Best Non European Starts

[BaronNoir]

As challenge goes, Kamchatka is certainly interesting (interestingly, it's not much harder than Korea or Japan...after the first 100 years)

 

[ShoGuL]

Jaunpur is my favorite Indian nation for a tolerant muslim game. Get economic and humanist ideas, keep the dhimmi strong and happy, and you can conquer everything without rebels or converting, run at -20% tech cost (-piety muslim / happy dhimmi) and easily spawn all institutions in your OP farmland cotton/silk/dye provinces to often embrace institutions ahead of Europeans.

Korea is also amazing fun, has the option of converting to Manchu and eventually forming Qing.

 

[CoolSpin]

I formed nice purple nation, malacca/malaya, anyway, I took maritime and naval ideas, blockaded the sht out of ming, France and england, didn't expand into ayutthaya due to the natural strait blocking land warfare. Also I had a colony in cameroon which France declared for every time, so unless you are strong on land, stay out of Africa. This was before the GP constantwars, a pretty relaxed game. I got to use justify trade conflict cb too

 

[Johnny917]

I would honestly advocate for playing Ming. It is nice and relaxed, the world lies to your feet.

Ming is not challenging, but it offers great role-playing experience. For example bringing peace to the world and being super humanist confucian.

Or just murder everything, it is really your choice.