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Crusader Kings 3: How to Play Tall Guide and Tips

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Most players start Crusader Kings 3 with a big ol’ bucket of paint and try to completely cover the map in the colour of their nation as fast as possible. Due to the need to expand, it is often times very easy to overlook or even ignore the idea of taking a break to develop your Holdings.

An interesting playstyle from previous Paradox games is the idea of playing “Tall” instead of “Wide”. The overall gist is that you dedicate all of your efforts in building up a small number of Counties/Duchies to create a highly advanced core province that provides a ton of money and levies. The process to this involves strategically constructing buildings, improving development, maintaining land upon succession, and rapidly researching technology.

This guide today will go over some of the most important tips and tricks to playing Tall in Crusader Kings 3. See our other Crusader Kings 3 Guides for more information on how to get started if you are a new player.

1. Prioritize Gold and Development Buildings

Prioritizing gold at the start of the game helps speed up how fast you can construct buildings in your Counties. Generally you want to aim for the largest gold amount and work your way down the list of available buildings. Some are locked to certain terrain types (e.g. you won’t have farms in a mountainous terrain), but there will definitely be a few that offer some gold boost.

Increasing development is also crucial to playing Tall due to its impact on both income and on research speed. One of the ways to stay ahead of your enemies is to advance research fast enough to outpace their income and levy growth. The boosts you receive from development may not seem like much at the start of the game, but once you unlock higher levels of development you will begin to see your income rise substantially.

Another bonus to keep an eye out for is the decrease in construction cost and construction time. Since you are heavily investing into more buildings, having a reduction in time and cost can go a long way to speeding up growth.

2. Select a Core Duchy with many Holdings

The entire idea of playing Tall is to focus only on a few Counties at a time. One of the easiest options to accomplish this is to focus entirely on one Duchy at the start of the game. Typically each Duchy will have at least 2-3 Counties that will usually take up all of your gold.

Each Duchy gives you a spot for a special building that provides substantial bonuses. One of the buildings that is recommended is the one that increases holding tax by 10% in only that Duchy. Improving all the Counties in that one Duchy with the bonus will optimize your gold gain.

There is an argument for hanging onto Duchy Capital Counties instead of being all centered into one Duchy. Doing this and building all of the special buildings with Realm-Wide bonuses to your army can increase your fighting power by a ton – but also makes it less efficient with increasing gold gain. Overall, focusing on one single Duchy becomes more efficient with the Tall playstyle and allows you to expand faster.

Final thing to note is that you should choose a starting character that has lands with a large number of holding spots. This ultimately determines your long term growth cap and how much space you have to expand in before needing to capture another County. Increasing the density of holdings will make your Tall gameplay go a lot smoother.

3. Improve Development with Steward

Although stewards can be used to increase your gold income, they are much better used in improving development. I usually just stick my steward onto my capital County and let them continuously increase my development. It is a very slow process and there typically isn’t too much of a reason to switch them off.

Like mentioned above, improving Development is more beneficial due to the increase in research speed. Development’s effect on income is not nearly as good as directly receiving gold using your Steward, but the end goal is to out-tech your opponents.

4. Focus Education on Stewardship or Learning

Stewardship and Learning are the absolute most essential stats to aim for when you are playing Tall in Crusader Kings 3. Stewardship and Stewardship Lifestyle Traits increase your gold income by a ton and is very much needed to sustain your construction. Learning is needed to increase your research speed – which in turn will improve your income and further development.

Both are essential, but the early game should be focused on Stewardship. Depending on your starting character, you may or may not be the Cultural Head. If you are not the cultural head, the Learning and research focus will not be as useful as the extra gold.

Once you are the Cultural Head and have a income of at least 9-10 gold, it may be a good time to consider switching to a Learning focus for educating your Children.

An alternative method is to merely choose an Education Focus that suits your child the best. Choose the higher of the two stats and also take into account the childhood trait as well. Compatible traits will improve the final quality of education that the child receives.

5. Secure a good Steward

A good Steward can speed up your Development growth and can also greatly increase your gold gain if needed. Securing a good one can sometimes be a little bit more complicated. Hitting “C” and trying to find a Steward can be difficult – especially since the ones with highest Stewardship may not have an interest in joining your Court.

One of the easiest methods is to constantly monitor the Court tab for new visitors. If you are a Duke, you should begin to have a few visitors trickling in that have decent Stewardship stats. However, this does take a bit more time and there is no promise of actually obtaining a good Steward.

