I started off as the dutch playing fairly er, fairly, taking belgium then making peace with france and spain etc. I tried to play the global peacemaker, and it kind of worked, until Prussia declared war on my austrian allies. I physically could not make peace with them. I offered 50k and 3-4 techs for peace, after numerous state gifts, and they flat out refused. Then I went on an impulse invasion, which took my border up to next to Prussia, and then I just went on a conquering splurge and gave up on realism