I am always circling back to the first playthrough of the game i did, Sokoto. I am trying to establish them as the dominating force in Africa free of any colonial influence. It took a while until i settled on my current approach but it's now 1899 and i am quite underwhelmed.
So i am looking for some input how to be better.
Where am i:
I like the area i have, i do not like the political situation nor my economy.
How did i get there:
I started with declaring on GB and them forcing me to abandon Slavery. Oh no, better back down. i then gobbled up Benin and Oyo immediately and sucked up to France that was protective towards me. Once peasant movement hit i boosted them an got Tenant Farmers. Then i got religious schools as serfdom was gone. With that done, i managed to get Corn Laws, which was kinda hard cause for some reason not having slaves reduces the need for food, don't know why and the OPMs all brought in more farms. But at some point not building any farms worked. Modernization Movement managed to get me Interventionism, it's quite good at it. However, it took me 2 decades to get a Market Liberal as head of the Landowners and i made the mistake of passing Homesteading with it after Protectionism, making them completely powerless. I got Free Trade out of the Market Liberal before he died and landowners were at 5% then. In the middle i was able to pass Per-Capita-Taxation and Frontier Colonialisation. THe only other 2 things i was able to get was public health insurance (for the SoL) and Racial Segregation and that's it.
In Research and Production i focused hard on literacy and innovation. I quickly learned Centralisation was super important as early as possible and then i did empiricsm to get to two levels of education. And then i focused on Colonisation and then on Quinine. Really not sure on the Quinine, you get a bit of Senegal or Niger Delta out of it but it's just more people and you have a lot. But i wanted to be swole so i did Quinine and then started with Production research.
And that was laaaaaate. I am quite far behind, i am still not recognized because my peoples be multiplying and i can't get GDP up fast enough. The focus on literacy and science also feels like it did not pay off very well, the malus from being unrecognized is huge, isolationism for a long time as well. A lot of effort for then having ~50 tech spread... And my political situation is really bad. I can't get any goverment in power that can do law changes and change Distribution of Power, i have tried 3 times to get state religon removed but the Sunni are at 30 % and the animists are just too weak. I am stuck, stepbro! While playing a european nation it feels like it is harder to not reform everything because the reforming movements are soo strong and scripted, as Sokoto the radical movement has like 0% radicalisation, the nihilists jsut plopped, but it's a bit late.
I would really love to remove State Religion right at the start, but that is super hard because removing slavery means the land owners are super pissed and the land owners losing influence means a government with intelligentsia does not work afterwards. But not removing slavery seems the worse choice. And i seem to only be able to get it reliably when i do it right at the start.
Is there a way to get the AI to force open markets? that would also help, but seems not like they want to do it.
I think if i could get State Religion out early and keep the remaining strategy without pushing hard for quinine, i would be strongest, but i do not see how to get the first part. Any tips?
So i am looking for some input how to be better.
Where am i:

I like the area i have, i do not like the political situation nor my economy.
How did i get there:
I started with declaring on GB and them forcing me to abandon Slavery. Oh no, better back down. i then gobbled up Benin and Oyo immediately and sucked up to France that was protective towards me. Once peasant movement hit i boosted them an got Tenant Farmers. Then i got religious schools as serfdom was gone. With that done, i managed to get Corn Laws, which was kinda hard cause for some reason not having slaves reduces the need for food, don't know why and the OPMs all brought in more farms. But at some point not building any farms worked. Modernization Movement managed to get me Interventionism, it's quite good at it. However, it took me 2 decades to get a Market Liberal as head of the Landowners and i made the mistake of passing Homesteading with it after Protectionism, making them completely powerless. I got Free Trade out of the Market Liberal before he died and landowners were at 5% then. In the middle i was able to pass Per-Capita-Taxation and Frontier Colonialisation. THe only other 2 things i was able to get was public health insurance (for the SoL) and Racial Segregation and that's it.
In Research and Production i focused hard on literacy and innovation. I quickly learned Centralisation was super important as early as possible and then i did empiricsm to get to two levels of education. And then i focused on Colonisation and then on Quinine. Really not sure on the Quinine, you get a bit of Senegal or Niger Delta out of it but it's just more people and you have a lot. But i wanted to be swole so i did Quinine and then started with Production research.
And that was laaaaaate. I am quite far behind, i am still not recognized because my peoples be multiplying and i can't get GDP up fast enough. The focus on literacy and science also feels like it did not pay off very well, the malus from being unrecognized is huge, isolationism for a long time as well. A lot of effort for then having ~50 tech spread... And my political situation is really bad. I can't get any goverment in power that can do law changes and change Distribution of Power, i have tried 3 times to get state religon removed but the Sunni are at 30 % and the animists are just too weak. I am stuck, stepbro! While playing a european nation it feels like it is harder to not reform everything because the reforming movements are soo strong and scripted, as Sokoto the radical movement has like 0% radicalisation, the nihilists jsut plopped, but it's a bit late.
I would really love to remove State Religion right at the start, but that is super hard because removing slavery means the land owners are super pissed and the land owners losing influence means a government with intelligentsia does not work afterwards. But not removing slavery seems the worse choice. And i seem to only be able to get it reliably when i do it right at the start.
Is there a way to get the AI to force open markets? that would also help, but seems not like they want to do it.
I think if i could get State Religion out early and keep the remaining strategy without pushing hard for quinine, i would be strongest, but i do not see how to get the first part. Any tips?