I just spent the last few hours playing Master of Orion II on baby difficulty with an AI opponent on a small galaxy. I came across Orion and decided to wait until I got the tech to beat the guardian only to discover that the AI already got to it before me. When I sent my ships over there, there was just a mess of Doom Stars waiting. The psilons already beat it. No wonder it stopped hassling me for technology. I figured I just wasted my time and then quit without saving. I mean, it was my first game, but it felt disheartening after how well my last Master of Orion 1 game went.

This is also a problem I have with city builders. I build too much too early and then get in loads of debt because I felt spending taxpayer money to layout an ideal grid and build schools is apparently not what you're supposed to do. Instead, you're supposed to build massive suburbs to start with and build up a tax base and then when you are ready to build your city, you demolish large chunks of what's already built and then adjust spending and taxes where necessary. I'm not very good at long term strategy games.

Regale your own stories here.

Well, there was that time in Final Fantasy 6 where I know I couldn't win the battle, but I didn't actually lose the battle.

The cast is as follows:
* Gau, using the Magic Urn rage. This rage makes him recover HP when hit with an elemental attack, and on his turn he will either attack or cast Cure 3. (Note that he can't be controlled after he starts raging.)
* Umaro, who was equipped with the Rage Ring, allowing him to absorb elemental attacks. No Blizzard Orb. With this setup, Umaro will make physical attacks, some of which will be powerful physical attacks. (Note that he can't be controlled during battle.)
* Two other party members. It doesn't actually matter who they were, and I don't actually remember (though Gogo wasn't one of them, as I was trying to go through the dungeon where Gogo is recruitable in the first place). Also, worth noting that nobody had a Reflect Ring equipped at this time.
* The enemy was one of those ninja type enemies, which hits the party with elemental attacks, and can also turn invisible, making it unhittable by physical attacks until hit with a spell.

Now, the actual fight:
* I used Gau's Magic Urn rage (mentioned above) early.
* The enemies killed the two other party members and turned invisible. At this point I knew I couldn't win, as the two remaining characters only used physical attacks, which would always miss.
* I could not lose the fight, because the enemy's elemental attacks kept healing me, not to mention Gau casting Cure 3 at random (always on party members, never on the enemy).
* So, time to run away, I guess? Only one problem: It is not possible to run away from this particular enemy.
* Result is, of course, that I had to reset. Note that this is worse than a party wipe; after a party wipe in FF6, you can continue keeping the XP you earned (but note that any esper bonuses from level ups are lost, so many players may not want to do this), but not if you have to reset without a party wipe.

Yes, this is a soft lock, and as far as I can tell, this softlock isn't a glitch, but rather the consecquences of some design decisions that interacted in a poor manner. (The way I would fix this would be to allow running away from any normal enemy that can turn invisible.)

Edit: Why the low rating?

Far too many games have a ai that doesn’t consider that a human is playing so they have instant reaction ais. Looking at you StarCraft.

My first MoO1 game, I thought I had fallen behind to the point where I could never catch up and thus would lose slowly if I kept playing... but then when the council met for the first time everyone voted me the winner anyway.

Doukutsu Randamu, which is overtuned as all getout on purpose.

100+ attempts with various characters, and the deepest I've managed is 5 floors.

My first civ2 game.
I was playing as Japanese. [new civ! woohoo!] Started out on mid sized island.
Eventually the Mongol Empire conquered all of its continent nearby. [of course.] Uneasy peace reigned. I knew I was next. I hit on a bold plan. I would instigate a civil war in the Mongol Empire. It worked in Civ1. I knew I was technologically backwards, so I stole some tech. Then I made a small invasion fleet.
The fleet sneaked over to Samarkand. I boldly attacked and took over Samarkand, awaiting the civil war to happen. Nothing happened. [???] The angry Mongols counterattacked and took back Samarkand. In short order, Mongol battleships started to bomb my cities. So I quit.
In Civ1 the Mongol capital is Samarkand. In Civ2 the Mongol capital is Karakorum. {WHY!?!?!] I didn't think to look at intel.

LIterally any game that focuses on fast reaction speed and precise micro-movements. I am neither fast nor accurate in any way, shape or form.

In a game like Celeste, it's quite possible to end up in a situation where you're not actually dead, but which you have no way of saving yourself (short of turning on assist mode), so death is inevitable.

On the other hand you might get a situation that looks similar, but it's actually possible (though possibly quite tricky) to save yourself and continue onward. Then again, I've seen videos where the player would manage to save themself, only to die shortly after.

