Still not quite fleshed out. This is like my 5th or 6th attempt at this, but this is the furthest I've made it before realizing demise. Spain and/or Great Britain are colonizing almost everything to my west. Spiked my literacy early by kinda b-lining towards Biologism for the Social Darwinism invention. Any other techs were almost all Culture tier for the prestige and plurality.
Fought a very difficult war vs Sokoto, they are actually kinda tough for a uncivilized african minor. I raced in like Galahad with 4 brigades of regular troops and superior technology and got crushed. Then had to play cat and mouse with my fastest general to get them to chase with their doom stack while I sieged other provinces and eventually they wore out and gave me what I wanted, and almost perfectly timed, about 2 months before I finished machine guns after saving up 10 months worth of research in 1869.
Not sure what to do now other than keep colonizing my measly 1 region at a time. Any advice about getting some liberals to overthrow my presidential dictatorship would be nice. I have some anarcho liberal rebels brewing, not sure exactly what type of government they would impose on me though. About to turn GP also