by Papa Clement Wed Sep 01, 2021 9:02 pm
I think I discussed my views on the relative merits of poor/reasonable/good levels of coverage in another topic. It may be that achieving a poor level has relatively little impact so you need to aim for reasonable as a minimum (recruits permitting).
If recruits are not a limiting factor, then if will not be a surprise if my top pick would be ...
Priests (Catholic priests, naturally) - reasons being that if a people knows what it believes and why, then not only will it feel a greater identity with its ruler, but also be happier, more law abiding, and have a renewed sense of purpose that what it is doing is good and correct in the eyes of God and the Church. Understanding church teaching should also improve the ability to reason so lead to better education which in turn should stimulate new discoveries (again, I only expect these benefits to be seen from Catholic priests and Catholic teaching based on St.Thomas Aquinas' approach that we can learn about God to some extent through the world he created, thus the Church and scientific research are not necessarily opposed. Protestants and other religions that reject the use of philosophy to explain aspects of religion cannot expect similar benefits). Crime levels should also fall (attending Mass regularly and partaking of the sacraments encourages a moral, law-abiding life), and although it may not always be the case, I happen to think that happier people tend to be healthier. So look after the spiritual and most other things improve as well. Whether all this happens in the game is unknown (yet), but I'm working on it.
Next I would probably go for vets over doctors. But it is a tricky one. Given the misconceptions about medicine in 1700, it is possible that doctors did more harm than good and that more people were saved through good nursing than dubious prescribing. Oddly vets tended to be more successful than doctors, at least with farm animals, probably because specialist knowledge of a few species and a few common illnesses could be learned in the field without relying on fancy theories. In game terms, vets should be able to help breed improved animals with better health records which as you point out may increase returns from trade investments, higher tax revenues from nobles (land) and possibly EH.
After vets I would prioritize aqueducts (to improve water quality), night soil men (double benefit), sewers, before only under protest committing to training doctors (if I couldn't train nurses).
Last on the list would be lawyers. I know there are some players who view lawyers as being a mark of civilization and therefore a good thing, but since the point of being a lawyer is to disagree with another lawyer, I can't see how having thousands of lawyers around has any positive benefit at all. More lawyers does not mean better law, not even better administration of the law, since without lawyers it was down to the local squire to exercise his feudal responsibilities on behalf of the crown. Lawyers have a habit of making up their own interpretation of the law to benefit lawyers at the expense of everyone else, and then wasting everyone's time arguing in front of other lawyers (judges) in the hope they will create binding precedents (make more law), which far from simplifying the legal system, increases complexity at the expense of common sense. This is not a modern phenomenon: when God gave Adam the single law not to eat of the tree of life, along came the first lawyer (the snake) and reinterpreted it because Eve wanted an apple; with the arrival of the 10 Commandments, the number of lawyers (Scribes) had mushroomed along with their modifications with pages of amendments and codicils, arguing about different interpretations. And on it goes today. Lawyers are parasites - their fees should reduce EH, while any ruler who employs them should find his honour falls because he is denying the nobility their feudal rights. Of course the game may not reflect this to the extent I believe it should, but I'm not the GM.