I've become obsessed with trying to survive as Mayan in EU3. I know it's possible.
My first game (Pic 1 and 2), I was doing pretty well. Economy was magnificent (War with Aztec every now and again to take all it's stockpiled gold from it's mines), sufficient army to deal with any random rebels, and a core on all my provinces.
See, the problem with Maya, Aztec, or Zapotec is that you can't own more than 9 provinces without triggering events that cause mass revolts, and, if your current leader doesn't have tremendous stats, severe penalties (Incapable ruler). Thus, I was forced to just vassal Aztec and Zapotec with these borders instead of blobbing over them. This severely crippled me.
To make matters worse, I was unaware of the speed limit for New World tech groups (Speed of tech investment slows to a crawl when you reach lvl 3), so I was constantly pushing for gov. lvl 4 without knowing that I was crippling myself by not going for Land 3 to fort up.
When I reached my first Idea, I got to colonizing, which was a huge boom to my economy. Then the Westerners showed up. They instantly hated me despite everything I did, but I managed to use them to westernize to Muslim. France took Honduras, but it was no matter to me. I finally got to Land 3, and used all my money to fort up, but it did little. My ruler prematurely died and left me with a regency, disallowing me to westernize my units, and finally France declared war again right before I came of age, and that was gg.
My next game, I decided, instead of taking the provinces next to me, to just Annex Aztec's starting location with it's two gold mines, which would cap me at 9 provinces, and vassalize Zapotec, which will be my military arm. (Pic 3)
I won't make the mistake of leaving Land tech for later again.