The other method is to marry one of your daughters to the potential Steward that you found on the character finder. Playing Tall typically means that you will not be doing much expanding for much of the early game. Securing alliances for power and war-time allies is less important in this situation. Instead, marrying for a good Steward has a direct impact on how fast your realm develops and should be the optimal choice.

6. Avoid more than 2-3 Heirs

Playing Tall means that you will not be focusing on expanding your realm as much as playing Wide. A result of this is that you end up with fewer new Counties and Duchies that can be granted to your other children.

With that in mind, succession planning becomes much, much more difficult to handle. You will want at most 3 children who are in line to inherit. Any less and you run the risk of your heir dying and ending the game, but any more than 3 will result in definite issues with losing your valuable core counties.

Most common way to avoid this is to divorce and re-marry to an older stat-based character once you have your 3 possible heirs. Alternatively, you can also seek out the Celibate trait to reduce fertility. However, this method carries more risk and you should usually go with the divorce method.

Once you have only 2-3 heirs, you can either manage your succession as per our Succession and Inheritance Guide or just disinherit them once you are close to dying. The prestige cost is relatively easy to sustain since you will only have to use that function 1-2 times.

7. Forbid Heir from becoming a Knight

Fewer children means you have to be extremely careful about keeping your heir alive. The most common way that your characters die is in battle if they show up as a Knight. Even if your heir has 5 Prowess and is unlikely to be sent off, still go through the process of Forbidding them from becoming a Knight.

Likewise, it may be tempting to let your Heir be a Knight if they have 20 Prowess, but the risk is definitely still there – especially if you end up fighting a losing battle. Keeping your heir alive is the most important objective.

8. Marry for high Stewardship and set to “Manage Domain”

Whenever you marry, your spouse shows up on your Council and gives you a bonus to your stats based on theirs. Marrying someone with very high Stewardship and setting them to “Manage Domain” can add fairly large amount of Stewardship to your existing character. Higher stewardship increases your regular gold income and also allows you to hold onto more domains.

Keep in mind that domains also include the number of castles you can hold (and temples if your religion allows). Even if you are playing Tall, a higher domain limit means you can directly hold onto even more castles/temples. More holdings means more taxes and faster growth.

9. Ask for Gold from Head of Faith

Like mentioned in our Beginner Tips, asking the Pope for Gold is one of the easiest early game money making methods. All you need is 250 piety and a decent opinion from the Pope and you will receive a healthy sum of gold (usually between 125-250ish).

The downside to this is that you do end up losing quite a bit of piety. However, playing Tall means that you really don’t need a lot of it since you won’t be waging many Holy Wars. Gold is infinitely more valuable to you in the early game and you should always ask for Gold whenever the option comes up.

10. Defend against Raids

This seems like a no-brainer, but you actually need to pay attention to your holdings if you are in an area that has raiders. The game does not pause nor slow down when you are getting raided and the results can be devastating.

Once your holding has been sieged down and looted, you get hit with a fat 50% reduction in income for several years AND a decrease in control. For someone playing Tall, losing even 1-2 holdings can be enough to cripple your growth for the next decade.

Always make sure to monitor your holdings when you set the game to higher speeds to make sure that you can raise your army in time to defend your land.

Another tip is to increase the fort level of your holding to give yourself more time. If you already constructed all of the gold buildings, it is a good idea to invest in the building that increases Fort level and provides increased garrison. Higher garrison count means the raiders need a much larger group to even begin the siege timer. Once you have started rapidly researching, the increase in garrison from these buildings can sometimes be enough to fend off the raiders altogether.

Protecting your assets is a much, much more important part of the game when you are playing Tall and should always be in the back of your mind.

11. Do not invest in Feudal Vassal Holdings

It is a complete waste of money and you won’t see any return on it. It takes several hundred gold for you to construct a building for your vassal – but the end result is they might pay you 0.1 more taxes (at 25% tax rate) if you are lucky. It would take you a ton more time to see any sort of return on this compared to if you saved up the money for your own holdings instead.

If you find that you are maxed out, then start working on another County to include in your core. There will always be better ways to spend your gold than to improve your feudal vassal holdings.

However, temple holdings can actually be a fairly decent investment if you have extra money. If you are in a Theocracy, the tax rate is approximately 50% for your Bishop as long as they have a good opinion of you. More on this will be discussed below.

