Okay, after playing a reasonable amount of time on very easy with a rather easy starting position (France) I got the hang of it. Somewhat. This game is actually pretty fun (because it's HARD). Somewhere next year Europa Universalis IV will be out. From what I've read of it some of the good things of Crusader Kings 2 will be included. I wouldn't know what that would be, since I don't know CK2... but when that's on a discount I will pick that one up as well.
I started the Grand Campaign (in 1399) as France. I've added two pictures of the world as it is in 1399. Thumbnails... if you click the image and view them at full size you'll understand why
The image with all the pretty colors shows all the nations; France is blue. Unfortunately, other nations are blue as well, most notably Sweden and Bengal. The second picture shows my provinces in light blue, and my vassals in dark blue. You can see that France is nothing like it is today. Especially the english provinces and southeast of what is now France are the valuable provinces. Besides England (the archenemy) it's main rival is Burgundy (conveniently colored burgundy in the first picture).
I'm in short describing the events up to 1493. For a quick glance, just take a look at the third picture. In 1493 I'm hamstringed by a bad reputation, but at least I'm number one in almost everything besides trade (because a bad reputation gives a penalty to trade compete chance, and being in the Hansa prevents me to compete with other Hansa members... but their trade stations keeps my tax rates up and my revolt chance down). I made some poor choices in the first five years, but when I figured out what was going on I got lucky:
-Burgundy is part of the empire, and when I attack them the emperor inevitably backs them. Luckily for me the initial emperor, Bohemia, starts weak, so in my first war of conquest I managed to beat both Burgundy, the emperor and it's allies, so I chopped Burgundy in half (because I was stupid enough to let Burgundy have Bar). Shortly after I made peace, Burgundy went gung-ho on all the little states north of me, so after this war they were a lot stronger than before.
-Going after Burgundy again for the second time was a lot tougher, as the HRE had passed to Austria, and Austria is a beast. I could never beat Austria and Burgundy at the same time. The Austrian Emperor didn't live long though, and the HRE passed to... Burgundy. I declared war immediately, and no one came to their aid. They were too big to annex or vassalize, but I got the provinces France has a core on and freed the states like Luxembourg and Liege. After a third war I annexed the remaining Burgundian states.
-In the third Burgundian war, I vassalized Switzerland. It's a big country, and their army is usually decent. It's a good ally, helping me in many wars.
-England was a pain, but their king got excommunicated. All of Europe helped me to rape and pillage their country. Good times. It's still a poweful nation now that they got most of Scotland and all of Wales, but their fleet is still weak and that's what helps me.
-I was lucky to grab the Azores before Portugal. They clearly weren't happy with this, so they got them when I got in a war with them. They have a big fleet, but no army. So, I pillaged Portugal and got my islands back.
-Spain was rampaging through north Africa, so while their armies were abroad I rampaged through united Spain, freeing Aragon and some minor states in the process. I actually did this twice, so now I have the whole of north Africa as an ally.
So now I have colonies in Brazil, and some conquered land in North America. I will get a core on Cape Verde soon, so I'm fairly certain I can colonize most of the Carribean before anyone else. The only problem I have is stability cost, with this much provinces a stability drop cost me a lot of money. Most European conquered provinces become core provinces, so I get more tax income. When I get a core on conquered Liguria and the province in North America that happened to have a center of trade, I will finally be able to trade. That is,
if I let my infamy drop