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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Sacred Lies yet. +50 Piety for every completed scheme and +20 agent acceptance seem pretty strong to me. Combine with Human Sacrifice for even more piety.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Sacred Lies yet. +50 Piety for every completed scheme and +20 agent acceptance seem pretty strong to me. Combine with Human Sacrifice for even more piety.
Probably because you do most of your scheming while you are still a lowly vassal, and you reform your religion when you're a powerful king/emperor due to how long it takes to acquire piety.
 
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Sacred Lies yet. +50 Piety for every completed scheme and +20 agent acceptance seem pretty strong to me. Combine with Human Sacrifice for even more piety.
Because it made everyone following that faith more willing to be an agent in a scheme which could be disastrous because usually your court will fill with character that follow the same faith as you so...
 
Primitivist + i think, Hedonism gives something like -40% stress, and you'll rarely suffer a mental break

I quite like the ascetism for tribal since it allows you to get wise man if you do a couple pilgrimages.

Sacred Lies + Pacifism + Communal might be a decent combo for high intrigue dynasties and tall empires, although communal's -50% conversion is a serious debuff

Since everything stacks, you want to pick stuff (including dynasty perks) in a theme.
 
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Primitivist + i think, Hedonism gives something like -40% stress, and you'll rarely suffer a mental break

I quite like the ascetism for tribal since it allows you to get wise man if you do a couple pilgrimages.

Sacred Lies + Pacifism + Communal might be a decent combo for high intrigue dynasties and tall empires, although communal's -50% conversion is a serious debuff

Since everything stacks, you want to pick stuff (including dynasty perks) in a theme.
Stress is not really an issue, just execute your rivals.

Esotericism can also give you Wise Man etc.. and it also makes it a virtue, so it's better
 
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Stress is not really an issue, just execute your rivals.

Esotericism can also give you Wise Man etc.. and it also makes it a virtue, so it's better

Yes, I meant esotericism! A handy one.

Funnily enough I find Human Sacrifices less useful, maybe if piety becomes more important in future add-ons it will be useful, because I dont find getting piety a problem. I find stress management difficult without something like primitivism (the tyranny penalty is not hugely problematic since fabricating titles is easy enough) or hedonism, since the reductions are massive.

I still think you are looking for combos rather than one specific tenet. So, some stats are less important (e.g., county conversion resistence) unless you think lots of other leaders will follow your religions in different kingdoms. Consolamentum is okay if it is matched with Ancestor Worship. Astrology is okay if you want to max out your leaders bonuses.

Human Sacrifice is good if it is matched with other more warlike tenets, otherwise it is a not as useful. Particularly important is the Just trait being a virtue in nearly all faiths except Norse. A lot of virtues give a stress penalty from killing prisoners, so unless you counteract potential stress penalties learned leaders, diplomatic ones, and many stewardship leaders may start taking big stress penalties.
 
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Yes, I meant esotericism! A handy one. Interesting strat re: stress, I find stress a problem for some characters.

Funnily enough I find Human Sacrifices less useful, maybe if piety becomes more important in future add-ons it will be useful, because I dont find getting piety a problem. I find stress management difficult without something like primitivism (the tyranny penalty is not hugely problematic since fabricating titles is easy enough) or hedonism, since the reductions are massive.
You don't need human sacrifice to execute people, just execute your rivals, you will have plenty of them.
 
I didn't mean that, I just find finding reasons to execute rivals difficult, or difficult to murder unless I have intrigue focus.
Many of them will be of different religion, you can execute them freely if their faith is evil or hostile (at least when your faith is fundamentalist, but I guess not only). Taking tyranny hit from time to time is also ok, especially if you have tyranny reductions from Pursuit of Power etc...
 
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Legalism - Once you go Feudal you can use the Elective succession for your empire/kingdom titles, and easily get electors to vote for you if you have Just Trait. Although i found that i don't need it, once i get that powerful i can just use hooks on every elector and just rig the election to my liking in a few years. Factions are no big deal with your elite Men At arms troops and Knights. But it does make the game a bit more easier. If you want to minimize factions its must have with successors rocking all the virtues you will never get revolts. The +10 opinion to Just is icing on the cake.

The law reduction costs don't matter. Once i have reformed from Tribal i don't need prestige for my troop upkeep and my vassal contributions are no longer tied to prestige.

Pursuit of Power - Really good. Only bad is the -10 Opinion. (Although if you get ambitious trait it will offset it, since it becomes a virtue giving +10). You don't need to constantly to go at war and title cost creation and tyranny reduction is good (This stacks with other Tyranny reduction modifiers). Meaning a few revokcations and executions are fine.

