EU III : Divine Wind
First Game : France.
My opinions : no more The Blue Blob but still piss easy to play. Mostly because it has a shitload of 1 province vassals that help you with 5k troops and a pro general each . Next time I'll try Brandenburg or Venice
Pff wrong approach, ally with two neighbor (semi) majors, insult an opm vassal, you have core on, to at least 100 relation and cancel vassalge. deaclare reconquest war as soon as diplo is back and annex for free. (except you have a diplo annex mission).
you'll blob in notime, espacially if you support burgund to take all your cores around amsterdam and backstab them at the right moment.
Try out the papal states, somewhat challenging at start. (i "cheated" and tried the save and try method to attack naples and sicily in the right moments hoping their allies won't intervene)