Your most frustrating game ever

[Lapsed Pacifist]

Byzantium game.

Got a member of my ruling dynasty as the heir to the throne of Poland, naturally, I was delighted.
Months later, I decide to buy the Res Publica DLC, completely forgetting about this particular save.
I load the save, and suddenly little Alexsander is no more, replaced by a bunch of foreign candidates.

In desperation, I switch to Poland and kill the current King. Heir vanishes. Replaced by random Polish dude.

Flip table.
Save deleted.

 

[TyrannisUmbra]

I'm going to reply to this with a couple screenshots. It's my most frustrating yet also satisfying game ever.

Spoiler

Austria made my life a living hell. They quickly gained solid control of the Empire, and passed a LOT of reforms, including both disallowing internal HRE wars and hereditary rule, so it became VERY difficult to unify Germany. I ended up getting lucky and getting some amazing PUs and inherits. I PU'd Lithuania early on (fighting Sweden over them in a bloody war), and got Bavaria after HRE wars were disallowed, as the last country I needed to form Germany, as well as much later, inheriting a blobby Hainaut without a PU at all.

However... things weren't all sunny. As you can plainly see, Austria went rampant. They PU'd poland and Naples, as well as vassalized/conquered many minor Italian states. We basically split the HRE in half between us, and Austria simply would not stop trying to block me, and they had a very nasty habit of allying with other large powers and dragging them into long and costly wars against me. By my recollection, I fought at least 4-5 wars against Austria, 3-4 against Russia, 4-5 against Sweden, 3-4 against France, as well as countless minor nations tagging along for the ride in each one, all culminating in that big mass of /red/ you see in that first screenshot as the final aftermath once I finished fighting off 3 different coalition groups for a final massive victory before my end date!

It's by no means my most impressive borders, but that entire game kept me on my toes, and it was one of the most action-packed and hectic games filled with both amazing and terrifying moments.

 

[Farodin]

Basically any of my most recent Sweden games, trying to do "Sweden is not overpowered!":

- Start off, quickly build Merc army to declare independence (Denmark seems to always have a habit of diplo-annexing Norway really fast for some reason)
- Denmark allied to either Muscovy or Lithuania, whatever can somehow manage to emerge successful
- good start, got some of my starting cores, etc.., finally independent
- searching for allies to help keeping Muscovy weak (Denmark is in check at that point)
And then usually either one of the following:
- No one will ally me for whatever reason (mostly "distance between borders" or rivalry) or
- have that one ally I desperately need to pull this off, a few days before I can DoW after truce, they declare war on some HUGE alliance (e.g.: Poland declares on Hungary, Hungary is allied to France, England AND Austria for some reason) and my plans get thrown back another 15 years

 

[ChildeR]

It's by no means my most impressive borders, but that entire game kept me on my toes, and it was one of the most action-packed and hectic games filled with both amazing and terrifying moments.

Isn't that the opposite of frustrating?

 

[Avalen]

Well I remember having screamed at my computer screen back when I was a noob playing Austria. France always came to destroy me. Also any game I'm trying to create colonies with pretty borders.

 

[Hrayert]

Must have been my Poland can into space and Winged Hussars achievment run. This was during 1.6.0, and i think around 1620 the royal struggle happened. Giving me +10 revolt risk, -33% goods produced and some more modifier i cant recall.

Now here is the real kicker. This modifier did not go away when i crushed the noble rebellion. It totally tanked my economy due to goods produced and the huge revoltrisk. Played for 20 or so years to see if it went away, which it did not. All I had to do then was to await a hotfix patch.

Also every single game im attacking with a 4 manuever general on a province with 55% plains and i somehow get the 13.2% mountains EVERY single time against a general without maneuver. I need AoW...

 

[sotbs]

It's the current WC attempt I am making with France. It is entertaining as hell, lots of planning ahead on idea groups/, adjusting to dynamic situation, not even going too badly given lack of gamey tactics. But it's 1610 and a little clock of frustration is ticking: I have way too many things to do IRL to finish it before AOW comes. Will it all go in vain? We'll see.

