I just finished my first GOOD game of Victoria 3. I figured out once you get to a certain point you can just turn on automatic expansion on everything and basically just sit back and watch the line go up, occasionally intervening for power and railroads. Infamy didn't matter at all near the end, I had >1000 battalions and Cut Down to Size plays were just another opportunity to annex stuff in self-defense, or liberate Ireland because I felt like it. I did go bankrupt once due to all the wars but I bounced back obviously. The thing is though, I had an absolutely fuckhuge population, and I feel like if I tried to play a lower-pop nation without doing tons of conquering it wouldn't go as well. Do you basically have to conquer to win if you start small?