Civ1 taught me that the power of Battleships has been exagerrated immensely because a small militia group can can sink them with spears.

All Civ games taught me that before I discover Currency, I can collect taxes.

Civ2 taught me that after I kill (insert Civ here) the (insert different Civ but same color) appears randomly in an uninhabited land mass.

Civ2 taught me that the French and Germans could not exist at the same time. The same for the Americans and Chinese, the Mongols and Indians, etc.

Civ3 taught me that horses grow in Grasslands and it's impossible to breed or move them.

Civ1 and Civ2 taught me that naval vessels are uninhabited and incapable of communicating with foreign peoples.

Civ3 taught me that when a battleship launches a barrage of artillery fire on a wooden vessel, it cannot sink it. Furthermore, such wooden vessels can repair all damage at sea without access to lumber.

Colonization taught me that the Native American tribes possessed some advanced form of counterfeiting technology that supplied the colonists with an endless supply of money for mysterious trade goods. And even though some of the tribes live on land that can grow tobacco, they will pay top dollar for it.

Civ in general taught me that all human life started at 4000BC. Sid Meier is in fact spreading a creationist agenda!

Civ in general has taught me that a small group of settlers, once settled, have the manufacturing capability needed to build ICBM's, though it often takes 200 years.

Civ3 has taught me that during a year, it's impossible to both create a group of settlers and produce tanks in the same city.

Civ3 has taught me that Richtoffen can magically build the Pyramids in a single year!

Civ in general has taught me that over thousands of years, cultures, languages, religions, etc; don't change over time, they just accumulate in value.

All of these games have taught me that people will magically grow once I have stored enough food.

Civ3 has taught me that during a bombardment, people don't run away from the cities, they simply stay put and die.

[Adam Smith]

Civ2 taught me that old temples still keep people content, even after they have discovered new forms of religion.

Civ2 taught me that people will always demand hides. No wonder so many animals are becoming extinct.

Civ2 taught me that cruise missiles are a great way to turn mounted units into smoking lumps of horseflesh. Technological superiority is a wonderful thing.

Being colorblind, Civ2 taught me that there is absolutely no difference between the English, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Japanese, and Zulus. Diversity be damned. They all look the same.

Civ3 reminded me that it takes almost as much time to learn to play the game well as it does to actually play it well.

[Immortal Wombat]

Civ2 taught me that even the most wondrous things can be acheived as long as you're willing to sacrifice large numbers of camels.

Luckily, it also taught me that camels are abundant in just about every ecosystem on the planet. Which was handy.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Sava
Civ3 taught me that when a battleship launches a barrage of artillery fire on a wooden vessel, it cannot sink it. Furthermore, such wooden vessels can repair all damage at sea without access to lumber.

i thought ships only healed in cities in civ3... thats why you can just bombard AI ones, and they run home.

[Sava]

Maybe it's a bug, I routinely heal ships in water squares.

[GePap]

Civ 2 taught me that as wonderful as I am, I will never meet great leaders, only some servant carying a portrait.

civ3 taught me that laborers on their own will desalinate ocean water to irrigate with, with what, I do not know.

civ taught me that no matter how good sailors are, if the water is too deep for thier type of vessel it will sink.

Civ taught me there is no such thing as free enterprise. The state always control all economic functions, even in a democracy.

civ taught me we build things with magical "shields", made in some unknown way.

civ taught me paper money does not exist, and gold remains the only method of currency throughout all history.

civ3 taught me the Inca were just a minor barbarian tribe.

civ taught me that people trade arrows.

civ taught me people value uranium, but don't know
what television is.

cvi3 taught me people can make bridges once they can make roads, but don't know how to use them until later.

[Gatekeeper]

Civ II taught me that the world is bordered by immense, impassable cliffs of ice.

[H Tower]

civ2 taught me that barbarians Adam Smith will subsidize all of my cheap buildings if only I build him a shop from which to trade in.

civ2 taught me that SETI actually has real worth to society

civ2 taught me that the only nice neighboring country was one that lay on the ground with your military boot grinding their face into the dirt.

civ1 taught me that I could build a railroad across the ocean but couldn't use it.

civ3 taught me nothing

[Alex]

Civ taught me that wives demand more attention than I'd be willing to admit.

[Richelieu]

CIV3 taught me that Cleopatra was a b**** when it came to annoying her women and stealing her chickens.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Sava
Maybe it's a bug, I routinely heal ships in water squares.

You could heal ships in CivII outside cities, IIRC, but not in CivIII. Sentry a beat up ship out on the water, and nothing happens.

-Arrian

[Sava]

I fortify my ships, they heal. That's all I know. The AI never does it though.

Civ3 taught me that Joan of Arc is kind of hot, for a CG generated leader head.

[Victor Galis]

Civ2 taught me to not expect to crush all phalanx units beneath my tank as they will use their spears in ways I couldn't imagine

-It's not their spears. Its the ditches to used to fortify themselves. Your poor quality tanks just fell in and spontaneously combust.

Colonization taught me that the mother country could ignore your revolution and defeat you soundly by just waiting for a certain year like 1750 or 1800 to roll around. (Seriously, I once had an army twice the size of their expeditionary force, then the French showed up and brought me another such force, but the English oppressors never showed, and after 100 or so years I was forced to surrender).

Civ2 (Rome scenario):

Rome conquered distant cities like Alexandria by bombarding them with cruisers and then sending in their elite squads of paratroopers.

Transport Tycoon tought me that people don't care where they or their mail goes, as long as they go somewhere.

-The same applies to people. They will come to the train station not caring where they go, as long as there's other people there.

Pirates! taught me that with a Fast Galleon & 200 men, I could take over the Carribean.

-Pirates! taught me that a poorly commanded frigate was no match for a well captained sloop. The same applies to war galleons.

civ told me that i could build the hoover dam on hawaii

-And the lighthouse was just as useful in Moscow as it was in Alexandria.

Merchant prince taught me that a ship could take 15 years to reach some distant port, where you would find the relics of some saint and immediately make money back in Venice, even if the ship later sank in a storm.

It taiught me canals are impossible to build and that the Panama canal, as well as the Suez canal, always existed.

-Nonsense, building a city on a suitably narrow piece of land allowed it to act as a canal.

Civ3 taught me that the secret to penetrating through enemy lines to sieze their capital requires only a spy and a mech infantry division. The spy negates ZoCs and can allow the mech infantry following it closely to do likewise. Then the spy can plant a nuke letting the mech infantry into a defenseless city.

Spies can be caught red handed (causing everyone to hate you) yet escape back to safety.

Taking an enemy capital destroys their spaceship, even though it looks like it's being assembled in space. (yes this is how I figured out how to take enemy capitals 20-30 squares behind the frontlines).

Europa Universalis 2 taught me that it was possible for France to conquer England by 1450 and force the English king to be a vassal of the French king... except, this time he actually obeyed his lord. Also, it was possible to patch up relations with the English within 40 more years to the extent that England would agree to be politically annexed by France. Had this happened in real life, there would be fewer revolts against the French monarchs in London than in Paris. Even when the French countryside is rife with revolt, my English and Irish holdings seem perfectly content.

[Victor Galis]

Ooh... one more:

Europa Universalis taught me that a Christian prince could seriously piss off the rest of the Christian world by refusing to be Ottoman Empire's vassal any more.