This will be the first game I've played where I actually started out as a country that wasn't considered backwater... Bavaria! Well, I was Bavaria.
This screenshot was taken on the day of the declaration of the Third French Liberation of Franche Comte', which I took during the Third French Liberation of Alsace-Lorraine. Yes. Six wars, all with Italy and Prussia [and sometimes Austria, but I just attacked them for Moravia so they can't], and their friends all at once. I lure them into the plains, then smash them with masses of artillery barrages. In this case, I'm not sure if France has machine guns or not, but I know Prussia does; they're hard to get out, but they usually invade one of the smaller satellites and make it peace out and get confused. The UK joining in is a new one, I had +200 relations with them.
I took Alsace-Lorraine in the first place because I misread the tool-tip for forming the SGF. I thought I needed it, turns out I made the French angry over absolutely nothing at all.
I do no plan on forming The German Empire in this game. I have a few goals, and one of them is 'no coastal provinces in my empire'. Another is to try and get a high literacy rate in all of Austria's old provinces, and then forming Poland and Hungary.