How to expand to the far east?

I play as Venice in the mid-1500s, and the goal of the game is to control the trade from the Far East and back home. Actual land control of key tradeposts and perhaps a colony would be really sweet. I need a place to build and repair ships anyhow.

So far, my plan has been to gain access to the Gulf of Aden by trying to wrestle land from the Mamluks. So far, they haven't provided me with a CB, but I'm starting to realize I don't have an idea how to progress after that.

I am beginning to discover Indonesia – no other European nations have capitalized on the region yet.

I've read of other players who extend their colony range by going all the way around Africa, but I've never been interested in Africa, and I have no colonists at the moment – and besides, my colony range is lousy.

So the question is: how do I – a small European trade nation – gain land control in the Far East?

With all due respect for the previous answer......

You have no business in Africa or on the Cape, since there is no way to steer trade from the Cape to Venice. It always ends up in Ivory Coast and from there is distributed among the 3 main Atlantic trade nodes. Any effort you put in there will only sponsor Spain/Portugal/France/Britain.

The key point is in the Gulf of Aden, which is where trade from the far East gets routed either towards you via Alexandria and Aleppo or completely out of your grasp via Zanzibar.

How to get to the Gulf of Aden? The key here is Cyprus. You should be able to get a CB to take it and it does share a sea border with Mamluks, allowing you to create a Conquest CB on their coastal provinces. Once you have a base established, you should be able to work your way into the Arabian Peninsula and towards Basra and Aden and up towards Aleppo. Take those and you get to control the direction of all trade coming from India and further away.

The subsequent leap to India is actually quite small, as the territories on the Eastern shores of Arabia share seazones with provinces almost bordering on Indus. A couple of wars later: HELLO GOA.

disclaimer: this sounds easy but I assure you it is not. This is just the best way I know to achieve the goal you described in your original post