Most Depressing EU4 Moment You've Ever Had?

[Chen the Chad]

I just want to hear about how the great empires of others have broken apart to see what has happened to the others. I've had two great games collapse, and both due to disasters.

I'll start off:

Playing as the Muscovites, I formed Russia, massacred the steppes, pushed into a good half of Asia, and was stomping through Scandinavia. (Ironman Mode.) OE and AE are low, Stability is 3, I have a great heir (4/5/5)...

Oh shoot, my heir died out of the blue...

Oh shoot, my king just followed suit...

Oh shoot, some 1/1/0 guy from Bohemia inherits my throne...

Oh shoot, he only has 20 Legitimacy...

Oh shoot, Sweden, Lithuania, Poland, Norway, Denmark, England, and Hungary all invade me...

Oh, yay! I won the war!

Oh shoot, I have no manpower.

Oh shoot, the Peasant's war is skyrocketing at 1.5 per month since I have no legitimacy...

Well ♥♥♥♥. I have to fight 132,000 rebels vs my 32,000 man army.

Oh, and after I lost the Peasant's war, I got invaded by Sweden and Co. Again.

Think you can top such magnificient degrees of downfall? I think not. So, prove me wrong!

[c00lizz]

Well, my first Ottoman WC attempt when I, stupidly, tried westernizing then got bored and attacked Ming and whille playing around with which provinces I would take accidently sent a peace deal worth 400% overextension.

Needless to say, that game didn't last much longer.

Or my Russia game, when a one province Georgia revolted from the Ottomans and I RM'ed them in order to vassalize then my King dies and I am now in a PU under a OPM. Survivalable but damn I was pissed.

Of course there is always that time when I was buying off rebels and clicking too fast. Turns out, whille Harsh Treatment has an "Are You Sure?" prompt, accepting demands and releasing a 30 province Austria does not.

I don't really play games much further if they fail beyond repair though, seems like a waste of time. I did once though, on a game where I had finished my goals, take 1000% overextension just to see how big the rebel stacks would be. Turns out, real big.

[Tony Costa]

worst thing that happened to me was as brittany, i owned all the british isles plus the netherlands for good cash, france had been my ally for the entire game and i was ready to backstab them with the help of my other ally spain. suddenly france gets a PU over the Commonwealth (who had like 120k dudes combined with france's 80k). so yeah, i just kept staring at france, incredulous.

[Tony Costa]

also, EU4 in a nutshell:

"Get 99% overextension, no one bats an eye. Get 101% and everybody loses their minds"

[Betelgeuse]

My Prussia campaign was pretty depressing.
I tried to go for an insane disciplin boost with the unique bonus and all the other military ideas. I sure had a winning streak midgame but all European nations decided that military ideas are the new in-thing. So my supposed to be superior Prussian army with permanent 100 army tradition was just an average thing to have.

After I formed Germany the AE was the Nail into my coffine. The position itself was pretty descent. Some colonies in Asia and N-America and all of Poland cored but the coalition wars didn't stop. When a ceasefire ended all European nations joined the coalition and the next war started. Counted on my army for that point of time but it was pretty much useless against that many enemies. Also men power ran dry really fast though I had barracks in all of my cities. There was no way to let the AE run low.

I wished that loosing provinces would lower the AE. C'mon... I release all of Bavaria which has an insane base tax and I still have like -300 AE? Very sad. Plus the fact that Poland managed to survive with 3 Ruthenian provinces between the Ottomans, Crimea and Galicia. Just so that I couldn't convert culture and they still had cores everyone wanted me to release...

[Rabob]

Publicado originalmente por Korukhan‾:

also, EU4 in a nutshell:

"Get 99% overextension, no one bats an eye. Get 101% and everybody loses their minds"

Haha yeah. Also what I don't get is why the OE is the same for any size country. 100% for Aachen or for Austria is the same base tax wise. While it seems more logic to me that a bigger country can sustain a bigger annexation :/

My worst lately, playing Sweden I decided to attack the 1 province Friesland. I check their allies, nothing which I cannot handle (a reasonable Hansa and some small states). All of a sudden England/Great Britain joins up. I somehow lose all my fleet and my army has to retreat to one of the islands (Lolland?) of prior Denmark. Of course the enemy blocks my strait access and my entire army is just sitting there while rebels and enemy armies start ruining my blue empire.
I was the defender of protestant faith so I was also at war with Castille, Aragon, Portugal at the same time. At one point I had -60% warscore, I was able to reject the peace deals, but every time I got -1 stability.
I saved the game when I: white peaced the war with Spain and allies; and also white peaced everyone but Friesland. Meanwhile rebels are throughout the country. Haven't looked back since :p

There was also one game where everyone hated me (okay I lied, this is every game).
I am talking about at least 300 AE for everyone near me. I could not even vassalize people, because they would hate me and declare independence.
So coalitions started forming, but instead of waiting for them to pop all up. I decided to attack the coalition now. So I was constantly at war with coalitions: Coalition east -> war -> peace -> coalition west -> war -> peace. I always took territories, but I got somewhat sick of the constant threats so I stopped. Mainly if you win the first battle, your warscore is already quite high. My country was big enough to handle the manpower and troops of probably the entire coalition, but why risk it.

