Being a series of addresses to the nation... Empire: Total War LP

[Saphroneth]

As the title says, I'm thinking of doing a let's play here of Empire Total War. There probably won't be as many screenshots in this one since running a program at the same time as E:TW is an invitation to slowness on my PC, so I'll format it instead as a set of "State of the union" - or indeed empire or democracy - addresses, covering various important events.
Not sure how well this will work, but I'll give it a try. Now, which nation should I be?

Absolute monarchies:
Russia
Prussia
The Maratha Confederacy
Ottoman Empire
France
Spain
Austria
Sweden?

The Absolute Monarchies have trouble keeping the loyalty of the lower classes in their populace - being despots is generally considered to be a bad thing - and have no hope of replacing their national leader until he dies (and some of them, like the Spanish Habsburgs, just suck!) but in return they do not have to deal with elections that may replace the cabinet and they can replace a poor minister with another one without having to gamble on his quality.
This category also includes the two "eastern" powers, the Maratha Indians and the Ottoman Empire, who have tech disadvantages of one sort or another (The Maratha don't seem to have line infantry capable of Volley Fire, or for that matter rifles or howitzers, making some techs useless. The Ottomans have to research a fantastically expensive tech, New Model Army, to replace their outmoded Janissaries with more conventional line infantry and also do not have howitzers. And this is WITH the "Elite units of the east" pack.) To make up for that, the Maratha are Indian (with all the fabulous wealth of the collapsing Mughals on their doorstep) and the Ottomans have the largest empire in Europe.

Constitutional monarchies don't have any of the advantages of the Absolute Monarchy, but their advantage is that they have an easier time maintaining control of their nation (that and they usually have a good start position).

England
Poland-Lithuania
Sweden? (I can't recall what kind of monarchy it is)

Republics have good bonuses to their control over their people (better than the C.M. on the lower orders) but they also have the problem of elections.

The United Provinces is the only republic in the normal starting position.

Any of these powers can be "switched" to a different government type with a quick revolution, achieved in the early game simply by racking up taxes to "insane" on the group you want to form the new government. Sadly, doing this for the lower classes in Russia does not net you a red flag.

Sound doable? Interesting?