- What's the best method to ask courtiers to leave aside from imprisoning them?
You could also try marrying them off, I don't remember ever really needing to get rid of courtiers though, so not sure right now if there's a better method.
- Is borrowing money from Jewish merchants a last resort option when you have no funds? Under what circumstances is it ideal to do so.
Not at all, outside of the small relations hit with religious vassals, there's no downside. I use it pretty liberally, though the "Expel the Jews" option is more of a last resort for when you are more seriously in need of a cash infusion, good for some harder starts when you need some mercenaries to win an early war or two. In certain situations you'll often find that you can make the money back quickly when pillaging towns/castles etc.
- If you have achieved the Empressive achievement, what is your strategy/recommendations for it?
Up until recently, the easiest would have been to go for Feudal Elective succession and just pick a daughter three times in a row as your chosen heir. However a little while ago they made it harder to get vassals to go along with your pick under elective succession, so you'll have to be more careful if using this method. Your vassals will need to ideally like both you and your chosen heir, so high diplomacy values will help. Doing this in either tiny states or late game empires will both make things easier, with the former you'd easily be able to control all of the few voting titles yourself, and in a mid-late game empire you'll be using viceroyalties which you can just revoke and redistribute to people that like you more.
Another other option is to go for a culture/religion where gender inheritance is equal, that'd be Basque, Cathar or Messalian.
- There are so many locations to study Technology, which place is ideal to do so?
Pretty much always in your capital, technology in this game works mostly by spreading down your realm. Certain technologies, e.g all of the culture branch, are only effected by the tech level in your capital province, for the rest you can use your councillors in high tech areas (generally your capital) to speed things up. Also don't forgot to use your spymaster to Study Technology if you can spare him, somewhere like Constantinople is often great.
- When it comes to marriages, I prefer to marry someone who has a positive opinion of my ruler and don't worry too much about their titles/claims. Is that the ideal way to go about it?
Depends what you're after, at the very least you should try to look for someone with high stats, as these are halved and then added to their spouses, this can province a powerful boost. If you're playing the long game, then looking for a character with genetic traits such as Genius or Attractive can really benefit your heirs down the road, with some selective inheritance.
Marrying for land is a little more complicated, but to give the gist, you'll rarely find a female ruler/heir waiting around unattached for a non-matrilineal marriage. You'll need to spend some time looking for people with suitable claims, ideally strong claims, which can then be pressed for land that'll end up being inherited by your combined heir, uniting the lands under a single ruler.
- So far, it seems I'm only able to assassinate people within my court. How do I plan it for rival rulers?
They changed the way assassination works to always be done through plotting, as far as I know, that should be the case for any character now. Try selecting the
dead man lucky winner in question and iirc there's a button near their portrait to start a plot.
- If someone within my family wants to get married and approaches me for help, should I always try to help them find a partner?
Depends on the situation, it might be someone with a claim you want out of the way, you might want to extend your dynasty, it might be a lesser nobody, in which case you can tell them to jog on. You'll have to judge this one on a case by case basis.
- As HRE, how do I get supporters for the person I choose to nominate as my heir.
See above. Keep elector relations high with both yourself and heir (high diplomacy stat helps), I believe prestige also helps, giving your chosen heir some land to rule as soon as possible may work.
- Is it better to marry the noble of a neighbouring faction or a distant but powerful one? For e.g. as Ireland, should I marry another Irish noble or the family member of England, France, or HRE instead.
Again, this'll vary on a case by case basis, e.g. if you're looking to butter up a vassal, form an alliance, secure inheritance etc. Generally you'll find yourself marrying for stats, but you can always marry off extra children for good relations.
- Can I just focus on increasing Centralization and taking the lands of all my "vassals", so they don't cause me trouble?
Pretty much, the general idea is that as you progress through time, you'll get stronger, whilst your vassals lose privileges. Ideally you'll want to pick two duchies and personally have all your demesne there, particularly the top level baronies, that'll leave no independent counts pissed off in your duchies. Then just take/build baronies within your two duchies as your demesne limit increases, holding more than two duchies will piss off other rules within your realm.
As you increase Crown Authority your vassals will dislike you more, however if you combine that with good use of viceroyalties, you can revoke titles from rulers that dislike you in favour of more preferable subjects. This makes the Byzantines very powerful, as they start with Duke level Viceroy laws.
- In regards to Crusades, if I'm trying to get to the Holy Land from Western Europe, is it better to sail there or march through Anatolia? Additionally, if I want to create the Kingdom of Jerusalem, would I have to directly conquer and control the necessary lands to create it. What if one of the European kingdoms took the land during the war.
Sailing will be faster, and there's no attrition at sea in Crusader Kings, so your troops will get there at peak strength, the drawback is that ships are expensive to maintain, so use ships if you can afford it, otherwise you'll be marching.
Yes to the second question, you'll need to have the lands within your realm to create the title, however during a Great Holy War, e.g. Crusade/Jihad, the land will go to whoever has contributed the most towards the victory, so you don't need to actually occupy any land during the war, just make sure you contribute a lot of troops to the battle. You should be able to see who is currently at the top of the list by clicking the big flag that appears on the left under your portrait.
