What's your favourite skill tree progression?

[godspeedthunder]

I havnt played the game that much and so usually just stick to the same few things.

What do you guys aim for?

[Bordric]

Stewardship. I like having land.

[NK SemTex]

I usually let the game decide based on the childhood traits: if the childhood trait is, for example curious, where my child will excel in diplomacy or learning I always choose diplomacy unless I try to reform my faith, because it diplomacy education and lifestyle just makes civil war very unlikely because of "befriend" skill, which requires only 1 point. You can just befriend the rebel leader and the faction often collapses without you needing to bribe the faction. Since diplomacy makes it too easy it gets stale pretty fast.

Steward is great if you are trying to consolidate your realm and build your economy, which also makes it the most boring since you just build and let time pass.

Intrigue can be the most fun if you decide to stay as a vassal under a huge empire and play the "game of thrones" by murdering and leverage your opponents, and get the king to lower your taxes. But if you are an independent ruler it can lessen the fun since you are more busy building your realm and assassinating foreign leaders and faction members, meaning more busywork.

Learning with intention of creating new religions is fun, but when you don't do that, you just sit back and max your learning and advance your tech tree, so it gets boring like steward.

Martial, however, is the most fun if you start as a small ruler, where every advantage as a general in critical battles makes thing exciting. Imagine winning 5 000 (your army) vs 7000 troops because you are a great general (standing on a hill helps lol). But the fun lessens when your realm and army gets so huge that you start sending your best generals instead of yourself because you don't want to die without an heir. When you were a small ruler you had to take risks and that makes the game fun and exciting. So yeah I usually end my playthroughs when I form an empire or all my surrounding neighbors are too weak to be a challenge.

[brownacs]

I tend to go for a combination of diplomacy and learning. I'll take a diplomacy education for the (hopefully) +8 stat boost, which'll get me an extra +32 from bribes later, and spend relatively little time in the diplomacy lifestyle itself, just enough to pick up the 4 or 5 really useful skills, and then switch to learning, finishing the whole of body tree, and the central one... I forget its name. The one which gets you +20% of councillor primary skills two before it ends. Or at least that's my meta 'make the game as easy as possible' build. I've been ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around with intrigue quite a bit recently (like NK said, the make the game easy builds can get a bit boring).

[Kvinden]

Generally I use the "Ælle, bælle mig fortælle. Pif, Paf, Puf" method but it depends of the character and of my mood at the moment.
In general I don't spend the points because some perks ruin the game, so it doesn't matter at all.

[Razorblade]

August branch of the Diplomacy tree. The True Ruler perk allows you to bribe pretty much any adjacent duke-tier, same-faith ruler into becoming your vassal.

I once formed a Norse Holy Roman Empire that stretched from England to the border of Greece in a single lifetime, and the only wars I had to conduct were a few to form Norway, and one invasion of East Francia. All of England, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and Croatia accepted diplomatic vassalization due to the True Ruler perk and some bribes (which were very cheap, due to the second Adventuring dynasty legacy perk reducing the cost of gifts). The power of the August tree is obscene.

[Bordric]

Originally posted by Kvinden:

Generally I use the "Ælle, bælle mig fortælle. Pif, Paf, Puf" method but it depends of the character and of my mood at the moment.
In general I don't spend the points because some perks ruin the game, so it doesn't matter at all.

Is that witchery!!?

[godspeedthunder]

That's really interesting thanks guys. I've never done diplomacy or stewardship.

I always go for martial+intrigue at the start of the game and then full learning once I form an empire.

I had no idea you could bribe people to vassalise them!

I've been buying duchy claims with the learning middle tree skill and churning my way through Europe whilst doing Holy wars in Spain and North Africa.

Although it does start to get boring after a while.

I've purposely been p1ssing off my vassals so I can fight civil wars to make it more fun!

[Merkatz]

I do like to go down the faith and scholarship trees in learning. Early on you can abuse the piety gains for Holy War, and your new lands will hate you less since scholarship gives you 'cultural/faith acceptance' bonuses.

[VoiD]

I often just take what my current character has a bonus for.

But the one thing I often make exceptions for is the half CB cost in martial, and extra knight power early game, before I have an actual army.

After that they are all usable, and they can all get OP

[Kvinden]

Originally posted by Bordric:

Originally posted by Kvinden:

Generally I use the "Ælle, bælle mig fortælle. Pif, Paf, Puf" method but it depends of the character and of my mood at the moment.
In general I don't spend the points because some perks ruin the game, so it doesn't matter at all.

Is that witchery!!?

I think "Ælle, bælle mig fortælle. Pif, Paf puf", roughly means "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe"
except it is said in a better, more polished and civilized language.
The skill tree has no importance, it's only purpose is to unbalance the game so I don't spend the points.
Many players complain the game is too easy but they never hesitate to use all the perks they can to make it easier. The world is full of wonders and contradictions

[sfbistimg]

what ever the middle tree in Learning is called. Strategist in Martial and the Tree on right side in Diplomacy