You can see my culture really pushing my peers around in Western Europe. I get a Great Artist and decide to use him as a bomb for a better one-turn city conquest invasion. I've decided at this point that I'm going for the throat and want to play it a domination game. I plan on drafting rifles in the capital most because it has 3 strong food tiles to work. I assign Paris the best food, and I give Bordeaux the seafood and the farm tile to the north to keep growth up. I move to construct Globe Theater in Paris so that I face zero draft unhappiness and get basically one Rifleman per turn. I plan to draft more in Asia and alternate to let the draft anger cool off. I have a high happiness cap and barracks, so my drafting outside of my Globe Theater capital won't hurt me at all.
I switch to Nationhood and Theocracy with 1 turn for revolution for the upcoming war(s) so that I have as much experience possible to overrun enemies. The AI already has gunpowder here and there, so I move quickly to start drafting ASAP after constructing (whipping) enough theaters in my empire to unlock Globe Theater for the capital. Of course I make use of Organized Religion and the like to build faster before switching out and going war-mode. I've had some Christianity spread automatically to my Asian cities, and I spread it a bit more to get Apostolic Palace-building hammers since Christianity controls the AP from the start of the game.
Mansa Musa (who is a... Buddhist? lol) decides he likes the cut of my jib and peace vassals to me. I'd assume it's because of my tech lead plus our mutual struggle, but I figured that he wouldn't do that because we're different faiths. We've both been at war with Saladin for basically forever, so we're good buddies because of that. I think that's what pushed him over the edge to peace vassal to me. I immediately extort him for African-specific resources via tribute haha. Anyway, it's time for my first conquest, which will be securing my left flank against the Spanish.
I get steel at this time, and bum 10 gold off the Christians who have it to give for a 10-turn peace treaty which SHOULD allow me to run over Spain without their interference. Tragically, Peter has no gold to give, and the AI GETS RIFLING mid-conquest. Peter also decides to declare on me midway through my invasion of Spain, but I don't care because I know I can take him in Europe. I'm no Napoleon, I'm Louis XIV! Louis XIV never lost a war!
All quiet on the western-eastern front (imagine working that one out irl). I'm rallying units to take Smolensk. I'm assuming Peter's stack is marching to Paris because I don't see it anywhere near my Eurasian holdings. It is, and it takes Danzig from me, which I will be sure to reclaim shortly. I swat his stack away (which is half pikemen lolol) without issue with my drafted units, and that's when things get weird...
In an absolutely bizarre series of events, Ragnar declares on me, and IMMEDIATELY VASSALS TO CHINA out of fear. Qin Shi Huang also owns Genghis Khan as a vassal, meaning that we now all share a war border reaching from the Atlantic to the Sea of Japan! Ragnar attacks me with a pathetic stack of outdated units, but the real concern is what China's possibly cooking in the East. I have good culture pressure on Mongolia though, and it looks like they weren't ready at all for this war. No huge stack is in Central Asia, so it looks like I can draft-whip and army as needed to hold my easternmost cities. Mongolia and China do eventually march in a few turns later with small stacks of 10 or so units each, but my valiant Frenchmen are ready for them by then. I crush the invasion forces and rally in my cities in prep for a long, drawn-out defensive war in Asia by making use of my borders. I am convinced that I can hold out long enough with draft rifles and siege until I can handle Peter, then work out something with China to allow me time to consolidate the land I conquer. I assume that Peter bribed someone and set off this chain of wacky shenanigans. It looks like the French recruiters will be busy; better get the bakers to rustle up some extra croissants for morale...
...and then the game's random events give me a break for a change! Super refreshing rather than having improvements destroyed by a natural disaster for the 1000th time. The Chinese, totally not just saying it because they were bribed in and weren't committed to the fight at all, decide to offer me peace in an act of mercy. They climb over the bodies of their dead to return a Frenchman who was captured drunk with a hurt foot back to our lines. Of course I accept this olive branch, and peace is restored. Now my easternmost forces that I've built up to defend my borders are free to slam into Russian cities!
I smash into Peter, take Smolensk, and start to advance on Moscow, but the AP forces a "stop the fighting among brothers of the faith" through, and it causes a cease to hostilities. I don't want to lag behind and have a huge army of drafted rifles and canons ready to go, so I make the best use of my time and prepare for a quick war with the last remaining European who's unaligned: Charlemagne. At the same time, I start to rush for Assembly Line to keep up my tech lead, noticing that Elizabeth is going full science-mode (and she could possibly be trading techs with the score leaders while I could get left behind if I'm not careful). The plan is to attack either Peter next or go for some of Saladin's holdings while the peace treaty is still expiring. He's been shadowboxing me for the last 900 years, so it's about time that we meet on the field of battle properly.
The fine people of London, remembering their Norman "guests" from 1066 with fondness, decide they've had enough of being Anglo-Saxons and opt to go full-baguette. I see it as a consolation prize for not being able to take Moscow and for the blocked AP "assign city" vote from earlier. Paris decides to celebrate the union with fireworks ("We Love the Monarch" Day). I had no idea that this was even possible with capitals, but I'm not going to look a gift London in the mouth. It might make a good staging ground for invading the British Isles should I ever need to take Elizabeth down a few pegs, but she has a lot of American holdings at the moment, and I don't feel like sailing an army to the New World when there's still so much left of the Old to Frenchify. To the colors, men of France!