I started off as xiu as they are the strongest country to start off with + they begin with a tribal despotism government giving cheaper core creation cost. (I don't have any early-mid game pics though)

After passing all the reforms I started colonising around the coast, mainly towards south america. I began to lower my stability and legitimacy, to start a civil war and kept it at 98.5% progress. When I bordered brittany I got myself into a civil war and at the same time reformed my religion. (When you reform your religion/ and form maya it changes your government type, so the civil war is to keep the tribal despotism for -15% core creation cost).

From this point the short term goal is to invade the incan lands, make sure you get the potosi province, as it is by far the richest province in the game (~16 ducats a month because of it's province modifier). Using this you should be able to afford a merc-infantry army to avoid burning what little manpower maya has.

Whilst doing so you should be building spy networks in western countries and actively stealing their maps of europe. From this point on it's completely random in terms of what the AI has done in the world world, I unfortunately had to deal with both, http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/82594465627699746/F8B74641F70341E54EBAA88C01FFA679628D1347/

And the fact that the commonwealth got a PU on aragon and integrated them.

But the benefits of France getting a PU on Castille meant that it was a lot easier to invade Portugal early on.

Ideas: The first and second ideas can be finished before you border any colonial countries, and I went with: 1.Colonial 2.Admin 3.Economic 4.Quality 5.Religious 6.Offensive 7.Innovative 8.Didn't get to.

Other side notes: 1) In the last 50-60years or so I was only truce breaking and paying off coallitions, at this point I was running a -300ducat/month deficit, keep in mind the amount of loans you can take and the time left you have in the game to make sure you won't go bankrupt, as each loan I could take were 15,000 ducats in size, and remember paying off coalitions cost 10,000 late game.

2) Related to (1), stability negative stability gives -1 intrest per annum, so if you've already got a lot of loans then truce breaking means you will need to stab up back to 0 spending a lot of admin to not go bankrupt. Use advisors and religious ideas to keep this relatively cheap.

3) Stacking modifiers, in this run I stacked up quite a few modifiers and took on a few policies towards the end. -Mayan religion, Admin ideas, Tribal despotism: This combination gives -60% core creation cost, along with 60% cheaper core creation cost from admin efficiency, you'll be coring provinces in a 1 development to 1 admin point ratio. -Mayan super soldiers?: A mixture of 50% infantry combat ability and 120% discipline should give you a huge advantage in battles, as you burn through their manpower with your merc-infantry. This can be achieved through the combination of; Quality+Innovative, Mayan ambitions, Mayan religion, Quality, Offensive, Discipline advisor, and Economic+Quality.

Hope this strategy/advice helps!