Here's an idea:
You should found the capital 1 SW of Amsterdam (Rotterdam) and change it to Antwerpen.
Then change the leadername to Leopold I.
And during the game conquer Mbanza Kongo and found some cities east of it.
Maybe I will do that sometime, although I'm Dutch, I'm also part Belgisch (Vlaamse grootvader) and I don't like Hollanders from the west very much...
I was born and rised in Brabant, which is also a province of Belgium, right?
I'm not a fan of Belgium my mate. Also, the Belgian independence was a bad page in our history (it was actually an attempt of annexing our country to France, which they weren't allowed to do so they changed agenda, except for a few people like Gendebien who remained rattachist).
Now Leopold I, neither a fan of that guy, but he funded the early Flemish movement, though for opportunistic reasons (a bilingual Belgium was less likely to end up being French than an entirely Francophone Belgium).
Point is had we remained Dutch, Brussel wouldn't be overwhelmingly Dutch-speaking today. Also, it was less likely to abuse the famine in Flanders to exploit it and Frenchify it culturally. We also would have a stronger Dutch-speaking elite, which we still lack in many ways.
I do understand that in history Brabant was used as a buffer zone and exploited economically by the Dutch Republic. It also used to belong to the Duchy of Brabant and got separated from us. Still, you have to know that the only reason we aren't Dutch is because the revolt failed in Antwerpen 1585 followed by a massive emigration to especially Holland. After this event there were plans to divide the Southern Netherlands between France and the Republic, but they rulers in Holland didn't want to have France as neighbour nor did they want to have a more significant harbour than Amsterdam within their nation.
Still, facts are: many Dutch-speaking Catholics also supported the Dutch Revolt, despite it being mainly a Protestant Revolution. Also, in our region our elite was mainly Protestant, and their fleeing from the Inquisition caused us to lose a lot of our elites and damaged our progression a lot. Also back than was is better for us that the Dutch-speaking part of the Seventeen Provinces to have remained one country. That later on some Francophone bourgeois and Catholic extremists (who didn't care about the Dutch-speaking culture here, by the way, because they saw 'dangerous' Protestant influence in the Dutch languages and thus they kept the plebs dumb for a loong time here) decided to break up the Kingdom of the United Netherlands in the 19th century later on. By use of propaganda they have succeeded in making the population praise this rather bad event in their history later on, of course after they closed the Dutch-speaking schools here and also after it took until 1961 before our constitution was written in Dutch...
This while North Brabant began to bloom in the late 19th century when Flanders still was struggling to defend its culture.
Also, I have Hollanders among my friends and I like Hollandophobes a lot less. You don't impress me in other words. I also have friends from Groningen (very sober people, but I get along very well) and from Brabant too.
I understand there are cultural differences, but as an Antwerpenaar I get along better with many Hollanders than with some other Flemish who need to be obsequious toward Francophones and hostile toward Dutch all because they're taught to do so. I like people who are able to think for their own, thank you very much.