After 9 days and 55 hours, I finally finished my first game of EU4 as the BBB, aka France. A lot of very unusual things happened during the game, only some of them directly because of me.
At one point, Spain had inherited Portugal and thus had control over all of Iberia and Latin America. However, at some point, rebels created independent Granada and Catalunya, which I allied. I helped Granada take more territory from Spain, and I even took Toledo and sold it to Granada. Granada managed to reduce Catalunya to just Barcelona and the Beleares. Also, Portugal initially became independent in the Azores, and despite a war of reconquest by Spain, managed to stay independent until Portuguese patriots returned to it most of its Iberian homeland, much of Argentina, South Africa, and the Caribbean. Galaicia also revolted. And to top it all of, I forced Spain to release Castille, so that now Spain's only European holdings are the Canaries, Corsica, and Sardinia.
Denmark had inherited both Norway and Sweden but never formed Scandinavia because it was AI. Sweden eventually revolted and conquered almost all of the Scandinavian peninsula.
In the first bit of the game, I had inherited French Burgundy while Austria inherited the Low Countries, and I kept attacking Austria for Dutch/Belgian provinces (Austria had no army for a long time), but I had to stop when the Netherlands declared their independence, and I eventually became good allies of the Dutch. I only wish I had been able to return Gelre to them from the annoying and previously blobby Trier.
The Ottomans did REALLY well, and have the largest army and navy. They and Sweden cut off Muscowy from its Siberian colonies.
I got lucky and got a PU with Savoy without even trying, so I got instant cores on them upon annexation.
Finally, Britain had been annoying for the whole game, stealing my trade, even from Bordeaux. (They also at one point has PUs with Poland and Lithuania and managed to inherit Poland.) In my penultimate war with them, I had gotten so much warscore from occupying their ally Venice that, even though I was not warleader and didn't invade the British Isles, I actually got them to release Scotland. Some time later, Scotland DOWed Britain(who surprisingly had exactly 0 troops) for Orkney, bringing me in, and experienced this triumphic moment, when London surrendered to the Armée Royale, led by none other than King Louis XVI:
Unfortunately, Scotland, despite having almost 50 warscore, did not make peace, so I was never able to unite the replacement Antwerpen trade fleet (my previous one had been sun by the British on the first days of the war)
Here's my diplomatic situation: The Dutch broke their alliance and I wasn't able to get it back sicne I was at war.
http://s12.postimg.org/8b15xljd9/eu4_36.jpg
My North American Empire. The Colonial Rebels destroyed Spain's overseas Empire
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/yn64388y5/eu4_37.jpg
Northwestern SA is very very ugly, but the rest is surprisingly pretty in terms of borders.
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/qk7xrwoct/eu4_38.jpg
I conquered Ceylong to get the East India Trade modifier.
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/gctzt8ril/eu4_39.jpg
Spain actually colonized (the northen half of) the Philippines and the Dutch colonized/conquered Java. But most striking, Paraguay somehow managed to capture almost all of Australia.
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/i76uazej1/eu4_40.jpg
China and Muscowy basically collapsed
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/6tkazs40d/eu4_41.jpg
France can into space, and Britain ALMOST can into space :P
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/vhq3qrfpp/eu4_42.jpg
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/nmfkby631/eu4_43.jpg
Every province I own is Catholic and some form of French (yeah, i had a lont of DIP power hanging around). Edict of Nanted was a very bad idea, since I kept getting events converting my provinces...fortunately, I eventually managed to revoke it after I converted everything back.
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/x4fbbzrrh/eu4_44.jpg
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/ruackp7il/eu4_45.jpg
Here's my trade income. I think it was over 200 at one point. I don't have much competition in overseas or Bordeaux nodes, so I guess the value of colonial goods dropped or something...
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/e5pr5bm8d/eu4_46.jpg
After I finished teching, I booted my level 3 advisors for level 1s to save money
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/g7q8jkk7h/eu4_47.jpg
The end screen is lying: I have the 2nd largest army.
[IMG]http://s12.postimg.org/v7n6l5qh9/eu4_48.jpg