From the same game a little annoying moment: Netherlands declare independece from Austria, I DOW them soon after I am done with other conflict but since they are well established all I can do is request to release a ninety-something warscore nation. I choose Holland over Brabant (so that lucky Netherlands have no coast and cannot come up with ridiculous idea of colonization). Few days later I am informed that Kingdom of Holland decided to join the Dutch republic and will be incorporated back to Netherlands. Courtain.

And games where AI guys just defeat me or rebels grow too strong? Meh, that's too rare and no reason to frustrate

 

[sotbs]

Also every single game im attacking with a 4 manuever general on a province with 55% plains and i somehow get the 13.2% mountains EVERY single time against a general without maneuver. I need AoW...

Did you just reload game to check it? Then there's a chance it is not a coincidence - it's pretty standard programming practice to have the rand seed generated once for a number of events and then just reusing it. So the random part responsible for choosing ground happened well before you reload. Just speculating here.

 

[Hrayert]

Did you just reload game to check it? Then there's a chance it is not a coincidence - it's pretty standard programming practice to have the rand seed generated once for a number of events and then just reusing it. So the random part responsible for choosing ground happened well before you reload. Just speculating here.

Well, I only play Ironman. I know myself, I would save scrum like crazy if i could.

And its not every time. Its a form of confirmation bias, i remember the fights i got mountains with 16.3% chance, but i dont remember the other way around.

 

[Silver Viper]

my first game as brandenburg! although i made it to form prussia but then my trouble began! cos i went protestant, anyone around me just started waging wars on me as soon as i tried to make a move of conquest! hansa, bohemia, austria, saxony and even bavaria (which wasnt even near my borders!) i defended to the last breath but eventually they grinded my army and took me out... then i was to frustrated to continue!

P.S. i crushed bohemia, saxony and hansa but combined austrian/bavarian army outnumbered me almost 3 to 1, unfortunately...

 

[Neoton]

Livonian Order. All started well and after a few years I had half of Teutons and a 4-province Finland vassal. Then due to the meticulous planing of my attack on Poland (managed to make Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Pomerania to join) and the tedious micromanagement I was actually going to make it. Then BOOM. The game said "sry, but i am gona undo all that effort" and Muscovy invades me with its stacks and a 3/6 general in 1460s. Austria joins my side but decides to chill in Vienna. Russians stackwiped me and the Poles took back their land, eventually everyone peaced out and I was left alone vs Russia and Poland/Lithuania and they partitioned me. After that I kept playing and tried to take back what I had lost. Problem is that I needed more than just Austria(my only remaining ally at that point) and so I did everything to please mega Denmark and make them an ally again but the game again said the same thing and gave me a - 103 modifier with them because they wanted the 1BT province Osel. Well **** this ****!

 

[Farodin]

Just happened:

Was trying for "Sweden is not Overpowered" again (somehow I do not seem to have any luck doing that one ) and was pretty set. I had declared independence early, reduced Denmark to 2 provinces, had Norway in check, forced Novgorod to release Finland and made them a march (to buffer Muscovy ) and due to the new 1.8 mechanics I was doing pretty well regarding revolt risk until the following unfolded over the course of a few weeks ingame:

- Protestantism fired, decided to adapt the new religion, because I like the -10% on ideas
- Obligatory national unrest from doing so, couldn't contain everything, because I'd had to raise autonomy in some provinces less than 30 years ago, revolt risk continued to tick.
No problem so far. Just keep eventual rebels in check and wait for every province to convert (CoR in Trondelag was helping here). BUT:

- Out of the blue, Livonian Order decide they wanna purge heresy and DOW, Muscovy and Scotland join in. England and Holstein joined on my side but were useless, as both of them focused on OPM Scotland.
- Can only peace out after I've lost 2/3 of my troops to some battles against Muscovy and LO (only thing I probably could've done better was to use burning ground, but I forgot. The rest was luck). Had to cede Reval and pay reperations + some ducats instantly.

