What techs are situational?

Im at 1100 ELO I've gotten my build orders and early game strategy pretty iron tight however I'm still a little bit confused about when and what extra techs I should pick up beyond the obvious ones like Wood Farming Mining and Blacksmith. In T90's videos he always laughs that Murder Holes or the Tech that makes monks faster is superfluous, I feel like there's not a good resource that tells you any of this. I usually play Lithuanians and go Knights so I tend to pick up a lot of the monk upgrades especially Herbal Medicine that's a lifesaver for swapping knights in and out of castles. Is something like that worth it or am I wasting resources that could be spent other places. What about redemption?