Was having a chat with @Hinin about some of the most exploitable mechanics in the game so I thought I'd give my list of things which I seem to always end up doing (or trying to) when playing hard games. I'll try and do them in order they appear in the game. Can be taken as advice or to start a discussion on whether things need to be nerfed or not.
1. Pantheons: Open Sky, God of Stars and Sky
Obviously these do depend on the land but they are the best scaling pantheons in the game, whilst also being good enough to get a religion often. They aren't crazy OP but every other pantheon is either weaker or more situational then them.
2. Tribute (Authority Policy).
Pretty powerful policy which comes early and combined with Imperium can often allow Authority starts to keep up in development with Progress whilst also having the obvious military benefits. The really OP bit is the fact that this gives you a bonus in your capital for each tile you steal with a GG. Basically gives you more production then a great engineer, when you use a citadel, which already feel pretty strong as stealing tiles can be a huge benefit in wars.
3. Pagodas + Orders
Orders seem to give a bit too much, they give experience, loads of faith lategame, the morale promotion, and bonus defense and hitpoints to help you survive early. I'm not sure if Pagodas are bugged or not but they seem to always give like +4 or more to each yield when they should be giving 2 or 3. Even at 2 they are arguably better than the other faith buildings but at +4 it's just no contest. I pick both of these very often.
3. Melee boats (Corvette onwards).
Very high base combat strength and some amazing promotions. Either Vanguard or blitz are both really strong options at level 5. Completely outclass Ranged boats imo and can destroy cities in a few hits, especially since ironclads get a bonus to attacking cities as standard.
4. EDIT - Symbolism.
Not always the best enhancer but always at least top 2 or 3. GPP are useful in every game and the missionaries reduce pressure actually allows you to convert cities which are already converted which is impossible without prophets usually. Also never gets picked by AIs it seems so never any need to rush to enhance religion.
5. To the Glory of God.
Best Reformation belief in almost every game. Great Writers and Great Scientist are the best GPs but I think Rationalism and Progress are the worst policy trees of their era. Also you can buy Scientists earlier than from Rationalism which can be very useful for the late Industrial/early Modern Era where there are a lot of key wonders. Also GM,GA for theming bonuses and Golden Ages, GD for extra votes and GG for stealing land are all useful in like every game and it's very cheap to buy one of each.
6. Twokay Food Corporation.
Absolutely crazy good. Build an office in every city and you will have 0 Unhappiness, no matter how big your empire is. Then your cities can all grow to a big size. This is actually very useful lategame as there are museums, broadcast towers and Public Schools which all scale with population. And obviously you can build more stuff and work more specialists, and you get decent instant yields from citizens being born. Works amazingly with Nationalization (Order tenet) and also gives you a big boost to tourism thanks to Broadcast and museums. I think this is the best Corporation whenever you have more than like 4 cities.
7. Lebensraum (Autocracy Policy).
2 tile Great Generals tile steal is just ridiculous, and it allows you to chain GGs together and just eat your way into someone's city. Here is a picture of me playing Zulus with all of my troops in my land before I attack Russia.
Not only this but it has insane synergy with the Tribute policy when you use GGs that I mentioned earlier. Way more production than you will ever get from a GE lategame and can be put into Projects (World's Fair, Citizen Earth Protocol etc) as well as Wonders.
8. World's Fair + Great Writers.
I guess this is partially why Glory of God is so good but buying great writers during the world's fair bonus culture, especially if you have golden age and culture processes running can give you a huge amount of culture and allow you to catch up/pull ahead lategame (I don't think AIs are good at doing this themselves). You only need the silver reward to get the culture bonus and people generally won't nay it since it benefits everyone so I use this every single game at some point, provided I can buy Great Writers, and I start organising my natural Great Writer timings to hit during the Worlds Fair as well.
9. Tanks.
Just Outclass every other unit lategame, higher combat strength, more movespeed, take less damage and do loads of damage to cities. I don't think there are any counters to them and they make infantry feel like they are just in the way. They do need oil but that's quite easy to have since you don't need it for anything economic and they are usually better than planes. Modern armor and GDRs are similarly good.
Other than that I'd say Stonehenge might be a little too good given how early it is and University of Sankore is super game changing for tradition games. Mausoleum Founder + Tradition gives insane faith as it seems to scale with era and the Way of Noble Truths Founder also felt quite ridiculous as I was able to get every city state ally before industrial (this was without even Borobudur). Also God of all creation pantheon is basically a no brainer every time you can't/don't wat to go for a religion, the bonus science early is so useful. These aren't things that I necessarily go for every game though.
