Way of Life

All three trees of a single lifestyle, so pick one at game start and never switch focus off it. This is pure patience - perk points arrive on an XP cadence, so the game is maximising monthly lifestyle XP and keeping one character alive as long as possible. The wiki's recommended designer build stacks XP modifiers (Coptic faith and Syriac culture among them) to roughly 56 XP a month, which fits all three trees into one lifetime. Longevity perks and a good court physician are your friends.