Got tired of blobbing, so I went for a modest, colonialist Utrecht->Netherlands run. It's still fairly early and it's by no means an empire, but I just had to share this.
As a rather weak nation earlier on, I had allied Austria and France - who, for some reason, were best buds instead of rivals. Well, whatever, works for me.
Then France went on to beat up the Iberians, taking quite a bit of their land, no less. Nice, murder those colonials!
Then France got Hungary in a PU. Uh, okay?
Then France...
NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN
To add insult to injury, my heir died with no one to replace him, and upon ruler death - you guessed it - France would've gotten me into a PU. Yeah, that's where I drew the line. Forceclosed the game prior to the ironman save. I feel slightly dirty for doing it, but not nearly as dirty as I would be if I was playing France in this situation.
Oh, also, a couple of obligatory RNW province naming screenies.
This one's self-explanatory
Now, this... If there is one province I won't give to the filthy AI Portuguese map painter, it's Sword Coast, and no d20 roll is going to change my mind. There will be war.