It's a singleplayer game so I couldn't care less if other people use cheats or exploits against their own computers. But one bit of warning: If you do cheat/exploit, It'll be very hard to go back to not cheating and you'll get board with the game much faster. I learned that the hard way with RTW, a fine game that I ruined by spoiling myself with cheats.

I find that the best games are played without cheats, save/loads, and (gasp!) losing a few provinces. Okay, I still use toggle_fow sometimes but only when I'm curious what the Mongols are doing.