I'm currently playing as Prussia, and it’s been a very interesting game. I am presently closing on the end of the second era, but did not record my activities so this is from memory.

My opening ambitions were to assimilate Saxony and Hannover. However, long before this plan got off the ground, Poland declared war on us. So I destroyed the Polish army on the field and occupied the capital. However, this was too early and I had suffered too many losses, so I withdrew. Then, the Russians occupied the undefended Poland for a few turns while I rebuilt my army, but then they moved away for reasons unknown - although Russia has since expanded all the way to Tunisia, so that army probably went south. So, I re-occupied Poland and brought it into the orbit of the mighty Prussia.

Whereupon I was immediately invaded by Saxony, and then Austria. Again I destroyed their armies in the field, and the Russians, with whom I had friendly relations, and an ambitious Moldavia, started to roll up the Austrian territories. I moved out and sued for peace because my army needed to be restocked again and the Russians and Moldavians had the matter in hand. Austria has spent the bulk of the game as one-province state periodically pillaged by Russia, who subsequently assimilated Moldavia and all its lands all the way to Venice.

I struck up a defensive alliance with Russia as Hannover was assimilated by the English. I also opened an alliance with Sweden to threaten the English ally, Denmark. Soon, the English declared war and so I immediately invaded Hannover and liberated it from the English crown. This removed my borders with England so we settled down to peace again, although they did acquire Batavia through assimilation. They had also spent a lot of time threatening my Baltic coast and invaded my port a couple of times, but were driven off. So once again I could return to my project - the peaceful assimilation of Hannover and Saxony, with whom I now had defensive alliances.

But not for long, as soon France invaded Hannover, and the Helvetian republic, and acquired Lombardy and Piedmont through assimilation (sans Venice though, still in Russian hands). So once again my armies marched to the liberation of Hannover, this time from the French. However, France had a defensive alliance with both Britain and Russia, which made the political situation delicate to say the least. Fortunately I had enjoyed good trade and treaty relations with Russia for a long time, and our sympathy was in the 70% range, and so they took no part in the war. But the French alliance with GB gave me the opportunity to liberate Batavia and Denmark as well. And, I managed to sail an army all the way to Spain and destroy the French forces there, liberating that country too. All these good works finally tipped Sweden over and they joined the mighty Prussian empire.

Things then went through a dangerous patch as the British-French-Russian alliance had me surrounded, but I was buffered by minor states to the west and presented a serious threat to Russia from Sweden. But at this time I was not willing to pay Britain for peace seeing as I had thrashed them, and so instead took the opportunity to invade Russia, capturing Minsk. I then sued for peace, and formally annexed Minsk, my first bona fide military territorial expansion of the game!

France and GB soon accepted peace as well, and I was able to concentrate on converting Saxony and Hannover, both of which eventually came over, and restocking my army. Now I had 5 capitals and was thus a power to be reckoned with - and I had the troops of Saxony, Sweden and Hannover at my command. There was only use to which they could be put - the occupation of formally-Austrian lands now controlled by Russia. I invaded Galicia and Bohemia and thrust east with my Swedish units to Moscow. The fighting did not go so well, however, and my losses were considerable. I foolishly split the Swedish contingent to try to capture both Moscow and occupy an undefended Izhora, but one of these armies was destroyed trying to retreat from a superior Russian force. After a few months of fighting I sued for peace again, annexing Kursk and Kiev, and retaining Bohemia under subjugation for reasons I don't quite understand.

But peace seemed opportune as I didn't want to get bogged down with all my troops concentrated in the East. So I soon declared war on France and occupied and annexed Champagne after crushing the French army there, and liberated the Helvetian Republic. GB requested right of passage and made a couple of fruitless attacks on Russia with its Batavian troops.

After securing peace with France, and entering a defensive alliance with the Helvetians, Batavians and English, I declared war on Russia in pursuit of yet more ex-Austrian land. This is roughly where I am at the moment, still manoeuvring and trying to bring the Russian army to battle without over-committing and exposing my Western borders. At present I have a sizable chunk of land reaching from Champagne to Kursk, and need to start exploiting the Black Sea port that province offers.