Happy New Year!
In my Jianzhou-Qing run, I had discovered SA. At some point I looked over and saw this:
Interesting. I've never seen any North African country colonizing, let alone a rather diminished Morocco. Nevertheless, it isn't really
that bizarre.
I come back a few days later, and have a jolly old time. Siberia's mine, Mongolia's mine, I'm slowly eating Japan by threatening war, and I'm making 0.61 mandate per month. At the very end of the session, I get a request for military access. From Vijayanagar. They are at war with the Spanish empire. Poor guys, I wonder why. So I look over and see "Vijayanagari Cascadia." That can't be right! So I scroll down, and lo and behold:
They took exploration ideas. What's even weirder is that Vij doesn't appear to have colonized anywhere in Indonesia or the Philippines.
All in all, the colonizers of this game are Spain (mostly in NA, but also have a CN in Colombia), Portugal (SA), France (little more that trading posts across Africa), Britain (lords of Eastern NA), Morocco (50% Morocco, 50% Moroccan Colombia), Vijayanagar (???), Qing (Eastern Siberia/outlying islands), and Hadramut (they sought to share a shred of my glory, I'm sure). See the 1601 global map for a (rough) illustration.
Also, I can join a coalition against Ayutthaya. They have ~40k troops. I have ~270k. And I can always have more tributaries.