I have never had that rebels actually broke my country (since it cannot happen when you are at war :p), although I did replace some of my monarchies/government forms on purpose

Wars started by allies are often rage moments:
I had some games where I was in a war with my ally, and my ally gives me ALL claimed provinces. I normally claim every province that borders me, so I was having 200% overextension by this fruitcake of an ally, not to mention the AE! So we were back on being hated by all :/
And other allies do not give me anything like Koch in India. We were at war with 3 countries with roughly equal army size in total and I just recovered from the peasant war conditions (horrible disaster to have). We were winning hard, but I lost a lot of money, troops and manpower (I had 60% mercenaries, from 1000 to 100 gold or so). To get: NOTHING and a white peace lasting 10+ years. Koch only took 1 province while I had claims and we occupied every territory. Immediately after: I broke all relations, even the marriage for the stability hit so I could have my payback. At first I wanted to diploannex, but since I had 1200 admin points and I would need a lot more basetax, I could not be bothered anymore. I never garantue states anymore because of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like this. I claimed all his provinces and attacked him, drank a beer and laughed manically. So remember kids: do not guarantee states which might get in your way or do stupid ♥♥♥♥ like this. Vassals are the only reliable allies, they attack with you and don't have a seperate piece.

[emperorjoe]

in one of my ironman portugal games i managed to kill castille and aragon withonly the help of france in the first war, after i finaly finished them off france got a pu over me and france was blobing so hard that they owned all of north italy and centeral hre by 1550 so sad there was no one to help me get free

[Tony Costa]

Hahah agressive expansion is really a big deal. I got the switzerlake achievment (own 99 pronvices and no ports as switzerland) about 1615, really quick. The agressive expansion is europa was just MASSIVE. At the time I annexed Austria (about 1520) they had -600 AE. I only managed to survive by joining the dark side and allying France so they wouldn't join the coalition.

[Peppuzissimo]

Maybe that time, when i started the game and found my cloud save game corrupted during my polish conquest of europe trying to gain the "Poland can into space" achievement (i was so close...) :(

[Radene]

This was before the westernization changes, when there was a lot more difference in unit pips depending on thech group.

"Realizing the power of Western troops as a non-westernized nation in India". I got my proverbial hindquarters handed to me so hard.

Can't happen anymore tho, since the units are a lot less different in terms of power by tech group than they used to be.

[Blue Knight™]

Using an amazing mod , so i play a burgundy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dificult from the get go since everyone hates me exepct the few miniors newby which i vassalise and annex while i watch France annex all of her vassals so Burgundy is of course always weaker then France , so i look for allies , Denmark is my only one cause Castile hates me cause he likes the lowlands , so im able to vasslise liege which is needed to form Belgium which is the mod im using , so i have a fair amount of land all of dutchland , so i go for Provence since a war broke out with France vs Austria i take it, now the bad part

boom barrios and metz is way to much , England France Austria all collaliton up i just have denmark .... but LUCK a war breaks out between them all and im fine.. so i form Belgium , lose all my french land to the french so i look to colonise quickly , me and france are in a state of cold war i have denmark as an ally so they can help a little but thats it , so im taking the Carabiean , England wants all my colonies

so he declares war and i give up my 5 colonies there ....

so i move to Brasil , castile doesnt like me being there so he declares war and takes all my land i just got there , so i retreat back to the carabeian and try and take Cuba i take a few

BOOM england declares war agian ... my leader dies some wonky danish noble get the throne ... France declares war for my land inn flanders .. boom denmark breaks the alliance .. i lose the war lose all my colonies lose my main money making land and im left with no friends cause everyone is hostile no manpwer no men no money and one colony in Columbia .... thank you

[L9 Mark4447]

In my Bradenburg game, i had gotten a PU over Muscovy! I was so happy but to integrate them, i needed to have more provinces then themand they had like 40. So slowly, i got more provinces but a lot of people hated me but i had great allies. Sadly, after winning a coalition war, i took provinces that added up to 102% OE and then rebels were everywhere and i was in like -50 prestige when they were gone. i actually got my prestige back up really fast but right when i was at -2 prestige, my 32 year old king dies and i lose my PU. I really wanted to have colonized Siberia but oh well.

[Tony Costa]

I once saw AI Pomerania get a PU over Russia, and AI Provence get a PU over France. Needless to say both junior partners fought for independence soon after, especially France.

*Provence magically gets PU over France, Savoy contests it and declares war for french throne*

*As soon as Provence peaces out Savoy, France declares independence*

Unfortunately this crazy ♥♥♥♥ only happens when I'm not playing an european country.

[404 Float not found]

I was playing as the Byz.
I didn't get attacked by the ottomans so I kept building up a army/navy e.t.c
Its about 1480, otters got beat by the mamluks some how, so I DoW with Poland and Austria backing me. Start taking some provinces got my cores back so I was like this is going well.
Anywho, my king died so I was sad but not real sad. Then the Mamluks attacked me, while Austria and Poland were fighting each other for some stupid reason I don't recall. So Mamluks take most of my land and I'm like okay i'll get it back later.
Them Chrimea attacks me.
Then A blobbed Serbia.
Then I got peasant revolts.
And then I got vassalized by the mamluks.

[the_panther]

Ever play a game where the AI Ming collapses from a horde of rebels? I found out why..

Playing as Ming, my heir died followed quickly by my young ruler. After a few years of draing my legitimacy, a random leader with a weak claim took over since I had no royal marraiges.

No legitimacy and boom - the Mandate of Heaven is lost. Once the Mandate is lost, you have continious rebel spawn due the the -5% unrest in every province. Not to mention losing the +5% unrest from the Mandate that I was counting on in all my conquered provinces.

I had several more leaders and heirs die, plus I could not get anyone with a strong claim. It took about 90 years to get legitimacy back over 50%. I was barely able to survive the disastrous century and managed to eventually get the Kow Tow achievement.

Then I quit and vowed never to play Ming again!

[Kijin Eira]

pretty much killed a game. declared a personal union war getting hate from all of europe, win it 3 freaking months later my king dies ending the union with everyone around me pissed.