Any advice for Kurland?

[sr902]

I decided to try forming Kurland as Riga, and things have gone fairly well. I took all but two of the Livonian Order's provinces and recently reformed to Kurland. But I pretty much live under constant threat of complete destruction from neighbours.

Muscovy, Lithuania, Scandinavia, Sweden, Finland(mass revolts started as soon as Denmark formed Scandinavia) and the Teutonic Order have all been hostile towards me for most of the game, and I don't see that changing. The Hansa are the only allies I've been able to keep, and they're pretty much useless at this point.

The only positive is that Protestantism began in France of all places, and shortly afted I converted, France became defender of the faith. So I think at this point, the threat of French intervention is the only thing keeping my enemies at bay.

Any advice on what my next move should be? I'm thinking I should start colonizing when I get my fourth idea group, but the nearest empty province in Africa is about 300 past my colonial range and I still can't see any North American provinces to see how far they are.
Politically, it seems like I'm in a terrible position where nobody important will ally with me, and every major power in the region hates me, so getting some land outside of the region seems like a good option, but I'm curious to see how others have survived playing in the eastern baltic area.

[Kagemin]

You definitely need some strong allies. Have all your neighbours selected you as a rival? If not you should be able to improve relations to a point where you can ally.
If you at least get relations to non-negative diplomatic reputation will make a big difference, so consider picking u the advisor for that. If you can get a common rival with France you should be able to get an alliance with them as well.
Really depends on the political setup in your game, who's rivaled whom, but there should be some things possible.

Once you got a few allies to cover your back you should look out for opportunities to attack your neighbours (big wars they are already in, kick them while they're down).

Not sure on the colonization, but if you wanna do it you probably need diplo level 9 or even 11 to reach the Americas. Might actually be closer than Africa for you, due to the way the range wraps around western Europe.

[Mcrone]

Try for beating up lithuania, they usually are hated by Russia and whoever controls scandanavia so try to eat them with the combinded strength of russia and scandanavia.

Then either take northern provinces or try to vassal feed Ukraine back all its cores.

IF they wont ally you simply attack when they get in a fight with another major power

[sr902]

The only rival I can take is the Teutonic Order, and as far as I know, the only countries that have rivalled me are TO and Sweden.
I've been trying to make allies, but nobody is interested. I can't even get a royal marriage with anyone. For instance, I increased relations with France as much as I can, but they're still neutral towards me, so they have no interest in a marriage or alliance.
As for my enemies, I can keep their opinion of me postive(Muscovy's opinion right now is a 61), but they're still hostile towards me, and they still want my provinces.

[Mcrone]

Can you colonize? try escaping to the new world/Asia and come back later

[sr902]

Colonizing is probably my next step. Just hope that when I get my next idea group I can see more of North America, and try to figure out if I actually have the range to get there. Spain went on a colonizing spree in Africa, so the nearest province there is just way too far.

It just kinda sucks being surrounded by massive countries who all hate me and want my territory. Though I must admit it makes things interesting. It's the 1550s now and I still haven't actually lost any of my provinces. I just hope my underdog story doesn't have a bad ending.