So damn close!
Prussia -> Germany game on 1.2. I came within spitting distance of the UK.
What's particularly galling is that I'm clearly ahead in industry and prestige - I just can't for the life of me understand how the UK manages to field the 4,000 or so brigades and thousands of ships that it does.
Pretty much won the scramble for Africa, although Madagascar was taken off the French over the course of a couple of wars. It seemed a bit more plausible than ripping chunks out of metropolitan France, although when my spheree Italy added the Rhone as a wargoal I let them take it.
Interestingly, the US chose the late game to wake up, beating Russia, then the CSA, then Russia again to reunify and reach the Pacific. They never went after their Mexican cores and wisely stayed away from Britain, which took New York earlier in the game.
Politically I hit the sweet spot, with the liberals consistently forming the government (late game LF for the win) and the socialists dominating the upper house. Rode my luck on reforms a bit too much and was rewarded with a dreaded anarcho-liberal uprising in the mid-30s, but apart from that and a couple of minor fascist revolts the twentieth century was quiet.
Went overboard with encouraging clerks though - that's 11.2% of the general population by 1936. Considerable numbers of bureacrats and clergy despite their funding being at 29% for at least half a century.
Econimically, for some reason regular clothes was the most profitable factory, beating out automobiles, which were otherwise the star performer.
Finally, what would a Prussia game be without beating up the Austrians? These shots come from a late game war (which I wasn't planning on, but who can resist an acquire state CB). The 20,000 artillery casualties are actually tanks, which can take a phenomenal amount of punishment and keep on going.
The naval battle was the usual late game affair of 13 dreadnoughts and 10 cruisers versus sailing ships.