Okay guys, gather round and I’m going to tell you a story about a Civ IV game that Mister Adequate and I played. It went something like this:

Starting as early as I could I built up this massive, massive army over the course of several in-game centuries. I wish I could tell you exactly how big the stack was, but I can’t remember the details, only that it was huge and contained dozens of catapults and at least a score of swordsmen, axemen, and crossbowmen. It was just ridiculously imposing.

I then spent 80 turns sending the freaking thing across the map to Mister Adequate’s base. 80 turns, because for whatever reason the map we were playing on was completely covered in mountains so it took forever to get anywhere.

Eventually, though, my massive military was parked outside of one of his outer cities. At which point I informed my dear partner over voice chat that if he didn’t give me all of his tech, I would destroy his city.

He was quiet for a while, I think out of utter shock, and then asked to see my army so he could make an accurate assessment of the stakes. I agreed and inched my army a bit closer to him.

This is where I noticed two things. Firstly, he was playing a Protective-trait leader, so he had extra defense built into his cities by default. Secondly, the march across the map had taken SO LONG that he’d just finished researching Feudalism by the time I got there and was upgrading everyone to Longbowmen, which– for those of you who are not familiar with Civ IV– are incredibly effective defensive units well into mid-game.

And I made a big mistake here. A BIG mistake.

Namely, I voiced my dismay at these two facts. In other words, I was betraying a bit of insecurity on my end.

So you know what Mister Adequate did?

He said, and I quote, “Come at me, bro.”

I quailed here. I could hear a bit of panic in his voice, and so the thought crossed my mind that maybe he was bluffing, but then I got scared. He did have longbowmen. He did have a Defensive leader. The city I was standing next to was on a hill. And the guy I was playing against does actually have a master’s degree in this sort of thing. (No, really, he does.) And the game’s built-in combat odds estimation wasn’t telling me a whole lot, either.

And what if he had his own massive army, hidden in wait somewhere? Waiting to strike once my own army was demolished?

So I… said never mind and backed off. Actually, I had a new plan, because I was researching gunpowder at that point and figured that soon I could upgrade my units and try again. But we quit the game for the night not long after and I never got to that point.

That’s when he laughed at me and told me that he had been bluffing and I probably could have taken at least a couple of his cities easily.

Drats. Foiled again. :(

I’m not the only one who has made stupid mistakes like this, right? D: