Civilization stories!

[ShipofFools]

Any CIV lovers around? Sure you are, this is a gaming forum!

Got any cool stories to tell? I'd love to hear them.

Here's some of mine:

So I play Civilization 5 a lot with my friends on the LAN, and one of my friends has a really annoying way of playing: he doesn't build any useful military, focusses like mad on building wonders and uses gold to purchase buildings in his cities.
Now, what makes this annoying is that we don't want to throw him out of the game before it has even begun, giving him an enormous head start and advantage over us, who do maintain strong armies.

But last weekend, we had enough. The man was eclipsing everyone in science and culture, and it was clear that he was going to win if we didn't do anything.
So we plotted against him, and attacked his empire from all sides during the renaissance era. His forces consisted of two cannons and a crossbowman, so he fell quickly to our less techy mass of soldiers.
But the funny part was that he took it VERY personal, as if we cheated or something. He was very insulting for the rest of the match, and when he researched atomic theory he announced it to us all, letting us know he will soon have the bomb.

So I attacked him with a force that I have been building up for a long time, completely obliterating him. He did not understand why I did that, and sulked for the rest of the evening.
Very funny.

Another one: in Alpha Centauri, my lady friend won a transcendance victory over us all, without having ever played a Civ game before, without much help from us.
And then she never wanted to play a Civ game again. We may never know how she did it, how she knew how to do it, and why nobody of us was even close to winning the game when it happened!

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I haven't had the chance to play any multiplayer in Civ V but me and my friend use to play a lot of multiplayer matches in Civ IV.

Once we played the the Chinese Unification scenario. I choose the Wei Huihou faction in the centre of the map, while my friend took control of the Yang Ji Xi faction in the north. As soon as the game begin I focused immediately building up a large army and begun conquering the east and south of the map with ease. But my friend did not join to fight by my side as he usually does, he the ever warmonger, though he said he was having trouble getting his production set up to build units so he would need awhile before he could join me.

So I continued on my conquest and soon the civs in the east capitulated under my rule and I began moving all my force to the south to finish the enemy off. During this my friend declared on the other remaining civ in the west and said he was moving his now ready army to conquer them. I said I would join up with him as soon as I was finished in the south of the map. Except a few turns later I find that my friend had instead decided to march on my north border and captured three of my unguarded cities with a large army that was more advanced than mine and only a turn or two away from my capital only defended by a couple of units. The back stabbing traitor then opened the diplomatic menu offering to make a vassal state as the price of peace and with my large army stuck on the wrong side of the map and I had to begrudgingly accept. The lesson to learn never trust your friends in a game of Civ.

 

[Chris Tian]

snip

I only tried Civ5 once and never played multiplayer, thats why I have a question to that. Is MP turn based too?

My experience with Civ5 SP was fun, but the little differnece between factions and that the AI always start to fall way behind after renaissance era, made me not buy it for myself.

 

[Zipa]

snip

I only tried Civ5 once and never played multiplayer, thats why I have a question to that. Is MP turn based too?

My experience with Civ5 SP was fun, but the little differnece between factions and that the AI always start to fall way behind after renaissance era, made me not buy it for myself.

That is likely down to the difficulty you are playing on, crank it up to max and watch the AI crush you utterly.

 

[Scorched_Cascade]

Ohh a civ thread

*reads*

There's a fun Civ thread (from 2012, necromancers beware) over here from the staff you might like reading:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.384820-A-PRACTICAL-STUDY-ON-MEATBAG-SUBJUGATION

Most of my funny Civ stories revolve around quirks in the AI. Like the several times in one game that it declared war on me at points I had no units or hard defence, moved all its troops across my borders...and then just sat there for a few turns before going home and paying me money to accept a peace treaty O.0

