Inspired by the recent faq, I decided to become a dutch-french France with the german cores. After becoming france, I've been gradually diplo-annexing the west german minors that I have cores on. In January of 1521, I recieved a cleeves event which had two choices, both of which moved my capital into a german province and changed me from France to Cleeves. I still have my cores and cultures, but suddenly being a german minor means that most of the events for the rest of the game (like the event driven explorers I'm hoping to start getting soon) are going to be gone. Not to mention the effect the absence of france is going to cause. I have copies of the previous autosave and the save just after it happened if anyone wants to see them.