What are your favorite Traditions?

[Judeo-communism]

I find my self winning much more often by Kingdom Advantages than by winning the fame vote, so I tend to focus the most on war Traditions, even on Very Hard difficulty. Playing as England, I always go for Archery because Longbowmen are insanely powerful. I field at least 6 at a time. Then I basically go all the Marshal Traditions, excluding Iron Fist, so my army remains capable to handle any enemy (and often multiple enemies) at any time, ensuring I can conquer any province that holds resources I need. Field Tactics helps a lot with putting my Longbowmen on hills for height advantage, and keeping my Feudal Knights in tight formations for flanking enemy archers and surrounding enemy Marshals. I also love Logistics and Strategy Traditions mostly for the movement speed to out maneuver enemy Marshals on the field, but also for all the extra gold I get from trade goods with Logistics and levies for keeping my armies constantly resupplied in Strategy.

The Marshal talents I actually put on my Knights once up I'm fully up and going are Archery, Calvary Tactics, Siegecraft, Logistics and Strategy. The Infantry Tactics and Field Tactics traditions still give me passive bonuses, and I think those are good enough to leave as passives. Most of my damage comes from Longbowmen and Calvary, so I don't find Infantry Tactics to be as useful to take due to my Infantry simply being a frontline wall for my Longbowmen. They don't actually get to attack or do damage that much. Siegecraft is also very busted because Catapults are busted against enemy humans. With Logistics, you can have 1 Supply Wagon and 3 Catapults per Marshal, giving you 6 Catapults in any given battle. Most of the time, these alone will wipe out entire armies well before they even reach Longbowmen range, and if they do reach that range, the 6 Longbowmen covered by a frontline absolutely decimate what's left. If they charge with lots of Calvary, you have your own to flank and surround them for easy wins.

I used to be a huge fan of Navigation Tradition because it can give you so much extra gold (100+ depending on your country), but I find gold is nearly useless late game, just like books, so I avoid Traditions that focus on those. I know people love Writing a lot, and you can swap out Traditions, but I never found a dire need for it because I can work with Archery to win any war even early game.

What are your favorite Traditions and play styles?

[ShadowFox]

I also like going heavy military traditions cause usually my armies are fighting 1v2 but with the right skills and troops they can handle it and then when you have 2 super armies join up to take cities they fall so fast. But I also really like the spy stuff, I'm still discovering new things they can do, it does take quite a long time to get spun up but eventually you can take on someone 10X your strength sometimes without even raising a sword to them :)

[hellfusion]

You know I think I used most of traditions in some situations. That is a sign of a good balance overall, but it can use some tweaking.

My rankings:

Archery. S+ tier. Very strong, almost a must have. Archers are strong by themselves and are needed if you want to capture provinces quickly.

Assassination. B tier. It's useful when you start relying on spies. You don't need to have it slotted all the time, only when you have bribed a prince or a lot of knights so you want to kill the king.

Bargain. C tier. Very niche, only for heavy mercenary play.

Bribery. A tier. Almost a must have for spy play.

Cavalry Tactics. S tier. Cavalry is strong, buff is strong, can stack with archery buff on horse archers.

Charity. ? tier. Never took it, but now I think it might have some temporal use in mid-late game for ending disorder in provinces. When stability is high, provinces seem to return to norm without active actions needed (and wasting money/books/relationship with neighbors).

Concealment. B tier. Effect is small, couple %. You still have somewhat significant chance to be discovered even with this. Can be used as a temporary thing to return your spy to a country where he was discovered.

Conspiracy. C tier. Tried using it, effect seemed small. Problem with sow dissent is that you have a chance to be discovered all the time while doing it.

Courtesy. A tier. Best thing it does is providing your merchants (and maybe spies) access to the skill. Makes making allies very easy.

Field tactics. B tier. OK stuff for going full war. Never actually used it, seems boring.

Infantry tactics. A tier. Infantry is accessible and reliable.

Iron fist. S tier. A must have when you have a lot of vassals, makes you a lot of gold.

Laws. S tier. Good all around tradition. Very good when you either have a lot of vassals or desperately need levies at the start and have a lot of villages.

Leadership. B tier. Not that useful by itself, but it provides access to the skill to cleric-king. That's the only marshal skill a cleric can have, so it can be tricky to pick and it allows to lead armies with your cleric-king.

Learning. S+ tier. Situational, but very strong. Becomes ultra strong when you get lucky with 2-3-4 sons. Allows easy access to other traditions though princes.

Logistics. S+ tier. Must have for lategame warfare. 4 additional troops or 4 catapults very strong.

Medicine. A tier. Actually a war tradition too. Useful for making enough people for additional troops.

Negotiation. C tier. Very niche. Might be temporarily useful for wedding negotiations (sic).

Navigation. C tier. As with most economical traditions, kinda lackluster. You need to actually govern a coastal province to make use of extra gold and it's not that much. Good for starting as a Byzantine or something when they are large at the beginning.

Plotting. A tier. Good stuff for spy work. Interesting that skill itself is not that useful, so I usually get it though my first spy, then fire him and hire another.

Rhetoric. C tier. Overall meh.

Sieging. B tier. For going full war. Catapults are good enough most of the times tho.

Stewardship. C tier. Effect is weak, mostly for fighting inflation late game. And when you might need it you probably will not be able to get it, as skill is weak for late game (OKish for start).

Strategy. S tier. Effects are good, but it's mostly for picking Strategy for all Marshals. It is secondary skill (so hard to pick) and it gives +3 levy per castle.

Trading. C tier. If you're going full merchants.. Still not that strong. Base trade income is lower than you might expect.

Theology. B tier. For going to war with infidels to make it easier to assimilate them.

Writing. S+ tier. Pays for itself in books in a matter of minutes. Provides other useful starting bonuses. Pick as soon as you're able, but stuff like Archery or Learning might come first depending on the situation.

[ShadowFox]

Hellfusion, I like the iron fist ability but have never taken the tradition because of the negative effects. Does it not have as much of an impact as it seems?

[hellfusion]

Originally posted by ShadowFox:

Hellfusion, I like the iron fist ability but have never taken the tradition because of the negative effects. Does it not have as much of an impact as it seems?

It's worth it, negative gets offset with other stuff in the lategame. It's like having some more war weariness is all. And I've had war weariness -60-70 and most of my provinces where OK. Other than some more rebellions happinnes doesn't affect anything.

[ShadowFox]

Originally posted by hellfusion:

Originally posted by ShadowFox:

Hellfusion, I like the iron fist ability but have never taken the tradition because of the negative effects. Does it not have as much of an impact as it seems?

It's worth it, negative gets offset with other stuff in the lategame. It's like having some more war weariness is all. And I've had war weariness -60-70 and most of my provinces where OK. Other than some more rebellions happinnes doesn't affect anything.

Ah okay, thanks for the response! I might try it out on this play through the bonus gold for raids is really helpful early game

[Arkantos]

Logistic
Siegecraft
Infantry
Cavalry
Medicine (for early game)
Courtesy
and others i don't remember is what i use

[Ajukreyzi]

Writing is top for the start because it gives you everything else including other traditions way faster. I always start with small countries 2-3 provinces against AI, with Priest King on very hard difficulty. If you happen to get a province with lots of monasterys or settlements things escalete really quickly, as you can level your court real fast.