I get quite vindictive towards the AI because of its early game. I have a slow start early game (expand, build, expand, claim and lock down strategic areas then fill in the land, etc) and the AI likes to punish that by harassing me and looting my cities. Late game tends to revolve around me being a superpower at peace with everyone till out of the blue I nuke all their cities on the same turn and go on a massive land, sea and air offensive over their border. Annexing civ after civ. Nukes->paratroopers drop in and secure points near the border->bombing runs->blockade and shell ports->land forces move in and clean up->apologise to all the other civs through the democracy menu using bribes/trades and lies->reposition forces at new border->repeat with next civ.

slightly off topic but:

Do you have any suggestions for how to get better at the game? Highest difficulty I've won on was Warlord, like your friend in the story above I tend to neglect my military and then one or more AI just roll through my empire later. I tend to like to turn off barbarians (or they just bumrush me) but that has the side effect of the AI being unharrassed too. I also turn down (down but not off) city states because I don't like how they steal all the land, get upset when you settle near them and will all go to war and demand enemy players go to war against you if you conquer a few.

I've also tried playing the Genghis Khan scenario but got roflstomped by the Chinese. Any tips for scenario play? Is it like a puzzle where there a specific way to win that I'm supposed to figure out or is it somewhat luck dependant in hoping some of the rival AI factions ignore you?

Best setup in terms of number of civilisations, map size, etc for harder difficulties?

 

[Lilani]

Most of my funny Civ stories revolve around quirks in the AI. Like the several times in one game that it declared war on me at points I had no units or hard defence, moved all it's troops across my borders...and then just sat there for a few turns before going home and paying me money to accept a peace treaty O.0

Yeah, if there's enough distance between you and their troops (and they didn't bother sending any in advance) then when the war breaks out they'll just sort of sit and wait at their place, lol.

One time I had a game where I had many interesting altercations with Rome. I was playing as Kamehameha and I was neighbors with Rome, and for quite a while we were good buddies. He accepted my religion, we traded, together we intimidated money out of nearby city-states without actually attacking them. And then one day, out of the blue, he declares war on me. We had a declaration of friendship and everything, and the jerk just attacks me. Luckily I hadn't been slacking on my military, so I took one city of his and he negotiated peace. Then like one turn later, he wanted to declare friendship again. The arrogant prick thought he could get on my good side again, just like that! I refused, and later I declared war on him and ate up all his lands. You do NOT betray me like that, no sir.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

Once I was playing a game as England, and since I had just finished a conquest-victory game as America, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to go for a more peaceful victory. So, for most of the game I tried to avoid conflict and just traded and built instead.

And then suddenly, every country in the world declared war on me.

At the same time.

I still have no idea what happened. Quite literally, it was all peace and sunshine one minute, and then world war the next. I haven't a clue what I did to provoke such a fight, but I'm fairly certain that Ghandi had something to do with it. That jerk...

In the end I managed to prevail, wiping out Ghandi and the rest of my competition and eventually scoring another conquest victory. I had won, but I still couldn't help but feel that it all could have been avoided.

 

[Esotera]

I finished a 40 hour campaign on Civ III about a week ago, and it was probably the hardest game of Civ I've played so far. I made a lot more use of diplomacy than I normally do, basically arming some factions with superior technology & resources for the purpose of an alliance, then taking it all away and crushing them after conquering one country. Anyway, it got to a really tense ending with the Sumerians attempting to nuke me/build the Alpha Centauri spaceship, and I just managed to pull it off.

The AI could really use improvement in the Civ franchise though, it's never made any sense for enemies to randomly declare war on you. Hopefully they'll do it in Civ 6 (assuming they make it).

 

[Requia]

The best civ story I have is the American stacks of doom.

Yes stacks, plural, I'm not sure how many, I lost count. I managed to chokepoint my land in wars with other nations, giving myself just three vulnerable cities. I was also playing as Japan, they get a bad rap, but the combined protective/aggressive trait means that hellishly powerful units can be built (at the cost of no economic bonus).

Stack after stack of American Calvary and infantry broke against my machine guns and marines, and the war dragged on and on, all of my cities building troops and sending them in to replace my losses against the seemingly unending American assault, my aircraft pouring in against the strongest stacks in order to limit the damage each turn, my tanks picking off the cavalry that managed to retreat before seeking protection in the cities. Finally, the unending stalemate came crashing down when America researched industrialism themselves, and the Navy SEALS showed up, those fuckers are brutal.

 

[MysticSlayer]

One time in Civ4 I had almost completely annihilated my rival, only to destroy his last known city and realize that he hadn't lost. Considering it was the archipelago map, I began searching around for where he could have built a new civilization and found he had set about 2-3 cities on one of the medium-sized islands. I quickly wiped these out since he was just starting to recover from having 90% of his troops and cities destroyed, but he had managed to sneak out before I defeated him. Needless to say, the next few hours were a cat and mouse game of me chasing him around the world trying to finally complete my genocide. Of course, with all my troops all over the map, a lot of the other civilizations were getting worried that I was invading them. Eventually, my navy was built up to such incredible strength that the guy couldn't possibly escape, and I easily managed to take out his last few cities and secure his last few settlers.

Of course, with such a powerful army and navy and all the technological advancements I made in an attempt to finally destroy him, I just couldn't pass up confirming everyone else's suspicions that I was dangerous. Needless to say, it wasn't that hard to systematically wipe out all the other civilizations, especially since none of them could break my naval blockade or do anything about the few ships that would bombard their cities so that the foot soldiers could take them out easily.

 

[The White Hunter]

Once I was playing a game as England, and since I had just finished a conquest-victory game as America, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to go for a more peaceful victory. So, for most of the game I tried to avoid conflict and just traded and built instead.

And then suddenly, every country in the world declared war on me.

At the same time.

I still have no idea what happened. Quite literally, it was all peace and sunshine one minute, and then world war the next. I haven't a clue what I did to provoke such a fight, but I'm fairly certain that Ghandi had something to do with it. That jerk...

In the end I managed to prevail, wiping out Ghandi and the rest of my competition and eventually scoring another conquest victory. I had won, but I still couldn't help but feel that it all could have been avoided.

Happened to me just the other day, was being all nice and cultural and diplomatic, tonnes of trade aggreements and friends with everyone but one guy who refused to be friends no matter what I did, and he was neutral, he kept bullying city states and I told him to stop, then he denounced me....

So everyone else denounced me

Then declared war @___@

Only stopped when I managed to prove I could end the entire continent through sheer tenacity...

 

[someonehairy-ish]

The game I'm playing at the moment is quite good. It's a highlands map with big, thick mountain chains everywhere, and I've used them strategically by putting units in fortresses to guard all the choke points. Ghengis Khan and Catherine are both attacking William of Orange, but they're also hostile to me (not at war though), meaning that I might be able to wait till they send their armies out and sneakily attack them.

We'll see how it goes.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

It's funny because your story is precisely the reason I don't like playing multiplayer because I know I won't be able to get away with having spearmen in the renaissance with no naval techs researched. I focus on buildings and science til about 1700-1800 and then I'll win in the next 100 years with overwhelming scientific force.

I think my favourite civ experiance is actually the very first game of Civ 2 I played. It was about 13-14 years ago, I was playing as the Romans. I started the game on my own little island at the bottom of the map and I had about 10 cities of my own on this island. It wasn't until about the 1500-1600s before I encountered another civ.

What my explorers found blew my mind. They came across another 2 continents that absolutely dwarfed my island. On it where the Greeks and the English and the remains of half a dozen other civs, The Greeks and English both where probably 5-6 times my size and had been fighting a non stop war for a millennia with each other and everyone else until only they remained.

I was so far behind in tech because I had noone to trade with or to steal tech from so there wasn't much I could do against either of them. So when an uneasy truce appeared between them, their gaze turned upon me. What followed was an epic 300 year war where my legions valiantly tried to fend of the enemy until eventually we were overcome.

I fell in love with Civ and 4X in general after that.

 

[NoPants2win]

I did a thing I feel bad about.

I nuked Paris to stop the French from going to space before me...

I like to play the game as if I were leading a real civilization. I just needed a couple more modules to complete my ship. I won, but really I lost. Centuries old peace treaties were dissolved. Nukes were exchanged. Millions of people were killed or starved to death. It was a hollow victory.

