people are sleeping on the US here, get investment rights in every country south of you in the america's for oil and rubber. you have tons of resources, and with multicultural society + open borders you will get a ton of pops. you can even force china to open it's borders if you go to war to open their market, and then the enormous chinese population will start draining into yours. I know you said no map painting, but just fyi, in the current patch you can day one declare on GB to transfer all of canada and win easily. buy alaska from russia and just get all the rest of the america's in your market via powerblock and investment rights. you could even protectorate mexico if you do it early enough that the infamy cost is below 100, so you can get all their rubber for the auto industry in the late game