AI Effs You: Overcome, Fold, Fail, or Ragequit?

[nyah]

That's how I do it yes. If a major decision ends up screwing me (like during my current game of Erik the Heathen, I pressed for the Kingdom to early, and got eaten by Norway and Denmark), I reload it and chalk it up as a loss.

You wouldn't believe how often I lose a game of XCOM before I win it.

I almost always start as a single county vassal count, so if I end up back in that situation halfway through the game it's not much different from restarting. Just a new challenge.

When this game was being developed one of the key ideas behind it was that it would be very difficult to hold onto all your titles for an extended period of time. That went to the wall when the game was released I imagine because it would alienate the many people don't subscribe to the "losing is fun" viewpoint, but for me it's what makes the game.

 

[Red Roo]

Why would you rage quit? Take victory in the mainland British Isle and capitulate to the Irish and council power to bide your time.

 

[deadhand13]

Got double Jihaded last night by both Shia and Sunni caliphs as King of England, Jerusalem, etc. Fortunately had some allies in the form of HRE and Byzzies. France also helped. Very heartwarming to see so many old enemies brought together by the prospect of murdering other people. Sometime after the war starts, my king, Hubert the Holy, gets assassinated, bringing his deadbeat son back from his "vacation" in Sicily, who promptly dies in battle. This leaves my kingdom in the hands of a six year old boy, in the midst of a double Jihad and way to many dukes with enough troops to be a nuisance. Did I mention the elective faction? Elective faction.

What is an aspiring English (well Norman, whatever) king to do?!

Keep calm and drink some tea.

And put on some appropriate music

 

[Sirrobert1]

Got double Jihaded last night by both Shia and Sunni caliphs as King of England, Jerusalem, etc. Fortunately had some allies in the form of HRE and Byzzies. France also helped. Very heartwarming to see so many old enemies brought together by the prospect of murdering other people. Sometime after the war starts, my king, Hubert the Holy, gets assassinated, bringing his deadbeat son back from his "vacation" in Sicily, who promptly dies in battle. This leaves my kingdom in the hands of a six year old boy, in the midst of a double Jihad and way to many dukes with enough troops to be a nuisance. Did I mention the elective faction? Elective faction.

What is an aspiring English (well Norman, whatever) king to do?!

Keep calm and drink some tea.

And put on some appropriate music

In my limited experience, a Jihad is a great time for succession, thanks to the massive opinion bonus while it's going on. Still not ideal for a 6 year old boy to take over though.

 

[Secret Master]

One of my favorite games (from before The Old Gods) was a Russian Orthodox game where I managed to create Rus-Lithuania in a timely fashion from the 1066 start, but the Mongols showed up and turned me into a duke again under the Golden Horde.

It took 100 years of marriage, intrigue, and claims on former titles, but I became a powerful vassal under the Khan. Then I became independent. Then a new dynasty took over as khans of the Horde, but they converted to Orthodox. I intermarried with their dynasty, and by 1350, I placed my Russian Orthodox son on the throne of the Golden Horde.

The satisfaction and irony from that game was worth the blood, sweat, and tears.

 

[General Karthos]

Why would you rage quit? Take victory in the mainland British Isle and capitulate to the Irish and council power to bide your time.

I didn't rage quit. (I don't rage quit CK2.) I won all the wars without having to capitulate, though yes, my income was very negative for a few years after the wars were over.

And I have had the experience of completely losing a vast Empire. Long story short, two Emperors died in quick succession, leaving a four year-old girl in charge of the Empire which proceeded to shatter into splinters. (This was back when revolts were individuals.) Normally my retinues would have been able to clean it up, but they'd been reduced to a handful of men in Jerusalem because I'd been defending against an extremely powerful Jihad for Jerusalem. They got wiped out by the Jerusalem revolt.)

By the time the scouring was complete, I had an eight-year old countess with three counties in Ireland. This from an Empire that consisted of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Hispania, Scandinavia, Germany, Jerusalem, Hungary, Austria, Bohemia, Arabia, and several others I can't remember off the top of my head.

It took me over TWO HUNDRED YEARS to build myself back up to anything even RESEMBLING that level of power.

 

[Sirrobert1]

I didn't rage quit. (I don't rage quit CK2.) I won all the wars without having to capitulate, though yes, my income was very negative for a few years after the wars were over.

