• For Capitalists - Free Trade -> Protectionism (because it hires Capitalists 50 Capitalists : 200 Clerks [PB]) -> Mercantilism (250 Clerks [PB]) -> Isolationism (just sucks) (OWNERSHIP CAN ALSO CHANGE DEPENDING ON YOUR ECONOMIC SYSTEM)

• For Intelligentsia - Build Universities and generally jobs that Intelligentsia supporters will work (DO FOR CAPITALISTS TOO) in the capital because people living in the capital state gain 25% more voting/political strength!

• Educate your population start off with Religious Schools (better than nothing) and then aim to try and go for Public Schools (lets your average Joe become someone who can work good jobs and gain more voting/political strength along with getting them to vote and go to more Liberal-esq parties

(VICTORIA 3 PARADOX WIKI)

• Increasing Standard of Living determines a pop's needs and base political strength so aim to make your population richer because the richer they are the more popular their IG becomes (LINKS BACK TO WEALTH BEING IMPORTANT FOR POLITICAL STRENGTH [ALONGSIDE EDUCATION])

• Bolstering and Suppressing is not super worth it long term because its usefulness depends on your free speech law, and your gonna be aiming for it to be higher later into the game (GENERALLY) but one useful trick would be bolstering the Armed Forces and Church, why? because the same pops that support landowners will also generally support those 2 and would be willing to change over to those 2 IGs pretty easily, Armed Forces frequently gets a Republican in my case you can also try and get a Republican or Democrat for Armed Forces by hiring one in your Army and it increases the chance of them being the IG Leader, you will also find that the Church and Intelligentsia don't always clash and can get along sometimes, this is especially amazing if you get lucky and get an abolitionist or reformer, you wont have much issues having Intelligentsia in government with them.

• Lastly, Picking an agitator make sure you pick one that is popular as it brings more attraction that agitator's IG, but another important part would be super helpful and I recommend to look out for is the character traits, for I had an agitator who got my Intelligentsia from about 5.9% to 20%+ Clout which was helpful for my Canada run and allowed me to get Census Suffrage then Universal Suffrage to then Cultural Exclusion before he was exiled.

so please go into the comments and ask any questions and add any of your own tips, all I wanted to do was just copy down some of my notes I wrote down and share them with you guys, and I want you to do the same here!

Why didn't I post it in discussions?
sometimes discussions get closed and outdated, I'm sure eventually this will get outdated but I also want this to be a space of discussion for the part of the game that feels like it has a stupid amount of RNG at times.

Thank You!
(CORRECT ME IF I GOT ANYTHING WRONG)

Foreign Investment is a new feature added with in the spheres of influence DLC, so is it worth it to let another nation build in your country?
Well, yes and no, the reason why is because when another nation builds in your country it allows for your people to be de-peasanted, meaning these people will earn better wages than if they were peasants raising their SoL and their voting power, the issue comes that it depends on your distribution of power laws, because when a nation builds in your country it means the main people it will hire will be mainly people who will vote for trade unions which is amazing the issue comes that they wont hire capitalists because Financial Districts are the buildings that hire capitalists which are generally wealthy and powerful and help you liberalise.

So when do I allow a nation build in my country?
When your distribution of power is ideally Census of Suffrage or Universal Suffrage, but if you only care about making money and getting people jobs, I'd say just don't worry about it too much.

I spent a lot of my time challenging myself by playing nations I know are hard and generally are unfun, like Ethiopia, Arabian countries, Indochina, Merina Kingdom (true pain 8% literacy and landowners are more powerful than any other nation in my opinion).
If you actually wanna learn in a good way, I'd first advise watching some videos in the background especially Turkusaur and Generalist Gaming they are both really smart and have some good advice, Turkusaur is more about gameplay and speaking over his video and explaining why he does what he does and Generalist Gaming does the most in-depth videos with spreadsheets and all, boring but it will really teach you all you need to know.

So who should you play?
The most fun and easiest in my own opinion is Belgium, you have two states, you can form the Benelux and you have literally almost every resource you could ask for, and they start off with good laws but can be improved, good literacy, and most nations have good relations with you, although France grabs a claim on your land they usually don't do anything about it even if they do Britain will be your best ally!
Japan has similar reasons but their laws are terrible but the easiest way to fix that and the landowners being powerful is literally just doing a cheesy civil war where you delete all the armies besides the one in your capital state!
USA starts out incredibly weak but has amazing potential to become incredibly strong and no other powers to really compete with you within the region.