As far as I know, all skill trees are tied to their numbers. The only thing is that different sequences of acquiring the same skills don't affect anything.
For example, if I have Tazar, armor expert, advanced tactics. They offer a choice: tactics expert, basic air. So, at the next level, if you advance tactics, you will still be offered air. Don't believe me? - check it in single-player mode, you can take any skills. The whole point is that the combination of certain skills will always lead to the same skill tree. I don't believe that you haven't noticed how suspiciously similarly high-level lords are developed, for example. In 90% of cases, they get earth and logistics, as well as offense and armor. Deviations are extremely rare. This is all about the fact that the skill trees are the same. For example, Craig and Nimue (starting with advanced offense) will have the same set of trees, i.e., in total there will be 255, but not for each one, but for both. If you take, for example, mysticism in the witch hut, then a corresponding tree is selected, where mysticism is the nth skill. It is precisely because of the number of secondary skills that there are so many skill trees. That's the deal.

Cheating is when you get an unknown tree number from the save file. That's one thing. But it's another thing if you first put in the effort, extracted all 255 trees, conveniently systematized them, and maybe even wrote a program that searches for possible tree numbers based on skills (and with the passage of levels, it will become clear which tree you have).

Right now, I'm playing a game where I was given (to Tazar) luck first, then water. I knew that when choosing between mysticism and luck, it is better to prefer the latter, because in my experience, trees with luck are good when they give water. Then logistics came, followed by scout. And what else do I need? Now I already know for sure, because I looked it up and found the tree number in my database (conditionally speaking, this is only for Tazar and rather unsystematic information), and now I know that I will be offered earth, then offense. That's how it is.