your dynasty legacy priorities?

[snuggleform]

What's the order in which you select them?

Generally I go 3 deep in blood (I really want a genius heir, and I inbreed pretty quickly so being resistant to bad genetic traits is a good thing), then I decide if I feel like going for a North Germanic culture for the dlc legacies in which case I love the +10% move speed in Adventure. If I don't go for North Germanic culture, then my preference is Warfare into Glory.

If I'm doing a good guy run then the intrigue line is a bit lackluster, and unless I plan to do some special mass duchy strat then the personal estate line is not for me either.

[dwarfpcfan]

blood first, everything else second.

[CrUsHeR]

Pillage: If you are playing Norse Tribal and don't take this first, (...)

TBH this is so good that it doesn't matter which stats your heir has, because you will win every battle and be swimming in ten thousands of prestige, gold and piety with every ruler.
For feudals it would be worth it just for the gold per battle.



Blood: This is the gold standard.

Having everyone in your dynasty being a Genius makes an incredible difference. Without this legacy you can't even be certain to have any genetic traits at all. So if you don't know anything better for your campaign, always take this.

In turn, if you don't have the third perk then you need to be extremely careful about inbreeding.

As you said there is little reason to take more than 3 points. The 5 years increased lifespan also mean that your cousin-wives are 5 years more fertile (which you probably don't want/need) and your heirs have spent 5 more years twiddling their thumbs at your court. Basically just makes everything older with no real benefit, at least not worth two perks.
Selecting a perk to be more common seems nice, but you would always take Quick and you already have this guaranteed in the form of Intelligent/Genius.



Guile: Pretty much like a failsafe for every realm. In particular if you start with large historical realms like Byzantium where the vassals are overwhelmingly strong. Just have every primary heir educated in Intrigue and hope he invests his perks into Torturer.

The tax contribution from terrified vassals is more than you get from the stewardship legacy tree, and that one only affects powerful vassals.

The real cheat about this is the double acceptance score from intimidated and terrified NPCs, you can do amazing things with it. Like revoking all of the titles in your realm to reform it in de jure borders, from the kingdoms down to the last county if needed. Or just to regain some titles or make room for someone you want to be landed.

The downside is that if you don't have enough people in your prison on succession day, you're having a problem and may have to arrest a lot of criminals for execution. For this reason this works best with a faith where everything is criminal for everyone (e.g. Taoism) and if your heir already has the Torturer perks.



Erudition: This branch isn't particularily useful on its own, but the Learning Lifestyle is extremely powerful. And this branch maximizes its effect.

Works best with hi-tech, lo-CB realms like in India. Basically you invest everything into turbo research and piety, then you simply buy claims for everything you want. This doesn't even have a cooldown and you have infnite piety with 40-50 learning.



Glory: Remind me to take this in my next campaign.

+10 vassal limit, double sway schemes, -20 faction acceptance for vassals, -20% short reign, +1 knight limit, marriage acceptance, and so on. Everything in this branch is effective all the way through.

That is if you already go for a diplomatic dynasty. Starting with diplomacy/August is actually super-strong because you can commission a couple of epics to kickstart your renown and splendor.



Warfare, Law, Kin: I don't see any of this being useful. Not on the level as the others above.

I actually did a muslim playthrough in 1066 Mogadishu today with Warfare. Though after some time i noticed that none of my top commanders nor knights were even of my dynasty. While my 3rd generation heir had zero genetic traits and something like 4-7 in every skill.

Not sure why you would pick Kin; having a better education result is nothing compared to have everyone being Genius through Blood legacies, which already boosts education and lifestyle xp for everything, Even your Genius newborns tend to have better stats than the average random NPC with the best education.
And if your dynasty isn't mentally gifted, or feared, or rich, or diplomatically versed, then it won't help if they have 10% more children where everyone likes each other a little bit better.

Law just looks like rock bottom to me.



Edit: How could i forget - Adventure!

Well this is just garbage compared to Pillage, Blood or Guile. There is very little which looks like a solid long-term investment.

[snuggleform]

+10% movespeed with extra supply duration in Adventure is good enough for me, it removes a lot of tedium in battle.

The downside is that if you don't have enough people in your prison on succession day, you're having a problem and may have to arrest a lot of criminals for execution. For this reason this works best with a faith where everything is criminal for everyone (e.g. Taoism) and if your heir already has the Torturer perks.

There is another way to get a lot of dread on succession day; in the rightmost tree there's a perk that gives you 0.5 dread for every 1 point of tyranny you cause. So you could do something like jack up a lot of contracts until you max out your dread meter. Not beautiful especially if you rely on a realm priest for money, but it's an option.

[CrUsHeR]

Good idea. The foreign/infidel prisoner execution is just the most common and unproblematic solution, since it has no negative effect on opinion within your realm.

I believe they should nerf it so there are diminshing returns on this, example so the 10th executed prisoner only gives 10% dread and the 20th gives nothing.

[snuggleform]

Technically if you're willing to land your heir (dangerous, but you can assess the risk for yourself), and make him a spymaster, you can get something like 55 passive dread (15 from legacy perk, 40 from being spymaster under emperor). Passive dread normally sucks because it takes ages to build up so it's absolutely garbage tier for succession day, but heirs have time and can only build up dread when landed so if you think ahead you can give your heir a lot of dread when she comes crashing in. I wonder if in fact this might help prevent some of those stupid factions from even forming to begin with, because as we all know as soon you die there are factions immediately formed that you otherwise have no way of preemptively breaking.