The results if this were:
- FL dropped from 19 to 16 (not that it mattered per se, I only had 5 Stacks left anyways)
- my monthly income dropped to -15, even after releasing enough stacks, lowering upkeep, etc... burning away all the money I'd amounted before.
- rebels rose EVERYWHERE in stacks of 13

So there I was, with 5 stacks of soldiers, a 2-star general and new loans coming in every month after a certain point, facing ~50 stacks of rebels all across the country, trying to convert me back to catholicism. I know, this is probably manageable and I'll try so after calming down, but it made me quit do desktop in an instant.

 

[yerm]

My first game of eu4 was Tuscany. I took a HRE province and was immediately told to return it to the empire. I thought this was dumb; it IS in the empire already! I released them. Don't think I played in western Europe again for a month.

 

[Zqrfmb]

My most frustrating one was my first one ever: Portugal. I colonized Brazil, Spain also got a CN there, me and Spain were allies, and every few years, Portugese Brazil would DOW on Castillan Brazil, or the other way around, and we'd both end up leading wars against each other. I'd then be treated to a few years of my army being wiped and my lands being occupied by Spain, and them refusing any sort of peace until their "Length of war" modifier drained away and they settled for my trade power or a white peace, because my CN would always conquer theirs in south america, and France had me rivalled so I couldn't just get them to coat the country in diagonal blue stripes.

My prussia game would have been, where spain PU'd austria and allied France, who was DoF, so if I attacked literally any catholics, I'd fight three major powers, while the ottomans pushed all the way into poland was almost this, but then I managed an alliance with russia and sweden, and france decided to push into the HRE (I was the emperor after austria fell off the throne) and I forced an annul treaties out of France, then the tables started turning. Ottoblob did DoW on me, but our border was rife with mountains, so I was able to fend them off at a great manpower cost.

 

[atwix]

Just happened:

Was trying for "Sweden is not Overpowered" again (somehow I do not seem to have any luck doing that one ) and was pretty set. I had declared independence early, reduced Denmark to 2 provinces, had Norway in check, forced Novgorod to release Finland and made them a march (to buffer Muscovy ) and due to the new 1.8 mechanics I was doing pretty well regarding revolt risk until the following unfolded over the course of a few weeks ingame:

- Protestantism fired, decided to adapt the new religion, because I like the -10% on ideas
- Obligatory national unrest from doing so, couldn't contain everything, because I'd had to raise autonomy in some provinces less than 30 years ago, revolt risk continued to tick.
No problem so far. Just keep eventual rebels in check and wait for every province to convert (CoR in Trondelag was helping here). BUT:

- Out of the blue, Livonian Order decide they wanna purge heresy and DOW, Muscovy and Scotland join in. England and Holstein joined on my side but were useless, as both of them focused on OPM Scotland.
- Can only peace out after I've lost 2/3 of my troops to some battles against Muscovy and LO (only thing I probably could've done better was to use burning ground, but I forgot. The rest was luck). Had to cede Reval and pay reperations + some ducats instantly.

The results if this were:
- FL dropped from 19 to 16 (not that it mattered per se, I only had 5 Stacks left anyways)
- my monthly income dropped to -15, even after releasing enough stacks, lowering upkeep, etc... burning away all the money I'd amounted before.
- rebels rose EVERYWHERE in stacks of 13

So there I was, with 5 stacks of soldiers, a 2-star general and new loans coming in every month after a certain point, facing ~50 stacks of rebels all across the country, trying to convert me back to catholicism. I know, this is probably manageable and I'll try so after calming down, but it made me quit do desktop in an instant.

get more allies before declaring independance.. Novgorod, Livonian order etc will actually support your independance, and you can stomp muscovy right after by enforcing peace on them in their first novgorod conquest. You can stop them from colonizing this way.

And welcome to 1.8

 

[Jacmob01]

The two recent games I've played as test games with the 1.8 patch are probably the most frustrating ones I've ever played.
First one was with Sweden. Got independent, conquered the Baltic coastline from Novogorod and all of Livonian Order. Converted to Protestantism and everything was fine.

Until the league wars.

