The new century begins with the Unhappiness Among The Artisans event, a free +2 Free Subjects move. Meanwhile, I am beginning to invest heavily in infrastructure, funding my projects by periodic requisitions from the powerful commercial faction (whose mood is lowered by the requests, but promptly raised again by infrastructure construction).
Infrastructure is a very complicated subject in MMU, and one on which my notes are not really adequate. I hope to go into the matter in detail in a subsequent AAR.
Meanwhile,
I got lucky here - this was literally the first year in which the event could have fired. I had originally planned to spend the seventeenth century expanding into Southeast Asia and Korea, but these plans go on the back burner now, as war would mean the loss of the lucrative colonies I can now establish in the Philippines and Indonesia. I promptly send out the Land Expedition at the head of 6k cavalry on antiquated transports, in the hope that this will be enough to deal with natives. The understandable reluctance of the Indonesian minors to grant me military access slows down the process a little, but, by the time the Land Expedition "dies" (the game treats it as a general), I have uncovered all the unsettled Indonesian and Philippine provinces, in addition to the wasteland of Western Australia. I don't bother with Siberia, since those provinces will be "explored" as I establish colonies next to them.
Here's a map (1620) of the newly explored lands, with my first couple of colonies.
You receive this modifier in MMU when you accept one of the various exploration events.
While all this is going on, in 1604,
This was already taken into account in the modernization report. My tech speed is still 45% behind Europe, even after spending half the game modernizing. I'm badly behind at this point and struggling to catch up.
1604 also brings a new National Idea. I pick Naval Provisioning, to ensure that the newly-discovered provinces are within range.
1605 brings the settlement of Tagaloan in the Philippines.
In 1608, I move a slider towards Naval. I could get rid of a 10% penalty faster by moving towards Free Market, but not by much, and the move towards Naval is actually useful - it increases my Trade Efficiency, which is accounting for an increasing percentage of my income.
In 1609, another nomadic province sedentarizes completely. This causes the last Controlling Nomadic Plains penalty to disappear. The same year, Ternate in Indonesia is settled. It becomes a Penal Colony for the increased growth rate: