Dumb mistakes you always make

[Shiniamith]

Believing that "it's fine i don't need to assign objectives to the AI it can do stuff on it's own" and losing 10 WS in the coalition war because you know...let's attack France's doomstack and their godleader in the mountain. LOOK they even have a river!

 

[Tweakee]

My worst one is transferring occupation to a vassal before the end of the war. I do it as I figure out what I want to give away... but invariably, something changes and now I'm stuck because my vassals are jerks and won't give it back.

 

[Bulga]

I rarely check my aggressive expansion penalties during peace deals. One piece of Bohemia, a chunk of Hungary, and all of Bosnia later and I have a coalition that could rival Napoleon's the next day I come back.

 

[Trin Tragula]

I tend to forget to check the co-belligerent boxes that I intended when planning my wars.

 

[soldierpat117]

Declaring a war for independence, but not asking for independence in the peace deal

 

[Clausewitz_]

Before 1.13, i would always forget to core my colonial territories as russia

 

[Trace284]

"I'll just play a little. I've got plenty of time before class starts."

 

[Shimohi]

"This time my ironman game won't get destroyed by hilarious rng!"

 

[neaiskink]

Sure i can core it... it borders a core of my vassal... what? no? why? WTF? ... wrong continent.... it is not europe anymore, it is asia

 

[Thundercomet]

Saying to myself "I got dis" right before declaring war on a great power.
Alternatively, "Their allies are so far away, they won't bother sending troops." And then they land on me.

 

[b.bever]

Sending a colony stack to some far away island, missing the arrival popup because I got distracted, instantly remembering when getting the "fleet sunk" or "colony damaged" popup.

 

[PhroX]

I tend to forget to check the co-belligerent boxes that I intended when planning my wars.

I tend to forget that co-belligerent's are even an option, even when it would really benefit me to (ab)use them....

 

[Leo_Boon]

Before Declare war on Empire country, I check its strength, strength of allies, strength of Emperor who is naturally coming to aid. Declare war, only to forget that Emperor is co-belligerent and bringing all of his own buddies to the fight, and now I'm facing twice the enemies that I thought I would.

 

[cvahoo]

In my current game i forgot I can spend MP on development, and run years with 999 cap filled.

 

[alpaca]

I got a few more that haven't been mentioned yet:

• Forget to choose rivals or annex vassals between wars
• Forget to disable scutage before declaring a reconquest war for one of my vassals (this means they won't participate in the war, so can't transfer occupation to them)
• Take a province from a protectorate while I'm at 99% overextension
• Make vassal a march, forgetting it will take -200 relation to undo
• Not paying attention when choosing a wargoal (declaring on GB with a holy war on one of the island provinces instead of the French ones is pretty stupid)
• Losing a fleet and an army I was transporting to attrition because I forgot I sent it to protect against natives in a designated colony
• Enable fort maintenance locally when rebels are close to spawning
• Take provinces from non-co-belligerents, then realizing they cost a lot more AE
• Attack an HRE member forgetting the emperor is always co-belligerent
• Forget to declare war on a country immediately after truce ends, so they join the coalition
• Send one or two light ships as privateers, forgetting about the event where you get -15% trade efficiency (so not worth it)

 

[LoriKe]

Calling peace, 100% WS and forgot to take anything, mostly because i thought the peacedeal was saved....

 

[Krajzen]

Royal marry everyone nearby carelessly and then struggle with dowing them

I do that every game ever

I have just done that fail again in my new game

 

[Krschtschn]

I tend to forget chaining coalition wars. So the truces expire and instead of three small coalitons i get one big one and have too sit on my stupid ass for 10 years, because i cannot declare a winnable war.

 

[Monkbel]

I always forget to spend my monarch points and they go to waster after 999.

 

[YuriiH]

1) Sieging a capital w/o fort with my full stack of troops and getting 'disease outbreaks' (although it is my over-carefulness to avoid being destroyed by nearest enemy army; over-carefulness which I forget when it really matters — see item 3).
2) Peace deals:
spending dip just before PD, or
peace out everyone via enemy leader, or
peace out one by one and spending dip when I want to get less AE via 2-province leader.
3) The most frequent and punishing:
Overconfidence in my military forces to divide them and start several remote fort sieges (especially when fighting France or Ottomans, or carpet sieging pre-1.10 Russians).