I had been at war with Denmark when the leagues activated. Since I couldn't join one, I sat back and footstomped both the Danish and the russian army whilst the Leagues began to grow. A year had passed since the leagues were created when I finally peaced out of my great nordic war victorious and thought that I perhaps should go ahead and join the Protestant League. But when I mouse over the button to do so: "England has declared war on Austria, they cite 'Religious League War' as their casus belli'". Yikes I thought, didn't have time to join it. Perhaps I'll just wait and join the league when the war finishes (I was completely unaware at the time about how everything worked with the leagues). I then went to diplomatic map mode to check how red Europe was for England.

And my god was it red.

Austria had a very OP Poland and Lithuania, all of southern Germany and Portugal with them from the start.

I thought to myself then, maybe it isn't that bad, they might be able to pull it throught.

I have never been so wrong since I'd started playing EU4.

It took the Catholic League 3 months to kick the protestant leagues' ass and the only one left was England. Meanwhile, super blob Hungary, France and Castille had join the catholic league (because anyone in the Catholic League can call in their allies which unbalances everything instantly) and smashed everything England could possibly put up against them. Somehow England was able to occupy Île-de-France for half a year without it ever being sieged by anyone. I then ragequit because I had missed joining the league and also for Russia and Lithuania simultaneously DoW on me with 6 6 generals and I got stacked wiped with my very best 4 3 general.

So I thought maybe I should play someone in Germany to be at the front line for the religious conflict?

That's when I decided to play Brunswick and try to form Hannover. That wasn't too much of a problem, conversion wasn't too difficult, had Denmark supporting me at the start until when I backstabbed them as Sweden declared Independence, switched ally to France as I usually do as Brunswick.

Then Burgundy died and I hadn't noticed that Austria wasn't emperor for some reason unknown because the Palatinate got it all. So I thought this should be easy then with the Leagues and everything

But oh boy, things turned bad faster than lightning.

Austria was back as Emperor around 1510, which is starting to get close to the possibility of the leagues. I didn't really mind it as I still had France as an ally, but of course, the game hates the human player and France switched me out for Austria. Fack!

So in 1545 I decided to cheat. Since Austria was still emperor and France seemed to lick their boots, I tag switched to Austria and set France as a rival. This however didn't help much, because a few month later, The Palatinate was back in charge. Now I saw an opportunity to win the religious war.

And the leagues triggered.

Again I was at war with Denmark and couldn't join it at the start. However, this time I quickly peaced out and joined the Protestant League quickly. When we had a clear advantage over the emperor who only had Trier and a couple of one province minors with him, I decided I should attempt to start the war.

And the game of course kills my ruler, leaving me with -1 stability which quickly turned to -2 through an event and a regency for 5 years. Darn.

This was enough time for the Catholic League to gain powers such as Lithuania, Sweden (dafuq mate?), Castile and Portugal. England joined the Protestants with Novgorod, Denmark, all the minors in the Netherlands, and most of Northen Germany.

Now when the Catholics had been let to grow overpowered, England decided it was time to start it all.

The protestants were winning at first. Since Castile couldn't get through France, the catholic HRE forced were smashed at the start giving my side a nice 30%. And out of the blue came Austria with two 5 6 generals with murder stacks and moved the warscore down to 20%, but we were still doing pretty well.

That is when France also joined the Catholics.

Half a year passed and I was stack-wiped twice, half of my glorious Hannover was occupied and France-Austria-Castille-Portugal were turning Europe into a Protestant blood bath. -70% warscore in less than a year... ragequit.

It may be because I'm inexperienced with the new DLC and everything, or the Super Power AI shouldn't join wars from a OPM call to arms were the battlefield is turned to 100% in favor of the enemies' side when the enemy really doesn't need any help at all and probably could handle the situation for at least another 10 years .

 

[atwix]

The two recent games I've played as test games with the 1.8 patch are probably the most frustrating ones I've ever played.
First one was with Sweden. Got independent, conquered the Baltic coastline from Novogorod and all of Livonian Order. Converted to Protestantism and everything was fine.

Until the league wars.