1. Pantheons: Open Sky, God of Stars and Sky
Obviously these do depend on the land but they are the best scaling pantheons in the game, whilst also being good enough to get a religion often. They aren't crazy OP but every other pantheon is either weaker or more situational then them.
2. Tribute (Authority Policy).
Pretty powerful policy which comes early and combined with Imperium can often allow Authority starts to keep up in development with Progress whilst also having the obvious military benefits. The really OP bit is the fact that this gives you a bonus in your capital for each tile you steal with a GG. Basically gives you more production then a great engineer, when you use a citadel, which already feel pretty strong as stealing tiles can be a huge benefit in wars.
3. Pagodas + Orders
Orders seem to give a bit too much, they give experience, loads of faith lategame, the morale promotion, and bonus defense and hitpoints to help you survive early. I'm not sure if Pagodas are bugged or not but they seem to always give like +4 or more to each yield when they should be giving 2 or 3. Even at 2 they are arguably better than the other faith buildings but at +4 it's just no contest. I pick both of these very often.
3. Melee boats (Corvette onwards).
Very high base combat strength and some amazing promotions. Either Vanguard or blitz are both really strong options at level 5. Completely outclass Ranged boats imo and can destroy cities in a few hits, especially since ironclads get a bonus to attacking cities as standard.
4. EDIT - Symbolism.
Not always the best enhancer but always at least top 2 or 3. GPP are useful in every game and the missionaries reduce pressure actually allows you to convert cities which are already converted which is impossible without prophets usually. Also never gets picked by AIs it seems so never any need to rush to enhance religion.
5. To the Glory of God.
Best Reformation belief in almost every game. Great Writers and Great Scientist are the best GPs but I think Rationalism and Progress are the worst policy trees of their era. Also you can buy Scientists earlier than from Rationalism which can be very useful for the late Industrial/early Modern Era where there are a lot of key wonders. Also GM,GA for theming bonuses and Golden Ages, GD for extra votes and GG for stealing land are all useful in like every game and it's very cheap to buy one of each.
6. Twokay Food Corporation.
Absolutely crazy good. Build an office in every city and you will have 0 Unhappiness, no matter how big your empire is. Then your cities can all grow to a big size. This is actually very useful lategame as there are museums, broadcast towers and Public Schools which all scale with population. And obviously you can build more stuff and work more specialists, and you get decent instant yields from citizens being born. Works amazingly with Nationalization (Order tenet) and also gives you a big boost to tourism thanks to Broadcast and museums. I think this is the best Corporation whenever you have more than like 4 cities.
7. Lebensraum (Autocracy Policy).
2 tile Great Generals tile steal is just ridiculous, and it allows you to chain GGs together and just eat your way into someone's city. Here is a picture of me playing Zulus with all of my troops in my land before I attack Russia.
Spoiler Pic :
Not only this but it has insane synergy with the Tribute policy when you use GGs that I mentioned earlier. Way more production than you will ever get from a GE lategame and can be put into Projects (World's Fair, Citizen Earth Protocol etc) as well as Wonders.
8. World's Fair + Great Writers.
I guess this is partially why Glory of God is so good but buying great writers during the world's fair bonus culture, especially if you have golden age and culture processes running can give you a huge amount of culture and allow you to catch up/pull ahead lategame (I don't think AIs are good at doing this themselves). You only need the silver reward to get the culture bonus and people generally won't nay it since it benefits everyone so I use this every single game at some point, provided I can buy Great Writers, and I start organising my natural Great Writer timings to hit during the Worlds Fair as well.
9. Tanks.
Just Outclass every other unit lategame, higher combat strength, more movespeed, take less damage and do loads of damage to cities. I don't think there are any counters to them and they make infantry feel like they are just in the way. They do need oil but that's quite easy to have since you don't need it for anything economic and they are usually better than planes. Modern armor and GDRs are similarly good.
Other than that I'd say Stonehenge might be a little too good given how early it is and University of Sankore is super game changing for tradition games. Mausoleum Founder + Tradition gives insane faith as it seems to scale with era and the Way of Noble Truths Founder also felt quite ridiculous as I was able to get every city state ally before industrial (this was without even Borobudur). Also God of all creation pantheon is basically a no brainer every time you can't/don't wat to go for a religion, the bonus science early is so useful. These aren't things that I necessarily go for every game though.
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but it costs 
. Unlocking tercio and muskets 10 turns earlier will do so much for you.
of a GE it also gives you the 
of a GM! I agree the interaction should go.
