Played on H/H
With a crap economy, I sold off military access to every man and his dog's flees, and made 35k, while also acquiring some protectorates with the money they paid me! More income is always good. I made the rest of the German states my protectorates, so they were some threat (not that they did anything) to Austria, and were a nice buffer with France and the UP.
After the first turn Prussia took West Prussia, but left East Prussia undefended, so I took that and fought them off next turn. The Swedes naturally went after the Danes, but they left me alone. Shortly after took back W Prussia, and Austria declared war. The problem is that the Prussians can afford a larger army than you, and with only a single province to defend they are a tough nut to crack. Built lots of line inf, killed a small Prussian stack and took Berlin after a big battle. Struggled to afford to repair buildings and replenish the army. Thankfully the Austrians didn't do much, as they were off in the Balkans, but they had large armies in Vienna and the neighbouring province. I took Vienna after a big battle, and from there the Austrians were goners. But the pesky Russians decided they wanted a fight, but were busy with the Ottomans and didn't bother me for a decade or so. By that time I had booted the Ottomans out of Europe and then took Moscow.
The silly Russians refused my offers of peace, so I took all but one of the territories - made them a protectorate - and gave them away to my protectorates or to GB for 2 provinces in the Americas. Eventually had a fight with the Persians who had made their way up through the Caucases, but their armies were tiny, so gave away more territories (the crappy new ones) as my admin costs were getting out of control, at up to 16%. Took St Petersberg, and gave it to Courland, who had taken the province next door with a bit of help. The geniuses decided that they didn't need a pesky garrison there, so a 2 unit Swedish army came and took it, so I retook it and headed for Finland, and gave that to Courland too.
I finally built my first ship and decided to get rid of the Swedes (Courland was simply too stupid to protect themselves against them, and I wanted some more sea trade), but the silly Danes attacked my protectorate Hannover, so I killed them off first, then shipped for Sweden. Shortly after that the Swedes were no more. Kept Sweden, gave Norway to Hannover.
By this stage, about 1740, there was no way anyone could threaten me, so I built up the economy and had some fun invading UP, pirate, Spanish and native provinces in the Americas.
I didn't have any decent seaborne trade (or a ship) for about 40 years thanks to the pesky Swedes, and lived off taxes (about 50k at the end), land trade and my protectorates (7k by the end). With the economic changes I thought that I would really struggle, but with the income from my protectorates I was ok. Nearly researched all the techs.
Interestingly about 1748 the UP, who had only acquired French Guyana, had somehow built up 3 stacks in the Netherlands, and they took Flanders, France and Westphalia.
Given that Wurtemburg had taken Alsace, the French were lucky not to have been wiped out, but shortly before losing France, my dopey protectorate Savoy had decided to send out their 20 unit army into France, while a half French stack was 3 squares away from their capital... so dumb.
Not having unrest dues to industrialisation was really quite handy I must say, it was the first time I had been a Constitutional Monarchy.
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