Enjoy the game, that's my goal, but I always fail at it, mainly because how poorly Europa Universalis is made, and how many anti player events there are, and also how stupid it is*. I rather play a game, where I do good, I see good outcomes, as a result of my actions, and while I do bad, I see bad results. In EU4, nothing really matters, or it hardly matters, since everything is random. I'd even dare to say, to not even call this game Europa Universalis 4, but Random Event Generator 4. Having XXXX, 4 digit number of hours played, I played just 1, exactly 1 iron man game [got 11 achievements, which I don't even care for], and I never felt so frustrated, I have never sweated, and sweared so much, I felt like I'm going to throw my PC through the window, and jump after it, but I live on the 2nd floor, so I would survive.
The reason why I play PC games to begin with, is to have fun, and EU4 is mostly quite the opposite, which is why I stick to single player not iron man, so I can either save/load forever, or use commands whenever I feel like, and somehow counter the BS that happens. I'm playing games to experience something good, for everything else I have a life for.
In all that time that I played, I'm not sure that I ever went pass 1600, I mostly go to around 1500 and just restart, get bored. Nothing keeps me in the game, as I previously wrote, the anti player mechanics are a huge disappointment. Default AE is ridiculous, I could write a book about how broken EU4 is, which is also why we need EU5, so this random event generator approach is gone. That's how EU4 feels like, like some sort of a board game with UI, where both AI and player throws a dice during every action, and that defines what happens. It's like when you play UFO series game, or any game like that, you have a gun next to enemy head, and then the game rolls, weather you hit, or not... and you miss, even though there's virtually no logical way of missing, it's a game, and apparently no logic applies here.
So, that's my impossible goal, enjoy a game, but I keep playing it, hoping that one day I'll be able to do it.
I can't play "tall", but at the same time I can't expand fast, I can't colonize fast, I can't do anything fast. When I have a good king, heir, he dies in a hunting accident, when I'm too rich I get bombarded with events that make me lose money. When I have too much adm/dip/pol, I get bombarded with events that make me lose them, I hate it, I hate it so much, I hate about 99% of the events, since a vast majority of them are negative, and punishes me for no reason, punishes me all the time, punishes me regardless of what I do. My life is a punishment, and believe me, I'm not a masochist, that's why I'm not enjoying it mostly, same with the game. I thought of modding it to my liking, but that would take too much time, I hardly ever cheat, though.
*AI get's wrecked because of it too, amount of times where I saw Castille past 1500 with no colonies, occupied by rebels spawning over, and over, going in debt, declaring bankruptcy, just for the cycle is ridiculous. Castile is screwed by hard coded events, but the deteriorating relations with the clergy is just as bad.
Also cheating AI annoyes me, you can clearly see it if you go fow, send your army to a certain province, AI having no chance of knowing where you move you units will redirect it's army elsewhere, thought it sometimes may be not so obviouss, it's easier to be seen when moving ships, same things happen, move your fleets somewhere, enemy fleets runs away.
What about the AI stupidity when it comes to warfare? It's mostly just waiting game. Country A sieges first country B capitol, while country B sieges county A capitol, and they will mostly just evade each other, and siege whatever there is to siege, even if takes X years, a reason why I pretty much never get any alliances, or just refuse to join wars. Siege, move away, unsiege, move away, siege, 5 years have passed, siege, unsiege, move away, too low war enthusiasm, rebels spawn, end war, decalre bankcruptcy. Repeat.
