You don't need all those forts, it's a massive mistake to invest in them while your people need education techs.
First put NFs on Bureaucrats until you have enough of them for solid admin efficiency, then go all in for Clergy up to 4% so they can teach your people to read. You need Ideological Thought as your first tech to get another NF and the boost to plurality (which means a massive research boost), then Idealism, Medicine, maybe Early Railroad, and straight to Biologism in 1850 to maximize your education efficiency with Darwinism invention. Then you should look to get all the techs required to build Suez/Panama (1860) and to start colonization in 1870 (Rifles, Nationalism). When you have that covered, you can start looking at the basic output efficiency techs in the industrial and commercial trees, and start working to get the industry off the subsidies. When you get the slice of Africa you desired (I connect Somalia with Kongo/Ivory coast leaving the rest to AIs), you can go back home, build a million factories and keep influencing Craftsmen for the rest of the game.
I wouldn't bother fighting much for the influence in Europe if you aren't planning to form Greater Germany, just make sure Prussians can't create Germany (I was happy to discover you can make them release Lithuania in Ostprussen and let it fall to Russian sphere to end all their attempt at formation, but holding Schleswig will work too). Don't forget to take Ghana away from Prussians. This should make Prussia a permanent punching bag for France and Russia while you keep developing your little empire. Influence in Asia (Japan, China, Persia) and in South America (Brazil, Peru, Chile, Colombia), then you can use your border with Ottomans to sphere them too, or keep going "free people" against them make a little mess in the Balkans.
If you dealt with Prussia early, and if Americans are still somehow weakened by lower migrations of 2.31, you only have to plot the downfall of France and the UK to get #1#1#1. France is fairly easy, a timely intervention into a great war they are losing and you can beat all the living le merde out of them. Brits won't be that difficult either, you only need 500 modern ships and their armies to not be at home, occupy, wait for industry's shutdown and send them into a chain of revolts while your factories get their deserved first spot.
I don't think it's possible to stay absolutist, give the people every reform they demand, especially unions, so later you can give them healthcare. And don't lose any opportunity to upset them, as high militancy is what encourages reform.