If you want early game to go easier, restart until Songhai hasn’t rivaled you, so you can ally them. You are going to beeline to Admin tech 5. ‘MAL DE MER’ MALI (Colonization strategy)
![eu4 cultures by development eu4 cultures by development](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TZE0B-nSp6s/maxresdefault.jpg)
So keep a close eye on both those modifiers and don’t let them get too high.
![eu4 cultures by development eu4 cultures by development](https://i.redd.it/o94q46psodc51.png)
And to buy down your inflation you need to spend admin points and high corruption increases all power costs. Because to buy down corruption you need money and high inflation makes everything more expensive. To summarize, along with the tech disadvantage, you have to deal with the potential for high corruption and high inflation, a very bad cocktail. Then you will get a third gold mine from Kong, which means even more inflation. Most of your income comes from the 2 gold mines, means lot of inflation.It gives you lot of bonuses if you have strong vassals which synergizes well with first Malian national idea. Spare 100 admin points to convert your government to Iqta.It costs 10% of your gross monthly income, but it’s well worth it. They might offer you knowledge sharing if you get lucky. Improve relations with the earliest colonizers.Build some trade depots, stock exchanges, manufactories and universities when time arrives, for institution spread.Focusing on just 1 tech can cause unbalanced research leading to high corruption.Depending on your future rulers, you might have to focus hard on mil tech.All nations in Western Africa start in the same tech group.Starting ruler 1 0 0 and with a 1 1 1 heir.Will have to develop basically all institutions, unless you get lucky.Starts with 50% tech penalty for not embracing Feudalism at the start.Early game is relatively easy as no one in Western Africa is stronger than Mali but it gets challenging mid game once you make contact with the colonizers.