All the ideas listed above

One of the most terrifying militaries in the game

Free missionary strength from a decision and a free missionary from controlling Cholula



An economy backed by the highest concentration of gold provinces in the world



An insanely high mercantilism for stealing Asian/African trade

An uncontested lockdown of the expensive New World trade goods like Sugar, Cocoa, and Dyes.

Exceptionally easy expansion opportunities: plenty of wide open spaces waiting to be colonized (with your free colonist and colonial growth!), very weak native neighbors, and colonies of nations too preoccupied to send their entire military in the event of conflict

It turns out the tiny Native American tribe of Caddo is actually one of the strongest empires in the game when in the right hands. This is because there are a variety of game mechanics, both new and old, that you can exploit. The end result is to combine the powerful generic native ideas with the mighty Nahuatl religion. Here's what you'll get at the end:Here's how you bring this dream to fruition:Exploit 1: Caddo starts with an undetermined ruler at the start of the game, meaning the game generates a random, young (18-20 yrs old) leader at the start. If you don't get somebody you like, just restart. For this strat to work you should get a ruler with MIL of 4 or higher, but you could theoretically keep restarting until you got a 6/6/6.Exploit 2: Negative stability is bad in almost every way. However, it hasupside: it decreases the time to the next migration. Furthermore, since Caddo is very small at the start of the game it means all the usual downsides to negative stability are ignorable. This means negative stability is actually athing. This becomes important for the next exploit.Exploit 3: Migrate south as quickly as possible until you border the Nahuatl nations. While you're doing this you should be no-cb warring with the tiny Totemist tribes for monarch points or money. Having a large treasury (>200 ducats) and being MIL tech 3 is essential to early conquests. Combine this with the recent changes to how tech costs work (techs are only 50% more expensive for natives at the start of the game now), rushing to MIL tech 3 is achievable in a few years.Exploit 4: When you get down to the Nahuatl your goal is to take the province of Cholula. It has an event that will convert your nation to Nahuatl. Taking this province would usually be near-impossible for Totemist nations: the Nahuatl are all larger than you and have bonuses to morale. However, the combination of having a large treasury, having the building that gets you +10 land forcelimits, and having the insane morale boost from MIL tech 3 means defeating the Nahuatl is not only achievable, it's actually quite easy. Paradox clearly balanced the +10 land forcelimits building around units that were supposed to be weaker. However, the tech changes means there are a few glorious years where Caddo is the OPM superpower of the Western Hemisphere.Exploit 5: This is really a combination of two exploits: Caddo is now a Nahuatl nation that sees all of North America. In addition to this, the religious reforms for Nahuatl don't require vassals to be mesoamerican. This means Caddo can swoop all over the continent, strategically vassalizing tiny isolated OPM tribes to complete the Nahuatl reforms in record time.When you border a European nation you can modernize at the press of a button, instantly gaining all their institutions and 80% of their tech. I recommend dumping all the diplo points you get until Europeans arrive into mercantilism. With this, Caddo becomes a terrifying juggernaut. Here's what you get:Playing as Caddo was some of the most fun I've had with EU4 in months. I recommend it to anyone who has a solid grasp of the game. Try it while it's hot, and before Paradox nerfs it!Here's the Reddit post that prompted me to try this strat: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/5ibbou/why_caddo_is_secretly_the_second_best_nation_in/