unusual policy combos

[Thibix Magnus]

there are still a lot of policy combos I haven't tried, I'm curious if some are bound to be always sub-optimal, or if people have found situations where they could work. I'm mostly thinking about hard switches in gameplay, from warlike to peaceful or the opposite.
For example, authority into artistry? Maybe with Rome?
Or a small/tall tradition-artistry into Imperialism and domination victory, e.g. with Japan or Korea?
What are the policy choices that you would consider the most unusual, or are they all been tried and viable?

 

[cerk]

I don't mix and match ancient era policies, but I might take the fealty or artistry opener depending on the civ I'm playing. The proper mixes happen in industrial era policies. Expending a few great writers to grab the openers is worth it imo. Imperialism opener is nice for the 10% upgrade discount, and 2TR from Industry is also very nice. Obviously these strategies work best with the glory of god.

This is a good option if you went wide and 6 artistry:
Rationalism opener -> scientific revolution -> Imperialism opener -> Industry opener -> Division of labour -> Enlightenment -> Free thought | Ideologies -> finish rationalism

Industry opener is just so flexible, but if you are hurting for gold in industrial era for your armies and building maintenance, 60GPT is solid and it goes up to 100GPT by information era. Same with Division of labour. It can do a nice 300GPT right from industrial era. Industry's gold covers trading votes. I spend anywhere between 200-600GPT on buying votes for spheres of influence at this time. Industry's production is a solid option to actually build whatever you research with rationalism and not have 30 different available buildings in each city. Of course if you just need the gold and are warmongering, civilizing mission is a solid option and taking industry's policies might be a bad idea. Its still good for rationalism builds though.

I find the growth bonus for taking the rest of rationalism to be pretty useful even with stuff like civil society or peace, land and bread.

 

[chicorbeef]

Authority-->Artistry can be a thing with Persia. Tradition --> Artistry --> Imperialism could be a thing with Assyria, though I don't think it would be superior to Authority honestly (I've only ever played Assyria as Authority).

Tradition --> Fealty can be fairly decent, and Progress --> Authority can work too.

I tend not to mix individual policies because you miss out on/delay finishers, but I'm sure there are ways to make it work. Fealty's opener looks like it has decent mix potential, though I haven't really tried it.

 

[Stalker0]

As others have mentioned, if your not completing trees its best to get Glory of God, that will reduce some of the pain quite significantly.

In terms of the ancient, I think the only true "viable" path has been the border blob strategy (aka Authority 2 + Tradition 2). You get big yields for border growth + super fast border growth. Best combined with Ankor Wat, god of the expanse, and russia of course has big synergy there. I don't think that path is equal to going straight, but it can be fun and its at least competitive.

Medieval Wise, I think Fealty and Statecraft can fit most strategies. Artistry is the toughest one, as its generally better geared for Tall CV but as others have mentioned certain civs like Persia can make it work in a wider manner.

Industrial Wise, probably my favorite split right now is going Imperalism + Rationalism. The idea is you get the Imperalism policy that gives you science on water tiles. Combine that with Rationalsim's free tech and better Great Scientists. And glory of god to ensure you can still faith buy great scientists. The key to this is....both Imperalism and Rationalism tend to be front loaded, Rationalism especially, its last few policies are....just not very good. Also, science heavy civs can be a bit light on raw warfare abilities, and so this helps top them off and keep them competitive in war. So its the one time I feel like splitting my policies actually nets me a gain over the loss of the finisher (but only with glory of god, giving up faith buy GS is too much).

I haven't tried it much yet, but yes the new Industry Opener is very good, and so maybe taking another dip (if your dipping already) to pick up 2 more TRs could be really good.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

yeah the industry opener is kind of a mandatory detour for an imperialist venice . Besides that, I see that mixing up works well with the third policy block for many people. I should try it more, usually I do some opnener dipping with fealty (when going for another tree with a religious civ) or artistry (when going for another tree but with a GP dependent kit, like ceremonial burial). I think I once took both before staecraft, with Byzantium ... I also had very good results with opening tradition before authority with Rome, to give my capital a head start. But those were on emperor difficulty. I suppose the earlier the mixing, the costlier the delay of a finisher in terms of snowballing, thus why later mixing is more forgiving.

And without mixing trees, but doing unusual combinations of full trees. I wonder what is the most unusual? I haven't tried something like tradition-artistry into imperialism and domination yet. If you have a unique unit in renaissance, it can be good to stay tall and cruise asap towards imperialism. It typicallly works extremely well for me with England, but of course I would pick statecraft... With that sort of artistry-delayed warring, indeed maybe assyria could do the trick, to maximize great works before full scale war? The tricky part is having little use until then of the UA besides oportunistic, isolated conquests. I think the strategy would make sense with France too (first develop to have high base yields to which apply the UA percentage, maybe with a golden age monopoly), but same problem, keeping-up without UA. Maybe the best candidate would be japan, as it doesn't need to conquer, only to grind.

Then there is even further delay: tradition-artistry-rationalism into authority... of course picking an ideology is sometimes purely for diplomatic reasons instead of a well designed synergy. Korea maybe? Patiently waiting for logistics artillery? But with that kit you only need to take out a rival, then you would win before you can achieve domination.