Dumb mistakes you always make

[Willem IV]

Forget to fully fund your army before declaring war.

 

[Incompetent]

Not so much a 'mistake I always make', but definitely a dumb one: Letting a PU break because of negative opinion. When I saw how big the coalition against me would be as punishment for restoring the union, I ragequit.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Getting to 100% warscore against their warleader then going through the shield instead of the diplomacy screen and accidentally white-peacing the entire war while trying to peace-out his allies.

I ruined a great Aztec game by accidentally making me my enemy's vassal instead of the other way around

 

[Mattimeo78]

I ruined a great Aztec game by accidentally making me my enemy's vassal instead of the other way around

I may have done that once...

 

[ExtraCheesy]

Getting to 100% warscore against their warleader then going through the shield instead of the diplomacy screen and accidentally white-peacing the entire war while trying to peace-out his allies.

I've never actually done that, but every time I peace out the war leader's allies my heart skips a beat because I think I just made peace with the wrong person.

 

[DVF]

Late game, when adm efficiency is maxed, I usually bite off more than i can chew and get like 140% OE. All I can do is to pray to all the gods that I don't run out of manpower before the rebel-fest has ended.

 

[Chewy Yui]

Letting France get out of control

 

[King Leto]

Securing a complete victory, then accidently make a white peace.

 

[Baron Tanks]

This! Every new campaign I make that same mistake a couple of times and have to just sit there 2 or 3 years with 100% war score waiting for diplo points.

Also I often forget to place troops in a new colony so the natives destroy it. There goes another year waiting the colonist to arrive.

I always forget to call off trading ships to port before declaring war. I lost 4 different up-to-the-forcelimits fleets as Poland to this, they always got annihilated by someone like Scandinavia or Hansa. It would have been 6 fleets, but I have since then grown too big for anything in the Baltics to threaten me, and I learned to keep galleys with them. If I was protecting my trade in Crimea, though...

I've never actually done that, but every time I peace out the war leader's allies my heart skips a beat because I think I just made peace with the wrong person.

I still tech every now and then when I don't want to. I even have it happen that I don't tech before a war, thinking, I need the points for peace deals and coring. Declare, fight and get a useless naval tech halfway through just cause I forget. Best part is I always seem to realise instantly after clicking the button.

I also tend to lose a lot of navies, I either because they get attacked before they make it back to port, or I have go home at war on at a bunch of them and then there is always the stack that you forget to tick the box on And peacing out the war leader when I think I'm getting a minor ally still happens every now and then, I'd say at least once per campaign. Luckily that means the truces are short and it has led to other interesting opportunities, or me not being too greedy and actually sinking some of my AE

 

[Ptep]

I always forget to check my merchants at the beginning of the game to make sure they're doing sensible things, and whenever I get extra merchants I forget to assign them for years until I happen to glance up at the bar and see that I have one.

 

[Shipdrag]

I let unrest get too high and ignore coring costs after winning a few wars. Such is the story of how I lost Greece and part of Bulgaria as Genoa. #MLGG #GG

 

[zedyue]

I tend to royal marriage all my allies, even the ones I don't think I'll be keeping. I always forget about the stability penalties for nullifying RMs and it makes me less flexible when I'm locked in diplo slots.

 

[Kagemin]

I often forget to check other nations' ideas. Usually it's not too much of a problem, but then there are those cases where I let nations with +coring costs grow huge, or maybe even help them with it.

Another mistake I often do is to stay too long in a war, cause I'm hoping to get just a bit more out of it. Which usually ends up with me just wasting a lot of time, money, and manpower for little to no gains...

 

[PhroX]

I ruined a great Aztec game by accidentally making me my enemy's vassal instead of the other way around

While I've never managed to do that one, I have frequently vassalised my opponents in a war, only to realise that it was in fact my ally who had occupied the enemy's capital....

 

[Alienatu]

was previously said, but

first ironmade game, portugal, second war vs morocco, 1 day after declaring i realize my maintenance was at 0% and forts mothballed ... gg, go restart.

 

[GChapman]

I click on the minus sign in the province view to decrease unrest. Oh shit, it it not decreasing unrest, it decrease autonomy and thus increasing unrest... Being stuck with provinces with around 25% unrest... Even after a rebellion spawn, there is still unrest...

I always forget to check my merchants at the beginning of the game to make sure they're doing sensible things, and whenever I get extra merchants I forget to assign them for years until I happen to glance up at the bar and see that I have one.

Me too....

 

[PhroX]

I click on the minus sign in the province view to decrease unrest. Oh shit, it it not decreasing unrest, it decrease autonomy and thus increasing unrest... Being stuck with provinces with around 25% unrest... Even after a rebellion spawn, there is still unrest....

Been there, done that, got the massive rebellion....

 

[vodkaholic]

2 previous (failed) attempts at a Brandenburg/TO start:

1: declaring a war against 3 OPMs, no allies willing to join me, set one of the OPMs whose only allies were other OPMs as co-belligerent. In the mid 1500s.
"Oh yeah I can handle it, I'm Prussia" I thought. Wrong!
That day I learned to respect the power of a lot of OPMs, those guys cooperated better than I've ever seen the AI do, and they were vicious little bastards hunting down my armies at low morale almost non-stop.

2: Expecting Austria to actually contribute to my TO war against solo Poland. Instead they just stayed at home while Poland went ham. Poland also never touched Austria, that'll teach me to rely on the AI's benevolence.

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In general, also forgetting to give claimed provinces to important allies in a war only to have them become pissed and break the alliance, that always sucks.

 

[Xara]

I tend to have numerical superiority in terms of raw power; stacks of 20-30 units spread out to support each other but avoid high support attrition. And then Poland or France or someone with strong MIL ideas / super generals walks in at lightning speed and stackwipes the fort sieger stack before I can even get the reinforcements in.

 

[lolada]

Declaring war through truce :// Happened to me at least 5 times so far..