I used to be a big fan of the double chance to accept from terrified perk thing, but I sort of realized. . . I don't really NEED anyone to accept demands all that often. Remaking de jure to me is being overly perfectionist, and if the vassal is super entrenched then doubling 0% still amounts to 0%. And on top of that even if they did accept you'll be accruing tyranny like no one's business if you revoke all your vassals titles without cause.

I admit warfare is a bit meh'ish, but to me it's a bit less meh'ish than a lot other trees. It adds some punch to your dynasty's independent kingdoms so they can better fend off stuff, more so than I believe the other trees do.

PIllage is kinda interesting and boring at the same time. The extra limit to heavy infantry makes a heavy infantry approach (using sapper perk) competitive with cavalry spam imo. The one that improves capturing dudes after sieges/raids is really strong imo you can instantly end wars sometimes like that, and then the last perk is super boring just a +25% to siege, but on the other hand, siege points are pretty costly to get normally as you have to sacrifice MAA slots for that. A lot of wars get bogged down in the siege process so faster siege is just good despite being boring.

[CrUsHeR]

Yeah the example with revoking everything is extreme and not optimal, because tyranny also affects your courtiers. And i tend to have a lot of "fearless maniac" knights around me.


Where it works wonders is anything in 867, when crown authority level 3/4 may be some 100-150 years away.
You just demand to stop vassal wars and they'll obey. So nobody gets any titles they aren't supposed to have, not unless you are distracted elsewhere. And if in doubt you just revoke their title for minimal tyranny (which they'll also accept).


And it also works for things like marriage arrangements and such. Matrilinear marriage for my daughter with your primary heir, Herr Kaiser? Uuuhm... sure

[snuggleform]

I'm so ignorant when it comes to vassal wars. I just don't watch my own borders enough. You'd think they'd give you notifications if vassals are warring with each other. That's kinda important. I mean it'd be cluttered, but then again the UI is already cluttered telling you about 87 titles you can create, 153 wars you can wage, 75 ransoms and whatever.

Oh also the personal estates line is not that bad; 2 deep in you get faithful magistrates. Normally your vassals are balls when it comes to maintaining control but if your vassals are all dynasty members then +0.2 control a month is great to keep themselves and therefore you afloat with more resources.

[CrUsHeR]

I think CK2 had a list of wars going on inside your realm. This is missing in CK3.

You'll have to keep an eye out for armies moving around when unpausing the game, and see who is going what. Definitely pays off when everything is in de jure structure.

Keep in mind that if e.g. a Duke has a non-de jure Count vassal, he only gets 50% taxes from him, which are YOUR taxes after all. And with any realm below CA lvl 3, your vassals may have dozens of non-dejure vassals each when you just let them be.

[DoomMaster18895]

If Norse the extended range and varangian guard choice is good for sending off those pesky younger children or if you feel daring a really good second child and hope they come back. Either with coin or a greek bride. Or both. THe extra range is great for diplomacy and adventuring and the extra 1000 troops rocks.

Blood up to the point I can solidify Genius in my bloodline those +5 on the board are great. After that I determine by play style.

[brownacs]

Blood>Everything else. Probably kin after that then wherever my fancy takes me.

[snuggleform]

Oh I forgot Kin 1 is particularly good if you turn on bisexual (which still lets you ironman/achievements), it's basically +5 opinion in addition to the fertility. In general beauty matters a lot when most people are bisexual.

[brownacs]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Oh I forgot Kin 1 is particularly good if you turn on bisexual (which still lets you ironman/achievements), it's basically +5 opinion in addition to the fertility. In general beauty matters a lot when most people are bisexual.

I like the bonus to educations too.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by DoomMaster18895:

THe extra range is great for diplomacy and adventuring and the extra 1000 troops rocks.

FYI you can simply conquer some counties, like brittany > spain > italy > then you have the entire mediterranean and middle east in range.

And with somewhat moderate expansion speed, you could have your adventure already done before unlocking the first legacy perk. Not sure what the other 4 perks are for afterwards, they only would make sense if you could have them before adventuring.

Your AI-controlled dynasty members will also never use the adventure CB because the requirements are too specific.

Or just don't do the adventure, because it doesn't do anything you couldn't achieve better with conquest or holy wars. Except becoming feudal. Though becoming feudal early on just means you lose all your income, conquest CB, and the ability to raid.

[CrUsHeR]

and if the vassal is super entrenched then doubling 0% still amounts to 0%.

Oh i just remembered this statement.

So the thing is that only certain acceptances are chance based. For example revoking titles and demanding vassal conversion, or asking to take vows from your heirs.

Other things are binary, either the acceptance score reaches 0+ or not.
For example the marriage proposal acceptance bonus from terrified characters is +150, with the ultimate legacy perk it becomes +300.

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Attributes#Intimidation_and_terror

Also the formulae for the percentages can be heavily manipulated in combination with dread, when a simple gift makes conversion demands go from 0% to 80% although the opinion goes up much less than that. And things like "stop vassal war" seem to be 100% if you have dread and high opinion.

[snuggleform]

Typically it's not that difficult to marry within your realm. If you need to marry someone outside your realm, recall that dread actually falls off with distance and also just affects foreigners less than people within your realm baseline. In other words, it's very difficult to reliably terrify foreigners to the point where marriage proposal chance benefits. Doesn't hurt to try it, of course.