I've been playing recently, chose Burgundy since i heard they can be quite interesting. I had
no idea how good of a position they, in fact, have from the 1399 start date.
They have amazing slider position, rich lands, a very impressive COT and some of the best missions outside of the western majors (Castile, England and France in particular). A few slider movements gave me full innovative so i'm way ahead of pretty much everyone in the tech race, and i don't see that changing any time soon. You also start out with the force limits to challenge the BBB next door, which i was a bit skeptical to even attempt at first but a clash seemed inevitable, which eventually lead to my proudest accomplishment in EUIII
I'd like to say it was difficult, but it really wasn't! France got entangled in a huge war with England and Castile around 1420 and was desperately trying to fight them off. I saw an opening and took it, the climactic show-down between the doomstack of 32k french troops and my own stack of 26k took place at my capital and might have ended badly if the french had not been demoralized, tired, and a long way from home and reinforcements. The destruction of their doomstack sent the entire nation into a death spiral, pushing their War exhaustion way over the limit. After peace was concluded they suffered through decades of anarchy as they tried to scrap together an army again but completely lacked the manpower.
They attempted a comeback 10 years before this picture but ran into the English, who took all of the south-west coast from them. After that, France was a two province minor - and I took the stab and infamy hit that comes with no CB to end them once and for all. The next challenge will be uniting the southern minors while limiting influences of the foreign powers, after that, England will have to be removed from the mainland. Once that is finally accomplished, there will be the matter of the HRE to deal with.
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