Sun Apr 14, 2013 1:32 am
Belgium is probably the easiest. It's compact, so you don't have that much to worry about, and it's populous and technologically advanced, so it can develop and fight pretty well. Also, you have a ton of natural resources for such a small country.
Sardinia-Piedmont isn't too hard either. Just remember to keep playing the unification decisions and you'll unite Italy, at which point you can go toe-to-toe with Austria for the Po valley and colonize.
The US is also pretty easy (all that gold coming in means you can do pretty much whatever you want), but it's sprawled out over half a continent, and then you have the Civil War (which I just won in 10 months because I had a huge army built up in advance, but I consider it gamey. I'm not proud of having done it.)
No matter who you play, you'll have the problem of the AI dumping its entire stockpile of pretty much every good on the marketplace, which will force you to choose VERY CAREFULLY what you invest in. Textiles is a trap: there's often a shortage of dyes, and you'll have to do major butt-kissing in order to build in other countries.