And I have had the experience of completely losing a vast Empire. Long story short, two Emperors died in quick succession, leaving a four year-old girl in charge of the Empire which proceeded to shatter into splinters. (This was back when revolts were individuals.) Normally my retinues would have been able to clean it up, but they'd been reduced to a handful of men in Jerusalem because I'd been defending against an extremely powerful Jihad for Jerusalem. They got wiped out by the Jerusalem revolt.)

By the time the scouring was complete, I had an eight-year old countess with three counties in Ireland. This from an Empire that consisted of Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Hispania, Scandinavia, Germany, Jerusalem, Hungary, Austria, Bohemia, Arabia, and several others I can't remember off the top of my head.

It took me over TWO HUNDRED YEARS to build myself back up to anything even RESEMBLING that level of power.

Did the empire still exist?

 

[General Karthos]

Did the empire still exist?

Not in its full form. I controlled the Empires of Arabia, Hispania, Carpathia, Scandinavia, and Britannia. When the full Empire shattered, the titles of Empire still existed, but the five Empires were split up, and most Imperial titles were held by someone who had the territory of a Duke or so remaining. I lost the Imperial title when all the factions fired, but I still had claim on the Imperial Title. Unfortunately, the Emperor of Britannia was the one who held the majority of what had been the Kingdom of England, so I couldn't exactly challenge him for my crown, and I didn't have anything like the resources to go for the other Empires. And as time wore on, I lost my claims, blood line thinned, the glory of my house faded. Actually, shortly after losing my Empire, things were so dire that I had the golden crown icon for 10 years, with no legitimate heirs. I was like the Targaryans... every member of my house was executed all across the world.

EDIT: This is why I don't create more than one Empire any longer, despite the prestige bonuses. This plus the extra "desires the Empire of [blank]" modifier.

 

[Narvait]

Since I dont ironman, I dont rage quit.
I save scum.

But now since the premise is "I love challenges", I assess the 'state after' and check if it is worse than being tribal 1 County chief in 1220.
Usually it is not, so I take challenge

 

[Helios Panoptes]

The only time I ragequit is when I just started and my ruler gets conked on the head in battle. If it's well into the game, then oh well, that's how the cookie crumbles, but right at the start? Meh.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

I savescam generally (probably far more than most sane people do, if we're brutally honest[1]) - though I do sometimes have an experimental go two or three times if the situation gets really crappy and I would have top skip back a long way.

Some people like random events screwing them over so they can have the challenge of rebuilding. I don't derive any fun from that, personally... And the ability to be able to warp time and screw the AI is the reason I don't play multiplayer computer games. (I get that aspect of challenage-and-no-takebacks when I play tabletop wargames; nominally I play computer games to relax, no get frustrated, and sheer-bloody-mindedness goes only some way.)

Sometimes, though... I basically ragequit my first game of Stellaris after a paltry 35 hours (I have played my first EUIV game at 200 hours and I'm 150 hours into my first CK2 game) when the end-game Swarm-chappies turned up and proceeded to curb-stomp the rest of the galaxy. Even if I had managed to beat them, the game would effectively have been over, since no-one else would have been left.



[1]It might be observed I would be better to use the console sometimes, instead of reloading ten times or something, but that's a boundary I can't mentally cross. Go figure.

 

[Lord Flash]

I would say that I play very conservatively, which means that any radical decisions I make are only 'to see what would happen if'. So obviously I save, then make radical decision, observe events, improve my learning and then usually continue the game anyway, because other positive things have happened since the save that offsets the negative.

 

[General Karthos]

I would say that I play very conservatively, which means that any radical decisions I make are only 'to see what would happen if'. So obviously I save, then make radical decision, observe events, improve my learning and then usually continue the game anyway, because other positive things have happened since the save that offsets the negative.

When I'm playing without savescumming (self-imposed, but not official ironman) I play VERY conservatively. Especially with all the factions now and the spread of my Empire to three separate continents (Well, Britain, Europe, and Asia Minor). It's very difficult to manage expansion without your forces getting chewed up a little, which makes the factions see themselves as more powerful than they actually are, so I can count on one hand the number or large-scale foreign wars I have fought where a faction revolt hasn't occurred.

In one case I was crusading in Jerusalem. I had just reached the shores, a faction revolt rose up, so I sailed all the way back to merry old England, put down the faction revolt and sailed all the way back to Jerusalem. Still won the Crusade and got the fabulous prize. Unfortunately, I picked what was in the box and got stuck with the Kingdom of Jerusalem.