12. Build Temples and Increase Bishop Opinion

Like mentioned above, Bishops give you 100% of levies and 50% of gold if their opinion of you is good. Temples have a higher max gold income than Castles and will not count towards your total Holding limit since they are held by the clergy.

With Castles you always run the risk of losing it to another child due to succession and will provide less gold at max. However, Temples will give you consistent income throughout the game and the Bishop can also improve the Temple on their own. As a long term strategy, building temples will pay off more and have less risk than creating Castle vassals.

Conclusion

Playing Tall in Crusader Kings 3 is a very satisfying experience once you are able to get it to work. The early game can be a little rough, but you will end up snowballing much harder once you have constructed a few buildings.

Thank you all for reading and I hope that this guide has been of some help for you!

See our other Crusader Kings 3 guides here for more information on how to start playing the game:

Crusader Kings 3 Beginner Tips

Crusader Kings 3 Succession and Inheritance Guide

Crusader Kings 3 Prestige and Piety Guide

Crusader Kings 3 Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count

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Crusader Kings 3 Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count

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Counts are the lowest tier character that you can currently play as in Crusader Kings 3. They usually occupy 1-2 Counties and have very limited resources at the start of the game. Playing as a Count can be a bit of a challenge especially if you start off as a vassal under a Duke or King. There are limited expansion options depending on your location and virtually every other neighbor will have similar military strength. This guide will go over how to best start your play through as a Count and give you tips on what to watch out for.

See our other Crusader Kings 3 Guides for more information on how to get started.

1. Establish Alliances through Marriages

When everyone else around you is just as strong, the quickest way to secure an advantage is to marry your children off to secure alliances. Look for the following when you are finding suitable candidates:

  • Sort by Alliance Power
  • Distance of Ally to you
  • Age of partner
  • Age of ally ruler
  • Possibility of Matrilineal marriage (if you are marrying off your daughter)

Sorting by alliance power gives you the most powerful allies you can arrange a marriage for. Distance of an ally matters since it could potentially take much longer for your ally to reach you if war breaks out. Partner and ally ruler age both matter because if the partner dies prior to the marriage, the alliance is broken. If the ally ruler dies at any point, the alliance is also broken. A matrilineal marriage is a lesser point, but would be nice to give you extra Dynasty Prestige if possible.

2. Check Ally War status before Declaring War

Even when you have a military advantage on the “Declare War” screen, keep in mind that it estimates your total alliance power against the enemy’s. Unfortunately, your ally could be embroiled in a war of their own and may not send troops right away even if you successfully call them to war. Prior to declaring a war, take a quick look at the allies you intend to call upon and see if they are currently fighting in their own battles.

Also keep in mind that when rulers die, the alliance is annulled. Always check to make sure your alliances are still valid before declaring war. This usually comes up when you are at the “Declare War” screen and you see the comparative military strength. If you suddenly notice that you and your enemy have similar strengths rather than having an advantage, check your alliances to see if any of them were broken.

3. You can Call Allies to War without adequate prestige

This may or may not be a bug that gets fixed later on. Currently, you can call your allies to war even when you don’t have enough prestige – you end up going into the negatives instead. This can be a lifesaver especially if you are struggling to defend against an invasion. Spending prestige and going into the negatives really isn’t a big deal compared to losing land.

As a Count, you likely will not have huge stores of prestige, but you also don’t have a large standing army either. It is definitely recommended to call allies over losing the little land you have left.

4. Prioritize Fabricating Claims on Counties in the same De Jure Duchy

Click on your current lands and see which nearby County falls under the same De Jure Duchy. Prioritize getting a claim on the ones that you can win a war over. Often times it will either be a powerful Duke or a King – avoid those ones and target other Counts and lesser Dukes. You have to examine their Troop strength and their alliances against your own to see if you can successfully defeat them.

Creating a Duchy has numerous benefits early on as Count:

  • Large bonus to Prestige
  • Enables building of Duchy Capital Buildings
  • Prevents realm fracturing
  • Improved prestige gain
  • Increased maximum number of holdings

5. Build Archer Men-at-Arms Regiments early

Most AI rulers currently spam Skirmishers early game and don’t generally get cavalry until later on. Bringing even a single unit of Archers can greatly improve your chances of winning battles. They are also one of the cheapest MAA regiments in the game and have the added bonus of attacking at an earlier stage in the battle.