(Then again, unless you're going for a golden strawberry, the cost of death in Celeste is fortunately quite low; you just restart the room as though nothing had happened.)

Sometimes when I play Kingdom Rush in a "less frantic" stance I go putting and upgrading towers here and there, but without devoting much time to analyze my strategy. And then suddenly I see a HUGE enemy or a large swarm taking a path I had been neglecting. By that time I know I will have to restart the stage.

When playing a troll platformer (like one of the many mario maker troll levels out there, or a game like Syobon Action), sometimes you just know you are basically dead, despite not having actually died. For example:
* You fell down, but can't get back up because there's invisible coin blocks in the way.
* You unexpectedly went through a door or a pipe. (This is a common source of a feeling of dread.)
* You hit a block, and it contained an enemy that blocks your path.
* That power up you just picked up? Well, you just lost it because of an unexpected enemy. Or, you still have it, but you can't progress with the power up, and there's no place to take damage (without dying instantly).
* You just hit the goal, and no longer have control during the level clear animation, but you see a pit that you are going to fall into and die, losing the victory. (This can't happen in the mario maker games, but can happen in, say, romhacks.)

Some troll levels and games have been known to toy with this further:
* You end up in an anti-softlock. You're basically dead, but actually dying (so you can respawn from the previous checkpoint) takes some effort.
* The infamous CP1 troll; after you've hit the second checkpoint, the level forces you to hit the first checkpoint, hence having to replay that part of the level you thought you were done with.
* Another example is when you would die due to a hidden block, but the level instead sends you to a bonus area with (useless) coins; leaving that area will kill you. (That's instead of just killing you outright.)
* Sometimes it looks like you're in one of these "dead" situations, but it's actually the correct way to go; I've even seen unexpected goals, including situations where the player didn't realize they had hit the goal until the "Course Clear" screen appeared.

I'm reminded of when a shooter or action game autosaves right before something kills you. Happened to me in the Halo games a couple times. Fortunately, those games just boot you back to the last checkpoint before that, which yeah lost progress but at least you aren't soft locked. I've also read somewhere some other games will just give you full health if it detects that you're dying in the same spot over and over. I'd hate to be on the end of a less well-designed game that doesn't take that situation into account.

In both Final Fantasy Adventure and Ys 3, I've encountered situations where I (or in the FFA case, someone else) would save, then immediately die to an enemy on reload; furthermore, FFA has a case of puzzles resetting on reload. This, of course, is a nasty softlock, forcing a full restart of the entire game (and there aren't enough slots for multiple people to have back-u saves). In the Ys 3 case, I was able to save it by accessing the menu (which may have been frame perfect or close to it), equipping the shield ring, and then continuing, with the ring reducing the damage enough for me to survive and get out of there.

Also, I had this happen in SaGa 1 )Final Fantasy Legend 1), where I saved after getting the item that triggers the first major boss fight, but before actually fighting that boss. Unfortunately, my party was too weak to defeat the boss, and there was no way to leave (short of the Teleport ability, which I obviously didn't have, as it's rare (but not impossible!) to have it at this point), making it impossible to continue the game. (Before anyone suggests that I should have kept trying until I got lucky, due to the way the RNG works this would have never happened.) I note that this game has only *1* save slot, so there's no possibility of a backup safe save.

Save anywhere, while a popular feature among gamers, is not without its issues, this being the most significant one.

Pretty much how i play, i never liked the mass spam to then destroy it all later.

The most common way for me to lose in the first Master of Orion is being outvoted and not capable of winning the subsequent Final War. Usually the vote goes exactly 1/3 – 2/3 against me or very close to it. If outvoted I make an assessment on whether I stand a chance against all other united or not. Sometimes I need to play a few turns to see for sure. I happen to be playing one such Final War game now and I would say one more conquered planet and I should be safely on the winning side even with some losses.

In RTS and RTT I sometimes realise I am too tired and play too slowly or with too much tunnel vision to win. Either save and quit or just quit and return another day.

Playing an RPG, and the entire party has been hit with status ailments that prevent action (like sleep or paralyze). At this point, it's quite likely that it's a game over, but it can still take some time before the party gets wiped out. (Then again, getting lucky enough to get an action off *might* be possible.)

(Watching a Final Fantasy Mystic Quest race, and there's been plenty of deaths. One player lost the first fight with the Behemoth at the start, and on the second attemp the enemy opened with a critical.)