I had been at war with Denmark when the leagues activated. Since I couldn't join one, I sat back and footstomped both the Danish and the russian army whilst the Leagues began to grow. A year had passed since the leagues were created when I finally peaced out of my great nordic war victorious and thought that I perhaps should go ahead and join the Protestant League. But when I mouse over the button to do so: "England has declared war on Austria, they cite 'Religious League War' as their casus belli'". Yikes I thought, didn't have time to join it. Perhaps I'll just wait and join the league when the war finishes (I was completely unaware at the time about how everything worked with the leagues). I then went to diplomatic map mode to check how red Europe was for England.

And my god was it red.

Austria had a very OP Poland and Lithuania, all of southern Germany and Portugal with them from the start.

I thought to myself then, maybe it isn't that bad, they might be able to pull it throught.

I have never been so wrong since I'd started playing EU4.

It took the Catholic League 3 months to kick the protestant leagues' ass and the only one left was England. Meanwhile, super blob Hungary, France and Castille had join the catholic league (because anyone in the Catholic League can call in their allies which unbalances everything instantly) and smashed everything England could possibly put up against them. Somehow England was able to occupy Île-de-France for half a year without it ever being sieged by anyone. I then ragequit because I had missed joining the league and also for Russia and Lithuania simultaneously DoW on me with 6 6 generals and I got stacked wiped with my very best 4 3 general.

So I thought maybe I should play someone in Germany to be at the front line for the religious conflict?

That's when I decided to play Brunswick and try to form Hannover. That wasn't too much of a problem, conversion wasn't too difficult, had Denmark supporting me at the start until when I backstabbed them as Sweden declared Independence, switched ally to France as I usually do as Brunswick.

Then Burgundy died and I hadn't noticed that Austria wasn't emperor for some reason unknown because the Palatinate got it all. So I thought this should be easy then with the Leagues and everything

But oh boy, things turned bad faster than lightning.

Austria was back as Emperor around 1510, which is starting to get close to the possibility of the leagues. I didn't really mind it as I still had France as an ally, but of course, the game hates the human player and France switched me out for Austria. Fack!

So in 1545 I decided to cheat. Since Austria was still emperor and France seemed to lick their boots, I tag switched to Austria and set France as a rival. This however didn't help much, because a few month later, The Palatinate was back in charge. Now I saw an opportunity to win the religious war.

And the leagues triggered.

Again I was at war with Denmark and couldn't join it at the start. However, this time I quickly peaced out and joined the Protestant League quickly. When we had a clear advantage over the emperor who only had Trier and a couple of one province minors with him, I decided I should attempt to start the war.

And the game of course kills my ruler, leaving me with -1 stability which quickly turned to -2 through an event and a regency for 5 years. Darn.

This was enough time for the Catholic League to gain powers such as Lithuania, Sweden (dafuq mate?), Castile and Portugal. England joined the Protestants with Novgorod, Denmark, all the minors in the Netherlands, and most of Northen Germany.

Now when the Catholics had been let to grow overpowered, England decided it was time to start it all.

The protestants were winning at first. Since Castile couldn't get through France, the catholic HRE forced were smashed at the start giving my side a nice 30%. And out of the blue came Austria with two 5 6 generals with murder stacks and moved the warscore down to 20%, but we were still doing pretty well.

That is when France also joined the Catholics.

Half a year passed and I was stack-wiped twice, half of my glorious Hannover was occupied and France-Austria-Castille-Portugal were turning Europe into a Protestant blood bath. -70% warscore in less than a year... ragequit.

It may be because I'm inexperienced with the new DLC and everything, or the Super Power AI shouldn't join wars from a OPM call to arms were the battlefield is turned to 100% in favor of the enemies' side when the enemy really doesn't need any help at all and probably could handle the situation for at least another 10 years .

well, you post one heck of a first post. If you stay this calm about it, you might be able to join the mature community in here! *grin*

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Morricane]

It's funny because my most frustrating EU4 and EU3 games ever were also with Hungary

My most enjoyable EU4 game (1.7) ever was Hungary ...until I decided to try to dismantle the HRE and destroyed the beautiful borders I created

 

[Christopholes]

Pre 1.8 Kongo aka nothing but negative pulse events.

 

[Vityviktor]

Every moment France declares war on me.