What hilariously bad things did you do when learning the game?

[yerm]

I attacked into a guaranteed Scotland while Lollards and Pretenders were ready to rock. Had no idea what I was doing. I ended up having enemies marching across my country killing my rebels while I rebuilt. So, a few decades later, I decided to attack into France during my peasant's war, because they'd do it again right?

I didn't want Wales anyway.

 

[Baron Tanks]

Actually from launch to up to last week I was under the impression that manpower recovery speed governed how quick troops from your manpower pool went into your units, rather than how quickly your manpower recovers after it being depleted. So every time I had a choice between manpower recovery and maximum manpower, I always went for max manpower thinking I was choosing to get more manpower/month. SO i guess I only just now learned the basics

As a small comfort, your base manpower recovery is actually calculated as a percentage of your total manpower (so that it recovers in ten years without modifier). So increasing your manpower does increase the amount of manpower gained per month, just not the percentage.

 

[Boodas]

Playing Muscovy for my first game without understanding overextension or the Time of Troubles event back in version 1.5. 200 years of rebellions with 200% overextension, -2 stability and the time of troubles. Most fun I've ever had in EUIV.

 

[jorishilhorst]

As a small comfort, your base manpower recovery is actually calculated as a percentage of your total manpower (so that it recovers in ten years without modifier). So increasing your manpower does increase the amount of manpower gained per month, just not the percentage.

Yeah that is unfortunately exactly why I continued missing the other way to improve my manpower growth i made a selection, saw number go up and thought: job well done.
Oh well... next game I start I'll make better choices

 

[josh127]

I played as Portugal. I'm not very proud of that fact.

Actually, I think my mistakes these days are more hilariously bad. Usually they happen on mechanics I know but for some reason ignore, and usually they leave me in an extremely awkward place. There's many, but the worst ones are the ones where I end up fighting a big war and either can't take anything (why did I just take that dip tech I didn't need?) or I do take things and then have to give them back. "Hey Ottomans, have 5 cores back".

 

[LastSalian]

In my first SP campaign ever picked Economic as Castile.

 

[ahyangyi]

Started as Denmark, annexed Holstein, realized I needed two more provinces to be able to integrate Norway.

I allied Poland, attacked the Teutonic order, won. I could either grab two weaker provinces or grab Danzig.

"Obviously I should grab Danzig." and so I did.

Poland quickly turned hostile, wanting Gdańsk from me.

"Seems that my alliance was ruined. I guess I have to find some weaker guy to beat to get the other province."

Hmm, the small and rich Hansa attracted my mind. Surely I will easily beat a 3PM with three minor allies, I thought. I clicked on DoW....

 

[Zynyster]

My first EU game ever was EU4 France and I did it all, overextended, declared war without any CB, had WAY too many relations, ect. It was actually an amazing game though, spent the entire time defending against Austria who eventually formed the HRE and with the help of my Russian ally I dismantled it by 1821.

 

[Outrider]

In my first SP campaign ever picked Economic as Castile.

Definitely sub-optimal, but I don't know if it qualifies as "hilariously bad"

 

[JimboJJ26]

Welcome to Jimbo's 'Tales of Noobishness'!
Today's Episode, Myself playing EU4, August 2013:
...
"Alright! I guess I'll play as Burgundy. It doesn't look like they're as standard a start."
...
"Let's see ... what's this little yellow splotch? Liege? Well I have to eat that. Should be simple enough."
*Declares war*
...
"Ok their army's gone. Now on with the siege. Hey look ... what's Austria doing here? Why are they red...
...
"Nooo! Why does Austria care about stupid flippin' Liege?
"Oh ... HRE."
*Reloads as Ottomans*

 

[phatchiken]

First game, Castille; my 2nd ruler was a queen, Iberian Wedding fires (we were, like, in 1450 or something)... and I refuse it, thinking I would be the minor partner in the resulting PU (coming from CK2...).

Then spent the rest of the century, and a god-awful amount of admin MPs, to annex Aragon by war. Like, taking 1 or 2 provinces at a time, often without any claims... that sort of thing.

But that was when Art of War just came out (1.6?), so despite all of my mistakes, I still ended up making something like 1000 ducats each month by the late 1500s, thanks to the supercharged trade system we had back then! (w/o Trade Ideas...)

