Four minutes of extra time was never going to be enough to separate these promotion-chasing sides.
Tactically Brighton's deep defensive organisation won the day with a valuable point, but City's manager Danny Wilson was able to claim: "We are still in there fighting for automatic promotion."Brighton's boss, Mark McGhee, was left needing two points to be 100 per cent certain of the play-offs.
"We put up a good performance albeit a defensive one," he summed up. "Our shape was great and they found it very difficult to break us down."After a wandering non-descript first half the first sign of a break for either side came early in the second half minutes after Wilson had made a double change - but it came from his right-back Louis Carey.
Surging down the wing he fired near-post shot which Brighton keeper Ben Roberts did well to parry for one of City's seven corners.
Wilson's changes were bold for it involved swapping Tony Rougier, who had been one of his most effective men in the first half for Scott Murray.
After a tame ten-yard effort early in the game Rougier, always patrolling the right flank with purpose, powered in a left foot shot which Roberts turned away. The keeper's handling in the air was not that sure but he always had defenders to clear up.
City had been well briefed on the threat of Leon Knight, the Division's leading scorer, he moved freely from one wing to the other and ended up in the middle without ever looking as if he would add to his tally of 26 goals.
Whenever he was on the ball he had two players moving in.
It all left the ex-Stoke striker Chris Iwelumo as the main threat but he hobbled out 15 minutes from the end with a left ankle injury after tussling with home centre-back Tony Butler.
Butler himself didn't see out the game, substituted in a final managerial gamble which saw Marc Goodfellow used on the left to give City more width.
Wilson was left to lament: "You need a stroke of luck at times but today we didn't get it."