Taking two hours of worktime to write an AAR is a thing I cannot make everyday
But mid august is deadly quiet in France...
Dark Knight: Normal civil war in England. Playing at normal difficulty with AI aggressiv (too easy now I concede)
Dragon: stabbing Spain in the back is a must for every French player! France, as a catholic country, does not get colonists before 1560 except by random event.
Jiminov: Kebec revolted because of war exhaustion and a drop in stability by declaring war on Aztec with no CB. It had only 1% chance to revolt. Shit happens sometimes.
Dark Knight again: I went against England because of the opportunity offered by their civil war. If I could have got Calais only without landing in Britain, I would have gladly done so. But the peace system is so that it is very difficult for France to get Calais by solely controlling it. You have to seize other English provinces to force it to accept a peace resolution giving you Calais. But when you are in Britain, you try to take the best of it, therefore the annexation of Kent and the subsequent English wars. However, if England had grouped its anvies earlier, I would never had had the opportunity to land in Kent...
The time is now 1634 and France leads the race.
In the British isles, Scottland waged war against England, annexing at a time two provinces but losing them 15 years later, while having one of its provinces annexed by Portugal (see below about Portugal). I finally attacked England twice more to annex all its provinces save Anglia and driving them out of North America
Low countries: Netherlands was too much succesful in its colonization and expansion in Germany (Cologne annexed). When I realized I had over 125k Dutch armed to the teeth at my northern frontier (30k men there) I decided it was pure provocation. Three years to prepare war in Europe and North America, 18 months to win, but at a real high cost (over 40k infantry, 10k cav and 100 cannons lost). Another war before Netherland could recover and they had only two provinces in Europe. Their trade posts in North America were burned and replaced by French colonies. I think a third war is necessary 1. to get Cologne 2. to get two North American colonies that bother me and one trade post in the Antillas (ah, sugar). The Dutch have discovered the whole world, and I got their maps...
SOuth France : eventually annexed Savoie diplomatically. Facing a trade refusal from France, Genoa declared war on it. They got annexed despite their Italian allies pillaging Savoie... The Franco-spanish border is quiet. As my monarch ordered me to annex Milan I did so (they had no allies, it was quick and dirty). My relations with the catholic world are abysmal (-200) I could not reconduct my alliance with Bavaria and only Muslim nations ask me for alliances ! !
Iberia: Spain is constantly at war with some one, without much success. Their colonial empire is getting weird. As they are at war with large coalitions, a lot of small countries have got territories overseas now!
Portugal, reduced to its sole capital succeeded in peacefully annexing the Hansa, making it a quite strong power in North Germany (and allowed it to annex a scottish province)
Scandinavia: I do not follow precisely what happens there, but Sweden is getting munched by the Danes, the Teutonic order and Russia. The Danes are very active on the colonial level (approx 8-10 trade posts in America and Africa)...
Central Europe is a mess as always. Austria is now two separated blocks of province, both landlocked, but they somehow managed to get trade posts in Africa (peace resolution with Turkey or Venice I think)! Russia has nearly reached the black sea.
Africa: nearly all provinces have a trade post and it is a complete mess. There are Portugal and Dutch, but also Venetian, Poles, Prussian (!), Knights, Papal, Turkish and Teutonic provinces ! ! !
America: North America is widely French. The northern coast of Canada is... Venetian save one Dutch colony, one Prussian trade post and one colony, two Danish trade posts. The East coast is French save two Scottish trade posts. The south (Texas, louisiana, FLorida is 50/50 Spanish and French, 40/50 for the West Coast with some Dutch, Papal and Knightly presence there...
Central America: 4 aztec provinces are now French plus one other. Lots of Spanish, some Danes, Scots and Dutch also. South America is 50% Spanish, 20% Portuguese and the rest is a patchwork of minor European provinces.
The Carribeans are 80% Spanish, 15% French, 5% Dutch.
Note that all provinces in North and Central American are colonized, whereas South america has still some unexplored areas and the Incas are still alive but nearly completely annexed by the Spanairds.
Pacific: I recently went in from Central America, establishing colonies in Hawai along the English, Tahiti, Fidji and quite recently Australia and New Zealand. Portugal has loads of trade posts in Indonesia and England in India.
Note that most of these colonies and trade posts are not developped. Level 1 trade posts flourish, but hey are so easily burned that this situation can change any time.
Real colonies are present in North/Central America, but except for former Aztec provinces, my biggest city (Kebec) has a little more than 1000 inhabitants. The race was to place the borders, but I do not have enough colonists to develop strong cities yet.