It's actually kind of unclear who I am. Many blobs.
I am, however, Germany. I kept it small, and didn't crazy blob.
I have some minor vassals, but not anything crazy.
Now, some notes about the game.
I started off as Brandenburg, and got in bed with Poland and Austria almost right away. We ganged up on the Teutonic Order for a while, and I took a couple provinces. I also annexed Pomerania on a mission, and grabbed a couple other provinces opportunistically. I kind of sat on that for a while, with about ten provinces, maxing out four military ideas while still keeping up in tech (I had good rulers and a lot of advisers). then, the reformation hit and I converted to Protestant before becoming Prussia. Soon, Austria broke off our alliance. They had blobbed a lot by now (Burgundian inheritance helped), but we had stayed allies throughout. Now, though, I was alone against an Austro-Polish alliance and scared. Fortunately, I managed to convince Russia to befriend me, and we stayed alive for a while. At one point, Austria demanded I convert, but I declined and our relations plummeted hard. It was touch and go for a while there, but we survived. Then, the Netherlands revolted and Austrian power took a hit, even more so when I managed to become emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Then Austria got Spain in a PU. Suddenly, they had 300,000 men and an alliance with a superpower to my east (Poland). Moreover, Denmark had unified Scandinavia and allied Austria. Things were looking bleak. Fortunately, my savior came in the form of France. Austria and France fought a long war, and Russia and I teamed up on Poland. I grabbed some more provinces, and annulled their treaties with Austria. I also allied with the Netherlands.
It wasn't long before I found an interest in becoming Germany, mostly for the claims, and I managed to eat most of northeast Germany before Austria could intervene. However, Brunswick posed a problem -- they were allied to both France and Austria. That war was messy and I got really lucky with rebels and such. At points, both Ulm and Bavaria were regional powers, but I took both down a notch. I quickly formed Germany. However, Austria and Denmark (they had eaten the rest of Brunswick and the Hansa) held the majority of my claims.
Austria, in the screenies above, doesn't look all that scary, but at points they held all of the vassals you see as territory (I made them release it) as well as about ten more provinces that I later took from them. Moreover, they had Spain, who had the second largest army, in a personal union. I had no idea what to do. So I waited. Then, god smiled upon me. The Ottomans went to war with Austria and clashed along the Hungarian border. I allied Portugal, a perpetual world power, and used my existing allies in the Netherlands and Russia to win that war, relying on my friends just as often as my own forces. it was close, but I got about two provinces off of them. The Ottomans forced them to release some states, who I then diplovassalized.
Austria formed a coalition against me, including Spain, France, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Ming and some small countries. They declared war, and I barely escaped, using battle warscore to secure a white peace. Here's a picture of the first coalition war:
There were two more like that, and I won each one, taking advantage of Russia in particular, as well as my 160% discipline, great generals, massive morale, full quality and the spread of enemy forces to win the day. I managed to reclaim Lubeck and surrounding areas from the Danish, as well as Teutonic Land from the Lithuanians.
After that, it was mostly just cleaning up my borders, annexing vassals and the like. I went to war with the Netherlands when I found them ally-less toward the end, but that's about it for drama.
Interesting notes:
-Obviously, those Ottomans. They're absolutely massive, and I never once helped them in a war. Here's their sphere of influence:
-Austria and Spain were formidable together.
This is at their height. I couldn't get a world map of their sphere of influence.
-France became revolutionary and forced Britain to release Scotland.
-Russia owns most of Japan
-Great Britain in Kamchatka
-The New World is pretty evenly split, but I'd say the Netherlands won the North, France the center and Portugal the south.
-There is only one European-held province in North Africa. Nice to see they avoided the folly of EUIII.
-Ottomans at times had 500,000 men or more.
-My idea sets went Defensive-Offensive-Quality-Quantity-Diplomacy-Innovative. I stayed away from vassal-feeding (too gamey, imo) and so always had an admin point shortage. Therefore, I ended the game with 24 admin tech, and only 6 idea slots out of 8. I however reached 31 in military tech and 32 in diplo.
Finally, the game end screen.
I tried to stick to my forcelimits and kept from blobbing wantonly, so I'm not first in anything. I also literally had no navy. 0 ships. It was part laziness and part lack of actual usefulness beyond trade. I tried a couple times, but I always forgot to put my ships in port during war, and lost multiple stacks.
Also Spain and Portugal frustrated from me not letting them collonize in Americas peacefully surprised Russian colonist on Siberian front.
