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

[cahtush]

Used the same unit composition as I did in Total War games, ended up having around 40 inf, 8 cav and 4 art in my armies.
Unsurprisingly ended up losing most of my late game battles.

 

[Hvymtlboy]

I decided Denmark would be fun to play.......

 

[Megabear]

If you are serious, there is a way, you could either wait for the Wedding and sell your land to Aragon, or release Galcia, or one of the newer vassals, give them all your land. I think you aren't allowed to move your capital to another continent until you are down to your last province in your original (Europe in this case).

No I was joking..

 

[Will Steel]

I started playing EU3 not long after it came out. Since I was a Total War player, my mistake was to think that I could survive easily if I play a OPM, build a ton of troops and just turtle there. It didn't work. I was playing Albania and got invaded and annexed by Ottomans within a decade.

Back then I also didn't know about the concept of force limits. So I just kept recruiting soldiers and building ships everywhere, and then scratched my head wondering why my income was suddenly crippled and I am always bankrupt.

A MAJOR mistake was to look at France and think I could defeat it (didn't know about vassal system). I thought, heh, in TW games a divided empire is easier to beat, and France looks like a broken mess. Time to declare war on them as Aragon. Needless to say, it didn't end as I thought.

Ah, memories. I'll try to remember what hilarious things I used to do back then.

 

[Reboundingdice]

As Castille, I wanted to save money and focus on colonizing. France was friendly so I deleted most of my troops for better income and expected happy colonizing in peace and rainbows. France breaks alliance, then DOW's me. How do I move my capital to Americas again?

You click on a province that isn't in a colonial nation and there's a little button in the top left of the province overview that let's you change it.

 

[Will Steel]

You click on a province that isn't in a colonial nation and there's a little button in the top left of the province overview that let's you change it.

Can't you only move capital within your home continent?

In EU3 the only possible way to shift capital to an entirely new continent was to sell all your provinces/let them be conquered and reduce yourself to just one province (your capital) in your home continent. After which you could move it to some new continent. And sell off your old territories completely to migrate, or recapture them back from whoever now holds them.

 

[IceTytanFang]

Playing as Genoa in EU3; In Domine, my first game, I did a lot of horrible things

1: I had a clear mindset of conquering and uniting Romania (I actually chose Genoa thinking it was Romanian country. This was back when Genoa had a province in Bessarabia). I was able to conquer Wallachia, but things didn't go to well from there...

2: I decided to convert to Protestantism when the reformation started while I had no protestant provinces (Oh, free money! Why am I down to -3 stability?) I lost most of my 'empire' because of that. I later was forced to convert back to Catholicism, another stability drop.

3: I had no idea I could adjust the 'treasury' slider that was there back then that could add money straight to my treasury
3a: as a result, I went bankrupt. another stability drop

4: After going bankrupt, my treasury slider was set to max, so I was making ALL the money! But also getting ALL the inflation, which I didn't realize existed until I was at, like, 100 inflation.

5: I don't remember how, but I ended up in a war with France
5a: as a result, I became a vassal. Consider me lucky

6: This is the one that literally ended my game: I didn't realize I could choose "no" on the demand vassal annexation with little consequence. (back when it was just a yes/no "Hey, do you want to be fully integrated?")

I'm sure I was also caught up in the weird alliance system that was present in EU3 and early EU4

 

[atwix]

As navarra, accepting an offer to become France vassal after they protected me from Aragon. Didn't know yet that a vassal is well.. unable to do anything.

 

[rr99]

Declaring war without checking to see if I was still in a truce... "Wait? Why has my stability gone down to that?" - - -

Oh I still do that sometimes when the DoW interface doesn't display any negative stability consequences on-screen. Technically not a bug, but sometimes I forget to scroll down rather than believe the evidence of my eyes.

Probably just a display resolution "feature" but it hacks me off anyway. Maybe the interface could be improved to display negative consequences at the top (or side) instead of off-screen.

 

[PhroX]

As navarra, accepting an offer to become France vassal after they protected me from Aragon. Didn't know yet that a vassal is well.. unable to do anything.

Becoming a large nation's vassal can actually be quite a good ploy - you can get pretty much anyone who even vaguely dislikes then to support your independence, beat them in a war, but instead of beoming independent, just take a big chunk of their land, then repeat the process 15 years later. I've had a couple of good games as Navarra where I accepted a vassalisation offer from Castille, then, over the next 50 or so years, used French help to devour them from within. Unfortunately, as in your case, when the nation in question is the BBB, it tends to single handedly beat everyone who supports your independance....

 

[Sharples88]

Becoming a large nation's vassal can actually be quite a good ploy - you can get pretty much anyone who even vaguely dislikes then to support your independence, beat them in a war, but instead of beoming independent, just take a big chunk of their land, then repeat the process 15 years later. I've had a couple of good games as Navarra where I accepted a vassalisation offer from Castille, then, over the next 50 or so years, used French help to devour them from within. Unfortunately, as in your case, when the nation in question is the BBB, it tends to single handedly beat everyone who supports your independance....

It is a funny gamey tactic, I tried this as Orleans, got enemys of France to support my independence, then declare war, royal marriage and invade France, take claims, keep as a vassal, repeat process once truce is over. Especially after the first war it gets easier plus the royal marriages.

 

[bestbrian]

First game of EU3, playing as Castille. Got a magic PU over France about ten years into the game. Restarted, because it was more than I wanted to deal with while learning the game.

Never seen anything like that again.

 

[PanosB3]

I think I can top most of you: As Austrian emperor at start I fully annex 10 countries (including venice) 2 years later I lose emperor status and the coalition appears right after that.... i had -60 with all hre nations basically...

 

[Kapitalisti]

Ignored AE. In the HRE. Was dead pretty soon.

 

[zenisar]

When I started my first campaign, I noticed in GUI that "annexing vassals is a good way to expand without disturbing your neighbors". So I focused on diplomacy and tried to be nice to everyone. After a while, I could not keep up with France, Poland, Austria who kept expanding by waging war, and my former allies hated me for refusing to join their wars ...

 

[Drud]

My first game: Moscovy in 1444

I thought capturing provinces worked like Empire: Total War (you can capture provinces instantly just by attacking the capital) And I didn't understand manpower at all.

So I declared war on Novgorod who was allied to Lithuania, thinking I could just sweep over Novgorod and capture all their provinces instantly. That did not happen, and I quickly lost the war. I took out a ton of loans, ran out of manpower, lost a ton of prestige, and lost Perm and my other vassals in the peace.

Not wanting to wait 20 years for my manpower to recover, which I thought was ridiculous, I attacked Perm to re-vassalize them. But Perm had allied with another one of my ex-vassals. My forces and moral were in such bad shape that I lost terribly to my ex-vassals, ceding like 4 of my provinces to Perm.

Then I rage-quit.

 

[atwix]

lol, nice story drud

 

[Shadowless]

I played France once....

 

[fetusthebard]

Up until recently I never combined my armies. This was before dedicated forts were new, so it wasn't too bad. In an Ayutthaya game I realized my mistake, and when playing Tuscany I corrected it. Yeah. I was a complete noob until mere months ago.

Now I just rage when my entire army is wiped for no reason because they "can't retreat" (even though EVERYONE is suposed to retreat at least one province). Infuriating bug.