Warmonger is also good to pick. Only downside is Great Holy war uses 20 fervor and every 1 year or so you need to go on wars otherwise the opinion of vassals tanks. (You can expliot this by getting 50% war score and just sitting doing nothing, or just declare single county wars, and drag out the war by looting and pillaging non target provinces.

Communion - Got lots of piety. No problem excommunicate a problematic vassal and imprison him if he/she revolts you have an additional crime to hold them against, and keep them in Dungeon with such bad malus they will have very bad diplomacy and health and you can revoke a single county and give it to your son or happy strong vassal son.

Pacisfim - This is actually good in which the AI of your religon can no longer spam holy wars to tank your fervor (You still have the annoying sinful bishop events). You can still use conquest CB from purist of power. You lose the Raid ability though. (But you lose the ability to raid anyway once you go Feudal/Clan.

Monasticism - You can imprison your sons and then ask them to take vows. Although if your sadist you can just kill them or just use renown to disinherit them. So i would not pick this.

Esotericism - You get a good trait on pilgrimage that gives +10 opinion (Wise Man) and can be upgraded, and 1+ piety your heirs can get it via the Learning Education (Its pretty easy to get once you get the +4 Mastermind Philosopher)

Literalism - Makes Education really strong. Astute Intellectual and Mastermind Philosopher now give +10 and +1 piety, if you also get Scholar (Which is already good tree) you get another +10 opinion and +1 piety. With wise-man you get another +10 and +1 piety. Thats 3 piety and 30 opinion for everyone in your religon. Stack it with Legalism and you will get very happy vassals.

You can also hold debates to get piety.

Note: you can skip Pursuit of power or Warmonger if you only care about conquest CB's since you can switch to Muslim as Tribal prior to reforming and it will let you choose Clan ways which is superior to Feudal (Not sure if you lose Elective succession choice as Clan.). Its easy to get alliances with Same dynasty kings/Dukes as dynasty head. Then you can switch back to your original religion and reform it. The nice thing about conquest CB's is they use prestige and they don't tank fervor.
 
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The most powerful tenet IMO is ritual celebration. In addition to the passive +5 vassal opinion and getting a piety bonus from hosting feasts, it also makes AI vassals more likely to host feasts. So you basically end up with a situation where almost all your most powerful vassals have famous reveler and get +30 opinion with each other and you (which is insane, +35 in total with the passive), and because of the stress reductions you can basically ignore stress cause you lose it so often from parties.
 
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The most powerful tenet IMO is ritual celebration. In addition to the passive +5 vassal opinion and getting a piety bonus from hosting feasts, it also makes AI vassals more likely to host feasts. So you basically end up with a situation where almost all your most powerful vassals have famous reveler and get +30 opinion with each other and you (which is insane, +35 in total with the passive), and because of the stress reductions you can basically ignore stress cause you lose it so often from parties.
They come with risk of getting obese but I still agree that it's powerful even taking said risk in consideration.
 
The most powerful tenet IMO is ritual celebration. In addition to the passive +5 vassal opinion and getting a piety bonus from hosting feasts, it also makes AI vassals more likely to host feasts. So you basically end up with a situation where almost all your most powerful vassals have famous reveler and get +30 opinion with each other and you (which is insane, +35 in total with the passive), and because of the stress reductions you can basically ignore stress cause you lose it so often from parties.
Wait until you reach end game and have feast invitation every few months...
 
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Yes, I meant esotericism! A handy one.

Funnily enough I find Human Sacrifices less useful, maybe if piety becomes more important in future add-ons it will be useful, because I dont find getting piety a problem. I find stress management difficult without something like primitivism (the tyranny penalty is not hugely problematic since fabricating titles is easy enough) or hedonism, since the reductions are massive.

I still think you are looking for combos rather than one specific tenet. So, some stats are less important (e.g., county conversion resistence) unless you think lots of other leaders will follow your religions in different kingdoms. Consolamentum is okay if it is matched with Ancestor Worship. Astrology is okay if you want to max out your leaders bonuses.

Human Sacrifice is good if it is matched with other more warlike tenets, otherwise it is a not as useful. Particularly important is the Just trait being a virtue in nearly all faiths except Norse. A lot of virtues give a stress penalty from killing prisoners, so unless you counteract potential stress penalties learned leaders, diplomatic ones, and many stewardship leaders may start taking big stress penalties.

How can you find stress management difficult? Just pick Diplomacy Tree with family focus and your wife, your daughter, your brother, your dog will invite you to a party at their court and you get guaranteed stress relief, free friendship. And each friendship is 2 free skill points.

Managing Stress is laughably easy thanks to this. If you have mental break, just pick the one which reduces stress and wait for it to go down from events.