My Hosokawa -> Japan, my last leftover from 1.11. Not as impressive as other empire here, but I tend to be conservative in my expansion. My original plan was to just get the Chrysanthemuim Throne achievement, but then I figured, I might get Korea, and Manchuria too, maybe.... in the end, I owned almost as much land as the complete East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1942... you know how one thing leads to another in this game.
Took me a few games to figure out how to not get stomped by the Shogun and everybody else in Japan when expanding as a Daimyo. Ming failed early again, as it is wont to do in 1.11 and every patch before. Manchu got very powerful, but I managed to defeat them over the course of several wars. I never fought any European power. I was afraid to do so, even though I would've loved to fight Russia for this nook they put into my country (you can see the claims I put on the offending provinces). But I'm just too afraid to fight Russia and its infinite manpower. I've done it before as other nations, and while you might win eventually, it's as much fun as pulling teeth...
Shun, Yi, Yue, and Brunei are my Vassals, Khmer is a protectorate. I picked up Shun in the 18th century because they were a vassal of Kara Del (which subsequently got eaten by me and (mostly) Russia), and never got around to annex them. Yue and Brunei were Vassals mostly for reasons of color: I wanted to prevent the ugly color clash with Lan Xang and Pasai, so I picked up those two as color buffer. Both of them hate me, and wouldn't stop until at least the turn of the 20th century: I simply annexed too many of their provinces before I decided to vassalize them. Yue, specifically, was, at one point, the power house of souther China, and by the time I annexed them, they had almost -700 opinion from AE towards me... ouch.
There's one province separated from my mainland by Shun. I had fought a far to give it to Yi, but then messed up the peace talks and gave it to me instead of Yi. Sadly, they never got around to core another province, so I got stuck with it. Even at 0 gold, they rejected the trade because of -1000 "Yi is overextended". A bit silly, if you ask me, but oh well.
Nankoku is my colonial nation in Australia. One lessen I learned in this game is that, if you want to colonist, you might as well make sure you uncover zones like Australia. Spain (which collapsed really badly this game after about 1700-1750, losing all its colonial nations) and Portugal arrived in the Moluccas around 1650. I had figured they continued towards Australia and never bothered to uncover until it auto-discovered in the late 1700s, only to reveal that none of the provinces where claimed. I really should've gone for Australia sooner, making it all mine. Oh well. I only picked up colonization for Siberia, Taiwan, and the Philippines in the the first place, but a province or two to hug a western nation and westernize. Speaking of which, it's the first time I westernized a nation, and it felt almost anticlimactic. I heard horror stories about westernization before, but it was mostly a smooth ride. Maybe it got changed in a patch some time ago...
What annoyed me a bit was that I again didn't manage to get the World Explorer Achievement. I even sent an army with a Conquistador around half the world to uncover the very last missing area around Lake Malawi, but for some reason, I wasn't able to enter it, neither from Ethiopia nor from Mutapa. Not sure what that was about... oh well, I guess I can try again next time.
Here's a picture of the western hemisphere. Most countries are independent by 1821.
I made sure to spread Shinto wherever I went. Also, Catholicism lost many European states, but, thanks to Spain and Portugal, still is the majority religion in the New World; except for where Holland (which never formed the Netherlands, and eventually collapsed, and Brittany colonized.
Finally, the overview picture. I managed to become the fifth-powerful nation in the world, behind France, Portugal, Austria, and Great Britain. I didn't manage to finish all ideas, mostly because of a few imbecile rulers. But I made it to 32 in all technologies, which is what counts for me. Japan is a hyper-modernized nation!
Now I guess I might finally get to patch 1.12 or even 1.13. Maybe play a tall nation for a change.