bwopper. i know you're new to this, so i'm going to help you out.
many of the european powers in the 17th century had their own problems. mostly due to neighbors. and their neighbors. alliances formed and caused wars because of religion and nothing went good.
until the "peace" of westphallus. the hre went into peace and everyone shushed. the league war was rip. everyone agreed that protestantism was a thing.
what happened after this time was... more religious struggles. because my christian religion is better than you christain religion.
russia is orthodox, and they liked to keep to themselves because no one likes/cares about them. poland and russia have a little family matters to attend to, i think. other than that, russia is pretty boring until peter the great or something or catherine.
russia and france didn't really hook up. you have no obligations to help france. you might as well come in on the side of vinland against the Iroquois. it is dumb.
countries existed in boxes. anything outside these boxes didn't matter, unless someone from another box was writing the words "heathen" or "heretic" on your nice box with the blood of a sacrificed lamb.
your box is separate than the romance box. spain and france want to buttforget because they are having relationship issue. you don't need to make it a threesome.
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