Stupidest things you have ever done in EU4

[Krajzen]

Today I have achieved such epic level of failure it has inspired me to found this thread.

Basically, I am Netherlands; top 1 global power in everything, everything cool, at one point French La Plata asks me to support their independence. I agree because I like liberating CNs (the more chaos in the world the more interesting it is) and I like weakening France Soon it declares independence war, I send 50 000 soldiers across the Atlantic to help against superior numbers of Brasil/Peru. In the meanwhile I easily defeat French with my 100 000 European army (I have also 100 000 soldiers in Asian region). Everything's cool but then I made a first Grave Mistake of not caring to read 'do you join the war of your ally' and joining Hanseatic war against like half of HRE. It isn't entirely hopeless but my nation is swarmed with raging Germans which is scary. There are like 200 000 of them.

So, I decide to return my South American expeditionary force to Europe soon - here is second Grave Mistake, instead of doing that immediately I have decided to keep them fighting to ensure the independence of this stupid La Plata. Meanwhile I kill incredible amounts of HRE forces while burning through my 200k pool of manpower and mercenaries. So finally it's the time to send my 50k for a desperate crucial battle to defend my Netherlands from HRE invasion. I order them to go near the coast of Argentina, park a transport fleet nearby, send the fleet to Europe across the Atlantic, of course it takes it hella lot of time to cross the entire ocean, meanwhile situation is Europe is more and more horrible but finally 50 000 reinforcements arrive! Coincidentally, enemy forces are down to like 160 000 so my 100k+50k can defeat them!

As my transport fleet enters the port of Amsterdam, I realize I forgot to load my 50k army on transports (enough of them - 60). It was standing on the coast of Argentina this entire time. The fleet crossing the Atlantic was empty this whole time.

 

[lymond]

That's a classic one there! I have to many eff ups to mention. However, the two things that do quite often that I consider royal screws are a) Declare war without carefully reviewing penalties, such as truce breaks or military access b) effing up peace deals by misclicking..actually pretty easy really. Recently occupied a country and was like...wow..no cost for annexing..well it was because I somehow unclicked the provinces. That was a fairly minor war, although painful relatively, as still small Taberastan, but I've had long Pyrrhic victories in which I failed to take my due rewards

I've made similar mistakes with loading/unloading troops on ships..probably not near as devastating as yours though..ha

 

[Choombi]

That is the kind of mistake one rage quits about

 

[Varvs]

sweet one ... my latest one was very early game i wanted to hire lvl 1 advisor after a war i just won where i tool all their money. misclick the lvl 3 one. all money gone next month tick loan. arrrrg

 

[Zohtun]

As a newcomer to EU4 I'm pretty sure I could describe "My first Campaigns" as being just a series of mistakes. My gameplay consists of do a thing, see the repercussions. Then reset back 3 years after hitting a brick wall from my errors. Between my first one in India (Bahamis) and Ottoman, I've slowly derped my way into learning this game. It's great fun, but it's so bad when I realise I just mucked up badly.

Some noteworthy ones:

-Declaring war on a minor state without checking their allies. One of them had thrice the army I did.
-Using a no-CB declaration rather than fabricating something.
-Declaring war with unrest over 10%...in all territories.
-Going to war with over-extension at 115%
-Beating the hell out of Byzantium and not annexing Athens at the same time despite beating them too. Took me a solid 15-ish years to finish off Greece (truce+other wars).
-Accidentally clicking "Grant independence" to a rebel faction instead of "treat harshly".
-Hiring 3 level 3 advisers at game start.

 

[Vaximillian]

As my transport fleet enters the port of Amsterdam, I realize I forgot to load my 50k army on transports (enough of them - 60). It was standing on the coast of Argentina this entire time. The fleet crossing the Atlantic was empty this whole time.

Which is why the upcoming „build in colonial subjects“ feature is faulty.

 

[Yoshijoe]

Accidentaly picking 'send an insult' instead of 'improve relations' for a crucial ally and not noticing until your buddy breaks the alliance and promptly get DoW'ed by everyone who wants a piece.

 

[Ravagers Prey]

Playing as England back when it was actually hard to fight France and with the old rebel system. I decided it would be a good idea to convert to protestant when I owned all of France and the British isles. long story short I got so many rebels all my friends in the multiplayer game were not enough to stop them and I imploded. My friends were playing as burgundy, the Hansa and the commonwealth.

 

[bbqftw]

Accidentaly picking 'send an insult' instead of 'improve relations' for a crucial ally and not noticing until your buddy breaks the alliance and promptly get DoW'ed by everyone who wants a piece.

this one happens more often than you might think.

 

[whosthebestcop]

Forget truce starts when you revoke guarantee and declare war.

 

[Noel84]

Attacking france.

 

[Zohtun]

I know I posted earlier, but I have another one now:

Taking a mission which is dependent on maintaining peace and then declaring war (and thus getting smacked with a Malus for it)

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

trying to fight by myself

 

[Kapitalisti]

Making careful plans and sending my troops to destroy the enemy in one fell swoop (we're both small powers so my 8000 men vs. their 5000 are pretty much all our forces). And get slaughtered because I forgot to up my military maintenance. That was pretty much that.

 

[Black_Shade]

Forgetting you have military access from some random nation and later declaring war on them, getting massive unrest and war exhaustion followed by an internal conflict disaster. This happens more often than I'd like to admit.

 

[PhoenixDown]

Deleting 50k of regular troop. My brain failed me at that moment.

 

[fleetothemoon]

The common mistake I made are underestimating the power of multiple minor nations. Those 7k-16ks really add up, and damn, some of those little guys packs quite a punch for their weight... probably due to Common Sense.

 

[TheDungen]

Losing all my starting manpower to attrition. I guess the lesson was never invade Russia in the winter, who would have guessed.

 

[Powder hound]

Loosing most of the Royal Navy to Ivan the Terribles fleet
An early game but got into a war involving Denmark, Hanas and Russia probably because way down on force limit, no problem I have the RN I can't be touched. Doing so well leave heavies at home and blockade Denmark with all my lights, switch brain off, don't see big Russian fleet slip out of archangel until pop up lost all lights in battle of....
No problem send in the big guns, they loose
Russians invade Meath thankfully, crash shipbuilding programme, just get fleet big enough for when their fleet returns for third time with army for Ireland. Real fun and tension as my shipbuilders beavered away it was a great game
Other dumb thing I do now is right click on an ally when in battle mode causing my winning army to retreat to that province, dumber

 

[thissideup]

Just yesterday I spent all my diplo points on a new tech about half a year before finishing a war. Needless to say I had far too few diplo points to actually get what I wanted from the war.