What difficulty are you playing on?

I don't have the faintest idea, probably normal, since I have no idea how to change settings like that. The tutorial was...lacking in several regards.

When you choose a nation, there's an 'options' menu on the starting screen.
You can change a lot of stuff there.

1665, sucks to be a native.

The Empire of Japan is now the uncontested superpower in Asia. China's terminal economic decline has left them very vulnerable (61 inflation last time I checked, an army of only 30,000 men for their entire, vast empire) and the other powers are too busy fighting each other. Orissa has emerged as a major power (orange) by vassalizing several weakened states into a divided but potent empire. Pegu remains strong, and has many friends. The Manchu had a short war with Ming which gained them three provinces. I fought a brief war with Malacca (blueish purple in Indoneisa) which gained my several island colonies and two provinces in Australia they had colonized. Unfortunatly, those provinces have revolted repeatedly, as apparently Muslims and Shinto don't get along.

The Gujurat/Mughal alliance in India conintues to grow in strength, defeating Ming in a small war and taking over a few smaller states. Relations with their neighbours are, however, quite poor. Only the Timurids back them up. who are too mired in their own constant rebellions to expand.

Africa has seen the re-emergence of the Zulu states from Swahili ownership, but the two are close allies against the encrouching Mamluke and Mali threat. As for Mali, the mighty pink empire has emerged as the primary native-african state. They possess an advanced land military, only slightly behind their European rivals, and significantly more advanced than the rest of Africa.

Europe has seen little change. Flanders has become a moderatly powerful state in Northern Europe, taking over several smaller German states and taking Denmark from Sweden. There's been some rebellions in the Netherlands against French occupation.

Novgorod continues to grow in strength in Russia (green), taking several Mongol territories, and are currently embroiled in another war which sees them occupying no less than 6 provinces. By the conflict's conclusion, they'll undoubtedly be even stronger.

The Americas are insane. As you can see the Colonial Powers have steamrolled virtually everything excep the Aztec, Inca and Apache. The Inca remain power due to an alliance with Britain and a conversion to Catholicism. The other native factions simply haven't been encountered by anyone but myself yet, but their future isn't looking good.

My plan: Continue to build up my colonies, especially Madagascar, while advancing my technological lead over Asia. My only pressing concern is improving my N. American colonies for the eventual storm and preparing for war with China. Once the Manchus commit to a real war, or anyone else for that matter, I'll move in on them with 50,00 men; 25,000 currently stationed in Korea (Korean Army is only 9000, but more advanced than China, bu still far behind me) and two 15,000 man armies spread across my nearby colonies. I'll be raising two smaller, 6000 man armies to replace them as "Peacekeepers" and deterrance for the other Asian powers. Even without that, I'd largely be safe due to my large and advanced navy.

You and I fight wars very differently.

I divide my army up into groups of 5,000 troops and station them on my borders, on trouble territories, and where I know I'll need them.
I almost never organize into army sizes besides 2,000/5,000/10,000

Well remember, my primary foes are the Koreans, Chinese and Indochinese, all of which favour very large armies. Generally what I do is I combine two armies temporarily into 30-45,000 men to fight the critical battle against their horde, then break them up into 10,000 man forces to siege multiple territories at once. I also maintain transport fleets of 15 ships to shadow the armies, so I can rapidly move them if need be, with 6000 men to 6 ships for all my Colonial ventures.

Simply put, I couldn't match the raw manpower of my foes until the last few years, so defending everything truely would be defending nothing, and after discovering how efficient and potent a rapid reaction force can be, I'm quite fond of it. Generally, for troubled provinces or important borders I upgrade my forts as high as they can go so I'll have time to respond.

I suppose I prefer a static defense over a mobile one.
At least for this game.

In Hearts of Iron II/III, I switch over to using a mobile defense and blitzkrieg tactics, but for EU3, Crusader Kings, and Victoria I tend to use organized formations and slow advances.

1716: The Age of Reckoning

As you might be able to tell, Chaos rules the earth at the moment. Ming China, The Mongol Empire, Spain and the Timurid Empire have all entered periods of terminal decline. The Chinese economy has collapsed, as has most of their military, the Mongols have had a complete stability and military collapse due to highly successful Novgorodian invasions, Spain has been crushed by France, Mali and Portugal in 3 seperate wars, destroying their military and colonies and the Timurids have faced mounting rebellions and foreign invasions, forcing them to release numerous conquered states in exchange for peace.

As for myself, the usual colonial expansion and military developement, except by sheer dumb luck, I inherited the throne of Pegu, the main Indochinese power. To avoid a long, drawn out war with several states (Pegu was running low on friends when I took power), I've ceded several of their provinces and established good relations with most of my neighbours. However, Gujurat is invading Orissa (orangish-brown), who are my allies, so conflict might be unavoidable. Luckily, I've converted most of my conquered territories to Shintoism, so I can move the occupying troops to Indochina if conflict does arise. In the New World, I've pretty much reached the limit of my expansion, and am focused on fortifying and building up my army there. Currently I've got 20,000 men in two armies, and once the British run out of foes, I'll probably increase it by another 10,000. I am now the most advanced state in the world militarily, but several european states have more advanced government or production tech, furthermore I have the largest navy and 4th largest army.

Anyways, on the region blow by blow;

Europe is largely unchanged, again. Poland has weakened a little bit, Austria and Hungary have gone their seperate ways and Novgorod has emerged as the primary eastern european power, even establishing Sweden as a vassal. They're currently conquering Muscovy.

As I said earlier, central Eurasia is in turmoil with numerous states emerging and more wars than I could recount. It's essentially a breakup of the major powers, and the emergence of Gujurat and Orissa as primary rivals in India. The Mughals have been destroyed for about a decade now as well.

China has maybe another 40 years left in it, so long as its rivals keep fighting each other rather than invading. Once someone is comitted to invasion, they won't last very long. Orissa took 15 territories in about 3 months during their war, but only took 4 in the peace deal.

The Americas are in absolute chaos with the colonial powers now turning on each other. Britain looks to have the upper hand, but Portugal has been highly efective as well.
W

West Africa is now Mali, and only Mali. They even invaded Spain, but didn't keep any territory when peace was signed.

EDIT: I seem to have a slight problem. Despite being almost lvl 40 for ground and naval tech, I haven't gotten a single new unit since 32/33.

Would you be up for giving multiplayer a try sometime?

I think EU3: IN (vanilla, no mods) runs the fastest, so we'd probably have to stick with just that.

I'd be willing to try it sometime in the future, I'm still getting the hang of it though.

Tried a game as Holland from 1399, and it didn't go so hot; Burgundy invaded everybody, myself included, and a two-province nation doesn't quite have the power to resist 15,000 man armies.