Help guys, I lost Russia!

[fifrein]

I'm not sure if this is something I should report to the bug thread, however: 

I started my first game as France in 1900. Only unusual options were "large" fleet size and Historical budgets. I'm not sure entirely where I went wrong, but I realized around 1905 that Russia was gone. Not that it had lost a war to anyone, or that it was missing some ports....it just wasn't, and isn't, available to interact with. The territories and flags are still there, but I can't set intelligence on it, and it doesn't show up in the almanac at all. Even Austria Hungary, which lost all of its Mediterranean ports to me in a war, still has a budget and navy that are larger for all I know. 

Is this common? Is anyone else missing nations?

[marauder]

That's normal, the game is limited to 6 AI opponents, and Russia is not one of those when playing as France.
Don't worry, nothing's broken here.

[pirateradar]

Click through the nations in the nation select screen and you'll notice that while there are 8 nations in game, you always have 6 opponent nations. One nation is always dropped.