In AHD you will have hard time assimilating anyone into Turkish, so can as well forget prioritizing that (although full citizenship party does not hurt and will help you "state" Egypt in the later period). You need to conquer Egypt to the point of annexation and do it very early, they will get friendly with various GPs over time and that means interventions against you (half-assed interventions with suicidal Gallipoli-type naval landings in high attrition places, but annoying). That means that Persia has to land in your sphere and stay there, conquering them just isn't viable, not enough infamy, not enough soldiers. Better have them an ally (they might even attack Egypt with "free people" to give you some of your states back.
If you take the right states from Egypt in the first war, you will be able to colonize a small piece of land bordering their southern lands (I forgot the name, somewhere next to Khartoum), that should keep you in the GP club for good and give you prestige for purchases in the world market. A typical early mistake is disbanding the navy, don't do it, rather build some extra Clippers so you can quickly invade along the Egyptian coast and not take any attrition (just turn clipper/artillery trade to manual and 0 in the trade screen so they don't use your cash while you're at war).
If you raise relations to 200 with Austria and Russia, they should leave you alone, but getting an ally in Germany can help a lot in case they don't (I had alliances with Germans throughout my three games with Ottos in 2.31, even won some great wars for them). Early on get the essentials (Ideological Thought, Medicine), then go straight for Biologism. When you have that, you need all the techs required for colonization. Then finally you can start working on some industrial efficiency (will take a while). Early NF should be put on Bureaucrats and Clergy (up to 4% country-wide), after you are done colonizing entire Africa, you can start working on craftsmen (to bet on the industrial growth) or clerks (to boost tech more), I seem to prefer clerks route, as craftsmen will only eat subsidies, while huge NF effort on clerks boosts the tech considerably.
Before 1870s you will be fine just building a liquor/wine factory in each state and not subsidizing it much. Arabic countries can be your spherelings, or can be conquered (they aren't worth conquest tbh, but it looks good on the map). South America is open for sphering when you're done with your surroundings. Keep your middle taxes low if you can afford it, your artisans will replace the industry for a bit. Don't bother taking Greece into your sphere, UK and Russia won't leave them alone. If you really want to annoy others, build factories abroad, for example in Sardinia-Piedmont, Spain, Portugal, Two Sicilies, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, let those medium industrialize and GP while you get a bonus to your IND for having factories abroad, and slow down AI's influence over those countries.
Regarding reforms, add inexpensive wargoals to your wars against various countries (humiliate, free people), and don't take them (deliberately) in the final peace deal, to annoy your population and this way get the reforms you desire (healthcare and education, I assume). You don't have to democratize your regime as the Ottos and it'll be darn hard to do it the normal route, you can as well get away with absolutism for the entire game. If not, let jacobins win their silly revolt a couple times by taking Istanbul and holding it for a year while your army stands idly by, they will reform you forcefully and very fast (they delete your sphere though).
It's a fun game, sort of "poor man's Austria" with great access to African colonies, you should land top3 just thanks to the prestige you get from taking Africa for yourself. Whatever industry and army you build, might lead to you to #1, if you care to occupy France and UK in the last part of the game.
