I disagree. Going military first is hardly sensible in any game, considering that mil tech 4, 6, 7 and 8 give a tactics boost and getting those ahead of time gives you a way bigger advantage than a few points into any military idea. Moreover, even quantity won't be enough to make a difference against the big targets (burgundy, france, austria, kalmar union denmark) as long as you sit on 3 provinces or so, and once you are done eating burgundry, you should be accessing a second idea group.
I'd go exploration first for colonizing or trade for european expansion (trade gives more traders and more naval FL for more light ships for more money).
It is quite possible to fight burgundry without allying france though, they come to blows on their own, and thats when you jump in with your 10k and wipe their stack/kill their mercs and take stuff. Allying france is a solid strat though, you just need contingencies because they probably will turn on you at some point. conquering england & moving capital to london seems like a good defense against france, even without going colonial you will have naval superiority with the dutch NIs.
. I'd recommend not getting expansion (use one of those missions to pick up India and later into Majapahit territory), maybe exploration over maritime (maybe not), and in the place of expansion grab religious + reformed faith. Religious will let you continue conquests in Asia once you have the missions done, but it also lets you feed provinces to your CNs for 0 DIP, meaning your monarch point overhead from conquering into CNs in the new world is pretty low...and this CB isn't exactly terrible back home for a while either.
