What education do you usually go for?

[HelloGoodSir]

I go for Midas Touched (stewardship) for the big demesne. My last king had a demesne size of 15 and his daughter is at 13. I always get 12+ which means basically three big duchies. My old capital duchy, my new capital duchy, and a few more. I am starting to wonder if maybe I should be going for diplomacy instead.
Now that my land is almost as strong as one of the two empires my personal levies don't do much, and most of my wars are against vassals. Right now I prioritize diplomacy second, perhaps I should put it first? I can't see the point of a military education, and I am not sure what learning does. Intrigue seems unimportant since every plot against me has been caught in time for me to stop it.

Also where can I see my ruler's fertility?

[ajm317]

I go for Midas Touched (stewardship) for the big demesne. My last king had a demesne size of 15 and his daughter is at 13. I always get 12+ which means basically three big duchies. My old capital duchy, my new capital duchy, and a few more. I am starting to wonder if maybe I should be going for diplomacy instead.
Now that my land is almost as strong as one of the two empires my personal levies don't do much, and most of my wars are against vassals. Right now I prioritize diplomacy second, perhaps I should put it first? I can't see the point of a military education, and I am not sure what learning does. Intrigue seems unimportant since every plot against me has been caught in time for me to stop it.

Also where can I see my ruler's fertility?

I usually go for diplomacy, unless my realm is really small.

Learning increases tech speeds. The only way you can see your characters fertility is to go into the console and type "charinfo" (in other words cheat).

[masteriw]

Three duchies will give you a negative opinion modifier with all your vassals.

[Fawr]

I'm told that fertility is just a function of age and traits, but I can't remember the thread.

I've also been going for stewardship education, but diplomacy is really good for holding large countries together. Stewardship's extra provinces seems to give a significant tech advantage, and the extra money is really useful while you are building up your holding's buildings. However at some stage you start to run out of buildings to build, and then I think stewardship has reached its limit.

I'm told that intrigue can be good if you want to take over a large country from within, as once your liege appoints you as his spymaster you can plot against him really easily. However that tends to be the worst stat for my rulers, so I can't speak from experience.

Martial gives your troops a small morale bonus, and you can lead armies, but that risks ending badly.

I've been wondering if I've been undervaluing learning. Learning tells you how much monthly piety you get, and influences all research. I'm going to have another look at prioritising learning once SoI comes out.

[Pellucid]

I usually play border states or plan on being extremely aggressive, so a martial education is usually indispensable. When your Martial ability is roughly double that of your opponent you can afford to field slightly smaller armies.

[Jia Xu]

I go for stewardship because having a bigger demesne means you can squeeze in an extra city or two and that pays off immediately. Although martial is awfully tempting now with that new commander trait system.

[ashalpha]

When small I go for stewardship for the extra demesne/money and martial to lead armies since most of the time you will not have a good general (usually a brilliant commander with high stewardship for the roleplay ). Once I become big I go for diplomacy for the opinion modifier with vassals and stewardship for a larger demesne (grey eminence with high stewardship). I try to get at least a decent score in learning and intrigue in either case for protection and the technology bonus. I think I read learning also affects your tutorship of your heir if you personally tutor them so you need a least a decent score for that.

[Emre Yigit]

Three stages:

Initially (as with most people here, I guess) I go for the stewardship traits. This lasts for a long while.

As the realm expands over time, tech increases allow you to keep a larger demesne without penalties. Also the size of your demesne relative to the realm diminishes. At this point, I go for the diplomacy traits. As ashalpha said, it does help a bit with vassals.

In the late game, if the realm has become bloatedly huge, I have to go for the intrigue skill, so that I can imprison/assassinate everyone who is plotting against me - and there are tons.

With proper education, no later than 1100, or maybe 1125, my older children are 10-10-10-10-10 base stats. This is probably the most important thing to focus on, because all your leading vassals are bumping up their stats too.

[grumphie]

initially, go for midas touvhed. the additional money and demense is needed in the initial stage.

once i start to run out of things to build and my dmemsne income is less then a quarter of my total income, i switch to diplo for the sole reason f holding the realm better toghether.

the asdvantages of martial, intrigue and learning simply fade by the stewardship and diplo advantages. so i go with midas touched for the first 5 generations or so and then switch to grey eminence. more important than education thoguh is probaly gettign your children high base stats and some green traits like genius or quick. genius+9-12 base stats+good traits as ambitious and diligent=a great score in EVERYTHING.

[Subcomandante]

With many vassals, diplomacy becomes very important, so I normally choose the Grey Eminence as a king or emperor.

Intrigue is important on your way to power, once you have achieved it, diplomacy to hold on to it.

[HelloGoodSir]

Ok thanks for the advice everyone. I'm in the 1300's and I have seven kingdoms to hold together. I had to give Jerusalem away to a relative because it was too hard to deal with the distance penalty. So I am going to start the era of grey eminences.

