My population was reduced by 75%, which I think was benefited by having hospitals in as many locations with over 120k population (the Yucatan is very dense) as possible. Which was like, seven. I could have maybe done more but you really need your cabinet developing the high pop provinces because they also need 20 development for a hospital
even then, hospitals in 90% of my high density locations only seemed to change it from 80-90% population loss to 75%. My first run I had like 5.3 million population, ended at 1.03 million, and in this run I had 1 million fewer to begin with and ended at 1.03ish as well
Perfidious Castile declared war, got spanked, refused to land even after The Great Deadening, so I white peaced and have focused on consolidating the Aztecs. The largest Aztec player, Tepanecapan, is my junior in a personal union. Pretty much everything that existed prior to colonization from the Yucatan to central mesoamerica is owned by a vassal (except for a tributary who I can't make into a vassal because they made that really hard for some reason)
so even severely weakened the high unity might be why Castile hasn't tried to fuck with me again despite having 110k levies to my Whole Situation's potential 29k
anyway GOT SOME TIN CAN'T WAIT TO BUILD A REAL BOAT!!
I'm so far unmolested after Castile's initial war that ended in a white peace, it's been like 35 years, my population has gone back up about 500k, still really insufficient (but hey at least I have the buildings and infrastructure to sustain 5M+ lol)
i would say things were going great but those perfidious fuck-ass Spaniards just Market Bombed me, they colonized this tiny little island off the coast of Mexico I couldn't see and used it to create a market that cut my unified mesoamerican market in half. what the fuck yo
there's a loading screen quote with an iirc taino chief who's like "if there are spaniards in heaven I want to go to hell"
edit: pro tip having the biggest toughest aztec adjacent nation in a personal union has turned out really cool they force everyone around them to be their vassal so through them, everyone is my subordinate