Change of plans. Since Austria still hates me, Poland is becoming too powerful, and the Prussian/German navy sucks, I've decided to abandon my idea of colonizing and conquer Europe instead. I declared war on Austria and easily took Vienna, which was vitrually undefended. Now Austria just has Hungary (only a few armed citizenry garrisoned), Croatia (full stack garrisoned), Lombardy (full stack garrisoned), and Transylvania (unknown garrison). I will probably attempt to keep my alliance with the Polish while I finish off Austria (will probably leave Italy alone for now and give Lombardy to Genoa or something...). Then I will invade the Polish Empire from the south (Hungary) and west (Brandenburg/Saxony) and work my way towards the Russian border. My ultimate goal is completely destroying Poland and pushing my empire up to the Russian border and the Ottoman border. If I can't get that, I will aim to just take the Polish lands west of Warsaw (not including Warsaw, including East Prussia) with East Prussia as my goal.

At the moment the Dutch have taken over France (France is gone completely). Portugal got destroyed by Spain. The Ottomans and Russians have stayed put pretty much. The Swedish lost St. Petersburg, but still have Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Poland has everything between Germany, Russia, and the Ottomans (besides the last few Austrian cities). I have strong alliances with Britain and the Dutch. I am also a strong ally of Denmark, and I regularly send it military tech so it can fend off Sweden (if Sweden can't conquer Denmark, then Sweden can't invade Germany). The Polish are a fairly strong ally. The Ottomans are friendly but not allied. The Russians don't care about me.