My French empire, I don't usually play as France, mostly because it becomes godawful boring. But eh, I continued this one for some reason.
Year is 1590, I disbanded the HRE in a war that lasted for 2 years, and it almost killed my nation. (Rebels... rebels everywhere ;_; ).
Because I swallowed England and Castille with PU's there was almost no historical colonial power left, so North America was untouched until I decided to go there. Portugal colonized South America and became quite rich due to trade, their military is really small though, with only 30k defending all of it, seriously, 30k. Even the Mayans could hold them off, and they still do.
I'm still working on colonizing the rest of NA, Sweden and Norway has so far tried to colonize it, Norway was kicked out by me.
Sweden somehow managed to discover parts I hadn't discovered yet in Canada.
I really want to invade Portugal and take Lisboa, it has a CoT worth 1800, and if I can, I will try to claim their throne.
Hungary was the Emperor most of the time, Austria didn't receive enough votes, neither did Bohemia. When the Palatinate became the emperor, I immediately began to plan my invasion, their armies were stuck in Venetia as well.
url'd because it's huge.
http://filesmelt.com/dl/EU3_MAP_FRA_1590.1_.1_1_.bmp
Not really a great save to many. (Because it's the BBB). But I'm proud of it, mostly because I managed to form my empire with PU's. Forming the unions with England and Castille guaranteed my spot as a superpower. What I think is awesome (and OP as hell) is that I force PU'd England and Castille in a year or two. Then I inherited them 20 years later. By the 1400's I had inherited them both and I had already annexed my vassals by then.