Oh, and I took both naval Ideas sets, thinking sea power was a major thing in this game. Let's just say the English Navy got quite a surprise when the Spanish Armada finally summoned up the courage to cross the Straits of Gibraltar...

 

[Krajzen]

Took naval AND maritime ideas as Poland. Built gigantic fleet and tons if naval infrastructure.

The amount of significant naval battles I actually fought: 1 through 300 years

 

[Dustman]

Went for my first colonization game in EU4 as England right after introduction of autonomy in one of the patches. Reduced autonomy immediately prior to unpausing game at the start. In every single province where it was possible. Who cares for 10 RR for 30 years?

 

[LordPavel]

Start to play in Africa.
During 100-150 years, it is ok, your win easly against my neighbors.

And Europeans comes. They finish my neighbors. I attack them, I win few areas (big war in Europe, no armie try to fight with me). Easy.

And they decide to attack me. All. Same times. So, 50k england, 20k portugal, 30k spain, 45k french come. I try to fight one by one, start by the weakest. The first kill me ... The nexts rape me.

 

[Finganforn]

In my first game I played as Castile.
- I focused mainly on North Africa, being ignorant of the increased coring costs and distant overseas penalty.
- I manually annexed much of Aragon, unaware of the Iberian Wedding (was happy when it fired though).
- I sent merchants to collect trade in Ivory Coast and Malacca, didn't understand the trade system at all.
- I thought allying France meant I could ignore Europe and just take over the rest of the world. When France was done annexing Italy and attacked me, my armies were smaller, weaker, and on the wrong side of the planet.

A different sort of "noob mistake" from my Sweden campaign: I avoided fighting Poland cause their armies were bigger than mine, it wasn't until they joined a war against me and cornered me and forced a battle that I realized that my armies were totally overpowered and could crush bigger polish armies with little to no casualties.

 

[Subbak]

In which Subbaks fails both at playing games and knowing his own country's history.

(This was before Common Sense)

"So, let's pick a country... Well, my friend mentionned that France is easy, it sure looks big-ish, and hey I live there, let's try it."
"Uh... War with the British... Isn't it supposed to be over by now?"
(*tries to recall dates*)
"Well, it looks like the end. And if I'm counting right, I'm way outnumbering them. Boutons les anglais hors de France !"
"So, they're all dead. But those pesky Englishmen will still not give me back my rightfull lands. Apparently I need some guys to sit on the provinces for a while for that. But the rest of my army has nothing to do then. Hey, I know, Burgundy defied my authority or something earlier in the 100YW, I'll attack them. I mean, they're really tiny, just three provinces big."
(*proceeds to do so without any alliances, because who needs that?*)
"Wait, where are those guys in the North coming from? Hey! That's not fair! How could I have known that Burgundy was more than just Burgundy?"

 

[ahyangyi]

Definitely sub-optimal, but I don't know if it qualifies as "hilariously bad"

Considering the special bankrupt events coded for Spain, I think picking Economic to deal with inflation from all the gold from treasure ships is at least thematic and flavorful

 

[zukodark]

In my first game I did not realize how I combined troop, so I just split them up for maximum control. I did not know how to move several armies at once, so I was so annoying believing I had to manually control all the units. In the end I just put them all in one province, losing tons of manpower from attrition, and then I got attack by Burgundy allied with Austria (not sure how). After that I played five attempt at France, always learning a little more. In the end I gave up, since Austria always joined the HRE wars, and since I thought I had to expand.

 

[kviiri]

Wasted manpower to wars without recovering in between, tried to recover by creating new units (hahaha no --best regards, Game), went over the colony limit as Castile and almost bankrupted myself, fought a lot of stupid wars for Berber territory (ooh, shiny desert... what do you mean there's a huge coring cost?), explored with heavy ships because I thought they'd be better at it than light ships, went over the naval force limits to build more light ships for trade (I thought I could actually pull a profit that way), thought heavy investing in military ideas would keep me safe in the early game...

 

[iBrokeni]

Played Saxony and didn't understand anything so I declared no CB war on brandenburg (or whoever), got destroyed, declared again a year later (screw the truce), got destroyed AND got a coalition against me.

The coalition declared every time the truce ended (forgot what version this was) and I got reduced to a OPM and they never took my last piece of land after that. Just constant war of taking my money and putting me even further in debt. Got mad and spent hours learning game mechanics.