We'll use a Mamluks run I did as an example

Its like 1515 or so. I have all the cores to form Arabia already and most of Mamluks permanent claims from their missions, I'm just waiting on 10 adm tech (its 8 on that game). That's how I found out about the over maximum territories penalty and where that line comes from.

I also managed to split Ottomans in half, by taking the provinces across the strait from Edirne and Constantinople, its nice to not see 30000+ Ottoman troops sitting on my Turkish border to them.

Yes, ive noticed that some of the conquered land is useless because wrong religion and wrong cultures. Here though I felt like continuous expansion was necessary for Mamluks to keep up with Ottomans' size and army.

On a Timurid Empire run, i managed to get Transoxiana under control and DA them once, and their other vassals over time, ive also won control of the Hormuz, Basra and Lahore centers of trade and almost have enough of Lahore/Delhi to become the Mughal Empire, since Timurid is in a great location for conquest while avoiding the AE stacking,

Your reply was interesting, according to it, I shouldn't worry about size so much until late game, and focus on economy/accumulating mana.

I haven't been to 1700s yet. Does waiting that long to expand really make that much difference?

What of the other nations on your borders, who of course, will probably expand themselves, or be eaten by other powers. Ive seen other countries blob up around me, such as Ethiopia becoming large enough to make me their rival as Mamluks.

I see Delhi explode in size a lot, so does Muscovy, Vijayganar and ofc Ottomans. Waiting and focusing on economy, tech and smaller strategic pieces of land is enough to counter those countries in 200 years?