The ideas were picked in this order, exploration (you need to colonise ASAP and close NA east coast), expansion (colonise again) quantity (which is always nice and with expansion allows a sweet +1 colonist) and after, offensive, adminsitrative and quality. The first three are the core, as they allow you to expand like crazy and build a bigger navy to steal more trade and protect yourself. This is indeed quite important, beocuse if even the IA is now less agressive, is STILL agressive. Expect some DOWs, but probably after you are westernised or not so in a bad position, the navy is key to win, just send the portuguese to the bottom to sea where they belong.
Another personal reccomendation is to convert to reformist as soon as possible, as is quite OP IMHO, those fervor bonuses are nice, especially the moral one, which is crazy. 15% moral for both navies and armies, for free? Really?
About who to attack first, probably the Iberians, or the English, the first becouse they annoy you as hell and should be taken down. About the English, they tend to fail horribly, and conquering them allows you to move your main port to the Enlish Channel, and then funnel all America to it giving you a crazy income. Like Portugal, but cooler. In my game, I launched consecutives campaings in Iberia and England, conquering bit a bit. Being allied with France and/or Austria is always nice for extra punching. Star attacking as soon as you are equal in military tech, which should be around 1620-1640. After you conquered Iberia, and you are recolleting in London with more than a 50% share... CONGRATS, you win. The rest is really easy as by now you should have nearly all North America and could be fielding 400k of troops, with quality, ofensive, aztec ideas + reformed morale with which you just could win a coalition against half europe with little effort.
American Mid West Pagan OPM, stayed Pagan.
They are agressive, as always, but they don´t attack so early, so you could westernise and convert and if you are christhian they don´t hate your guts soooooo much anymore. If you stay pagan, expect a cockfest, as they will consider you native rable.
Another, more interactive approach is to start as a small guy in a dangerous place: North India, Caucasus, Balkans, and not westernize.
And yep, that sounds really good. Should try after, just started my Switerzlake run a hour ago.
I played as Wallachia and created Romania. My vassals: Greece (Cyprus), Georgia and Polotsk.
