Disclaimer: SP only, I have never played a long V2 MP game.
You can become #1 without ever conquering or colonizing a single province. Pops certainly help and colonies give a lot of prestige and pop, but neither is a "must have".
I rarely, if ever, wage any wars in my games and instead focus on tech, industry and colonies (the latter only if I am a smaller nation).
Russia is a big nation that can become #1 without ever waging a war or getting a colony (you can even ignore Siberia, but hey - it looks better in green than grey
).
USA is destined to be a #1, but you will have to fight the ACW and probably want your Mexican cores. Still, they do fine without any additional expansion after that.
The european "middle powers" like Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain can become #1 if they grab enough colonies.
Any medium sized American nation like Brazil, Argentina or Chile can also become very powerful via immigration, but colonies will probably be needed to become #1.
Sphering nations can replace ressources from colonies quite well. Rubber is a problem during the late game (and probably Oil in vanilla, can't say for sure because I only play PDM these days), but you can even be #1 without the rubber related industries (it's just a lot less profitable).
As for a suggestion:
I enjoy Russia a great deal. They are a powerful early nation, but fall behind in industry, tech and military until their LIT goes up, so it is still at least some sort of a challenge. You will also have to deal with the political aspects (like potential revolutions from Jacobins or Nationalists). Colonies and wars are entirely optional.
You can become #1 without ever conquering or colonizing a single province. Pops certainly help and colonies give a lot of prestige and pop, but neither is a "must have".
I rarely, if ever, wage any wars in my games and instead focus on tech, industry and colonies (the latter only if I am a smaller nation).
Russia is a big nation that can become #1 without ever waging a war or getting a colony (you can even ignore Siberia, but hey - it looks better in green than grey
).USA is destined to be a #1, but you will have to fight the ACW and probably want your Mexican cores. Still, they do fine without any additional expansion after that.
The european "middle powers" like Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain can become #1 if they grab enough colonies.
Any medium sized American nation like Brazil, Argentina or Chile can also become very powerful via immigration, but colonies will probably be needed to become #1.
Sphering nations can replace ressources from colonies quite well. Rubber is a problem during the late game (and probably Oil in vanilla, can't say for sure because I only play PDM these days), but you can even be #1 without the rubber related industries (it's just a lot less profitable).
As for a suggestion:
I enjoy Russia a great deal. They are a powerful early nation, but fall behind in industry, tech and military until their LIT goes up, so it is still at least some sort of a challenge. You will also have to deal with the political aspects (like potential revolutions from Jacobins or Nationalists). Colonies and wars are entirely optional.