Colonial powers have some *huge* advantages over non-colonials, tho.
First and most significantly is the fact that colonial powers wind up controlling vast swaths of territory, and all those new territories under their thumb translate into an ever-escalating economy that a non-colonial power simply can't hold a candle to.
Second, BB rating. If a Non-Colonial power wants to expand, then it's got to be at someone else's expense. Unless you're playing one of the nations that starts with a juicy perma CB with some other nation, you are very much at the mercy of the ebb and flow of the game to provide you opportunities to GET a valid CB, as of course, attacking without one means a higher BB rate (and even WITH one, you are limited to a max of three provinces from any given enemy, all of which spike your BB rating, and all of which are prone to rebellion....Colonial powers pay, on balance (counting the cost of troops NOT lost in battle to claim their new territory, income lost to stability, etc) FAR less than non-colonial powers do for the same expansion opportunities, and they have more territories to work with to boot!
The most compelling thing though, is the whole economy thing....I tend to play colonial/colonizing nations pretty much all the time (even played Austria as a colonial power!), and the way I run my economy is to play with extended periods of "all-cash" (promoting one mayor a year to keep inflation at zero while reaping the financial windfall), then using the cash to build a spate of Manufactories of a given type, and by that time, I've got another 5-6 new colonies at or verging on city status, and I'm ready to repeat the cycle (new colonies allow me to run extended periods of essentially inflation free cash investment in my budget....an advantage that non-colonial powers have in much more limited supply.
-=Vel=-
