Malaya. It's funny how easy you can run a full trade/naval game and play the world bank as the spice king.
wait, you dont hate tier 1? Those are the worst sprites in the game IMOInca or Ethiopia (I never play Ethiopia though, because I hate the African models past tier one).
That's how you play properly historically!
What about the Europeans? How do you deal with them?
If you unite and westernize via south africa early on you can easily keep them at bay with the navy you can field, and of course paying for it isn't too big of a deal. Just keep a good sized standing army and take pot shots with colonists at California. Play Imperial late game ofc.
Malaya controls a major choke point for trade. If you can lock it down and build it up with manufactories you have enough money to just throw it at your problems.