If you just want lots of techs, a faster way to do it that I know of only works well with Tibet and other neighboring to China nations. I got it from one of the AARs, so I don't take credit, but...
1. Build transports and maybe one ship to defend them if you can afford it. Just transports are just fine though.
2. Declare War on China early on.
3. As fast as you can, capture their capital. You can load troops in the transports and take the capital very quickly this way. Best to wait until they don't have ships in that particular area too, of course.
Bonus 3. If you can take the capital of Xianjang (I probably misspelled that), then China will be more likely to settle for what's below.
4. Demand war indemnities. Early on this won't be a lot, but it'll be enough for you to do what comes next.
5. For Tibet, convert up to and probably over half of your population to priests (or monks for them technically). Then try to balance your budget somewhat as you juggle expenses over income. However, you will likely be constantly gaining a lot of money. It'll vary by country, but you'll need a good chunk of it saved so you don't go bankrupt. You'll have to continually do this to China up until they're guaranteed by the Europeans. Then it's a matter of "do you have a big enough military to handle them too?" type of question.
Either way, this should make research much faster. From there...don't know what you could do actually.
That's just a very gamey way of civilizing places like Tibet. This strategy works for one of the Indian minors too.
There still are too many techs to study and I was not able to achieve civ. in Siam prior to the Europeans carving up parts of it.