[disgradius]

I usually stay as a duke and have never really had much trouble keeping my 2-300 ish vassals in line even late game. Getting the proper virtues is pretty important imo, they can give something like + 10 opinion each. Also, don't underestimate stewardship. Having a larger demesne can give you a whole lot more income = more mercenaries and assassinations. Keep in mind that you can hold more city and bishop vassals too, it's not just the primary holding that's giving you cash. Really though, it's not super hard to keep vassals in line. Iirc same religion + culture gives -25% revolt risk altogether so your vassals would have to be -50 opinion or more to start considering revolt. Even a few positive traits will raise opinion of your ambitious vassals sufficiently to keep your realm stable. Send gifts when needed if you die and your heir is facing short reign penalties etc.

[kingsword]

Stewardship. Land and money is the real power in this game.

[jtlightner]

I normally try and go Martial with Stewardship following it. CK2+ mod which I normally play puts a focus on martial ability where vanilla doesn't as much. Now with the 1.06 patch they are adding in Commander Traits dependent on the martial skill which will make Martial way more valuable.

If you play Vanilla = Stewardship followed by Diplomacy
If you play CK2+ = Martial followed by Stewardship

[Silver Viper]

I usually play border states or plan on being extremely aggressive, so a martial education is usually indispensable. When your Martial ability is roughly double that of your opponent you can afford to field slightly smaller armies.

i think i like this idea mate, becoming great army leader means all will tremble at ur might but once u r big enough its diplo for sure i guess!

[Calbrenar]

Anything other then Diplomacy is a giant mistake unless you're tiny and planning on staying that way.

The military benefit you get from having a higher score is nothing compared to not having to fight 500 battles to begin with.

The gold income from a larger demesne is negligible compared to the higher taxes and troops you get form better relations not to mention not having to fight giant independence wars every time a ruler dies.

Diplomacy by far trumps everything in this game and combining it with making all coastal counties Lord Mayors will obviate any monetary problems you will ever have.

[PDR1987]

Three duchies will give you a negative opinion modifier with all your vassals.

This is why I won't go for Stewardship. Sometimes, the penalty for having three duchies can be negligible, other times, it will cause revolts every five years. Specially in large, multicultural kingdoms. I find that the most useful thing is diplomacy; learning boosts tech, but nothing so impressive - and that a part of the game that is not that important anyway - but with a high diplomacy ruler, you'll have an easier time doing anything.

[Zireael]

I play CK2+ and I focus on Stewardship. But it seems I'll switch to Martial...

Can't wait for 1.06 to come out and introduce some changes...

[wdremington]

This is why I won't go for Stewardship. Sometimes, the penalty for having three duchies can be negligible, other times, it will cause revolts every five years. Specially in large, multicultural kingdoms. I find that the most useful thing is diplomacy; learning boosts tech, but nothing so impressive - and that a part of the game that is not that important anyway - but with a high diplomacy ruler, you'll have an easier time doing anything.

If you are a King+ and have a demense county within a de jure duchy and give that duchy title out to a vassal they do NOT get your county as you hold it directly. Indeed rather than collecting a whole duchy as demense I will pick the best county (6 holding, coastal, etc) to keep as demense and give the rest to a vassal to manage. Yes it does mean that the Duke will have that "desires county" modifier, but if he only has two 4-holding counties I don't really care if he gets out of hand because I will easily crush him.

I ran the same game through once with Master Theologian, Midas Touched and Grey Emminence.

Master Theo: I have no clear evidence that it matter as I don't know how the mechanics of tutoring work, but I sure seemed to get heirs will really good statlines. Also with such a high learning I would often educate my major vassals' heirs, avoiding intrigue vices and trying to get as many of them with +mentor, culture flip and content. I don't care if my vassals have good stats. I care if they have attributes that are not compatible with mine or likely to make them troublemakers. Note that most of my Master Theologians tended to have decent stewardship and 10+ demense size because most of the virtues lend to good stewardship as well. I could not tell much one way or the other whether Tech was better. Frankly it seems like the ahead penalty keeps everyone from gaining too fast no matter how much you focus on it. (Not like EU3 where you can rapidly get ahead or fall hopelessly behind tech-wise.)

Midas Touched: Most subtle of the three in the sense that you have to start really grabbing max demense right away for it to matter as much. In my opinion only, Stewardship is a very bad thing to have very low, but having it very high did not seem to make a huge difference in monthly income and therefore was only useful if I kept demense maxed out--which caused succession issues. Also if you start out Gavelkind without Free Investiture you are going to have to assassinate your extra sons for this to be helpful. And, well, that's just a bit beyond the pale

Grey Emminence: The only problem with this trait is that once short reign has worn off I don't have any interesting rebellions and as long as I hire a good spymaster and keep him happy I can squelch plots fairly well. Um. That's awesome. Perhaps not relevant if you are small, but if you are mid-sized or larger it is a huge difference and the improved relations with the church and vassals in general helps with income as well.

Note that I try to marry spouses with stats that help mask my weaknesses. The only exception is Intrigue. Sorry, I don't want a wife with a 20+ in knife skills.

[PDR1987]

Note that I try to marry spouses with stats that help mask my weaknesses. The only exception is Intrigue. Sorry, I don't want a wife with a 20+ in knife skills.

Who would, really?