I am teetering on the knife's edge in this playthrough but it's 1843 and I don't remember how (this is an old save lol) but I have Persia, Dai Nam, and Burma as protectorates, soo close to having a negative liberty desire increase (just need my infamy to drop), just got Benin as well, so while maybe I'm doing some horrible colonialism, the good news is I've prevented the Anglos and the Fr*nch from their usual easy avenues of expansion.
I just need to yknow, not fuck up (i have literally no idea where to go from here lol)
Assuming you haven't already, I always take Gaza->Vrystaat and Oranje to get access to free gold minting.
After, idk, have your end goal be to make sure there are no other great powers.