On a related note, I recently read an article that I can't find anymore where Sid was complaining about save scumming. Apparently he'd wanted the game to be a journey with ups and downs, but most players just reloaded old saves when bad things happened. Maybe someone will link it.

 

[Signa]

OH yeah!

Civ 1
Started game with 3 civs
Started near a village of skilled mercenaries
went exploring for a good spot to build capital
Found a village of skilled mercenaries
explore more, another village of skilled mercenaries
ran into another civ's capitol
killed him

More mercenaries
Found other civ, killed him too

Ruled the world around 1000BC without building my first capitol.

Granted, it was easy mode and only 3 sims, but the stroke of fortune was amazing.

 

[Elijin]

Waaaay back in Civ 2, I was playing a game in a huge map size, and I thought I had explored everything. As the various factions declared war on me, some of them fell. Im not sure if the mechanic still exists, but back then, if a player slot was vacated and there was valid space unexplored by everyone, then a new civ would start up.

This is meant to be for if someone gets wiped out early game, and tends to not matter in the late game, but apparently there was a tiny 4x4 island in the sea so far from everything no one had bothered exploring thoroughly enough. So we're all stuck in a world war consisting of modern day military powers and when I finally beat everyone down, the game doesnt end...

So I go about exploring every single inch of the map and stumble across these poor bastards on their tiny island. I sent in a diplomat to talk to them and they promptly met him with their spearman, insulted me and demanded I bow to their demands.

A turn later I ended the game via stealth bomber to a civ that was still effectively in the stone age. Moral of the story? Manners are important.

 

[karma9308]

I have two, one is a quirk with the AI. Both of them are in Civ V.

There was one game I had where I was a peace loving cultural society with many friends and few enemies. After over 4000 years of not just peace in our nation but world peace, the Japanese were starting to get aggressive with my friends the Russians. Catherine asked me for my aid in a war with the Japanese. I figured this would be a good move to help strengthen our friendship and help maintain peace. When it came time to declare war, me and Russia went in a joint operation into Japan. Exactly one turn later, Russia denounced me and said that I was a war mongering menace to the world. Wat.

In no time at all, the entire world chain-denounced me. I was soon left with no allies and the only nation that hadn't denounced me was the Americans. I tried to cozy up to Washington, especially as he was now in a war with the Triple Alliance that was the Russians, Greeks, and Chinese. I ended up giving him almost 5000 gold over 20 turns. When D.C. was coming under fire from the Alliance I asked Washington for us to join in an alliance...he said no and then denounced me. WAT. His capital was taken several turns later.

A different one I had was where I was playing as England on an island by myself. It was a very rich island off the coast of France that had allowed me to build up a huge navy to defend it and to advance quickly in tech. As I was able to travel the world, I had met Austria. At first we became friends, but they soon denounced and went to war with my 'vassals' Germany and France. Austria was a huge nation, taking up almost 33% of the total land mass just by themselves (in a huge map with 12 countries). Though I had faith in my navy and airforce, my army was lacking and I worried about trying to take and occupy a nation 3 times mine and whose army was large and experienced after their war with Byzantium.

I actually liked this turn of events, as me and Austria were both too powerful to go at each other and were attacking each other through other countries and city states. I have never played a Civilization game before or since that felt so close to a cold war without escalation. Sadly, the turn of events did not last. What ended the chilly relations that led to open war between the two most powerful nations? I was bored. Sadly once I actually did declare war on Austria and managed to crush their coastal cities and occupy their capital, I lost interest in the game and did not want to reload the save game I had after I realized how much of a lie the cold war had been. Ironically, that game made me lose interest in Civ for several months just because of how awesome it had been, and how let down I was.

I actually can think of more, but this already looks like a wall o' text that nobody will ever read, so I'll stop .

 

[CAPTCHA]

I built Machu Picchu on top of Old Faithfull once, then placed a pair of citidels at the base. And forevermore the lowly Incans had to live in the shadow of Darius's mighty ejaculating cock.