There are of course many other good perks, but these three are essential for a lifetime of murder, kidnapping, and torture.

Extremely useful while waiting for schemes to fire. Let's you have two schemes running at once. Twice Schemed (second last perk in Schemer). Absolutely necessary, especially as you will get Dark Insights as well. Let's you fabricate hooks, which is the bread and butter of many schemes.ĭivine Retribution (second perk on left side in Torturer). Truth is Relative (first perk in Schemer). I personally prefer to lean right into the intrigue focus, but there are certain perks which are better than others: Forget everything the game taught you about how to play a ruler. So remember that you are a criminal and a cheater. You are punished if you break them, but intrigue lets you ignore these laws with impunity, to play outside the rules of the game. CK3 has set up laws against murder, imprisonment, torture, and seduction, and these rules force certain behaviour from you as player and your opponents. The most important part of Intrigue is understanding that it allows you to cheat without cheating.

But I think it is as powerful as other lifestyles, if not more powerful ones if you play it well. On its face, it does not seem as use or as versatile as the other lifestyle trees. I think most people think of intrigue in CK3 and think that either it's just for dipping in to get the fabricate hook perk in the Schemer tree, or just for fun/chaos runs. I am not a min-maxer, so this is not some sort of optimal playthrough. It's not meant for beginners, but for players who have already played several games. The first part is strategies for intrigue rulers, and the second part is a very brief overview of an intrigue start in 867. This is a 'guide' to an intrigue playstyle for Crusader Kings 1.2.2, but it's mostly tips and tricks for how to get the most out of an intrigue-focused game.

Crusader kings 2 intrigue guide