I usually build at least 2 regiments once my gold can sustain it since the bonuses it gives against other Count and Dukes is too good to miss. Starting as a Count limits your options early on due to lack of funds and Archers are one of the best investments to improving your ability to grab land.

6. Invite Knights if you don’t have a full stack of 12 Prowess Knights

The Invite Knights decision costs you 150 Prestige – for most Counts that can be a fairly large sum that can be better spent elsewhere. However, Knights are one of the most important early game units due to their ability to take out dozens, if not hundreds of levies. Counts in the early game tend to only have a few hundred troops and you will likely be facing opponents at a similar strength. Bringing Knights that have at least 12 Prowess substantially improves your fighting capability.

12 Prowess is just a general rule of thumb I use since the Knights tend to be fairly useless and die quickly below 10. Having a full stack is well worth the 150 Prestige you spend to get there.

7. Always accept a Liege Council position

It can be difficult to get an council position offer from your liege, but always accept it if you get it. The bonuses can be extremely useful and vary based on the position you are offered. For example, the Chancellor position gives you increased prestige gain, increased vassal opinion, and increased diplomacy lifestyle experience gain. These benefits can be huge for a Count regardless of your intended playstyle. Increasing prestige gain by itself is a great benefit especially with how much you need to expand your territory.

8. Carefully manage Prestige use

It can be tempting to spend it all as soon as you start the game, but you will definitely want to be frugal with it early on. See our Prestige and Piety guide to learn how to gain and preserve Prestige.

Avoid changing realm authority laws and succession laws early on. The benefits they provide will likely not be relevant until much later on if you start as a Count. Saving approximately 150-200 prestige this way can effectively enable you to either Invite Knights, declare another war for territory, or call upon allies.

9. Truces are annulled when rulers die

When your opponent dies and the throne is passed to their heir, the truce between you is annulled. If you play as an intrigue-type character, scheming for murder is a way to quickly annul the truce and allow you to declare war for their land.

Truces can also be annulled through RNG by your Chancellor if they have high enough diplomacy. This isn’t a very reliable way to annul a truce however, and the best method is still to start a murder scheme.

10. Build only in your capital

Satisfying all of your potential heirs as a Count can be extremely difficult. You have limited territory expansion options, limited prestige for disinheriting heirs, and schemes tend to be more difficult unless you specifically specialize in intrigue. More often than not, you have to accept that much of your land may go to your other sons.

The capital is always passed down directly to your heir and you should focus all of your development and buildings in this single County to start. Playing Tall instead of playing Wide is very important to starting as a Count since this helps you retain most of your income and military strength. Focus most of your attention on maintaining good control and good development growth in your capital.

See our Succession and Inheritance Guide for more information on how to manage your realm.

Conclusion

Playing as a Count is one of the most difficult, yet satisfying, experiences in Crusader Kings 3. You will face challenges and limitations that Dukes and Kings rarely encounter. However, you get the immensely gratifying feeling of accomplishment when you are able to build an empire from just a singe County.

I hope that this guide has been of some help to you on your journey. Thank you for reading and happy conquering!

See our other Crusader Kings 3 guides here for more information on how to start playing the game:

Crusader Kings 3 Beginner Tips

Crusader Kings 3 Succession and Inheritance Guide

Crusader Kings 3 Prestige and Piety Guide

Crusader Kings 3 How to Play Tall Guide and Tips

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Crusader Kings 3 Succession and Inheritance Tips

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Now that you have built your kingdom/empire, how do you ensure it stays together? In Crusader Kings 2, the default would be to change succession to Primogeniture and raise a good heir. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury in Crusader Kings 3. The Innovation necessary to set that succession law doesn’t even appear until 1200AD and you still need to advance your culture far enough to unlock it.

This guide will go over some basic tips of how to manage your titles upon you current character’s death. Much of it can be difficult to understand at first, but it becomes much more clear once you get the hang of it.

This guide pertains to Partition and Confederate Partition Succession Laws

See our Piety and Prestige Guide here, our Beginner Tips guide here, and our Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count here.

1. Check the “Title Loss on Succession” tab for heirs you still need to land

This section will essentially be your “homepage” for all things succession related. It will tell you which heirs do not currently have enough land and will begin taking your current Counties away from your primary heir. The worst thing that can happen is to see your entire list of counties going to your random heirs instead of your primary – leaving you with extremely weak military and financial capabilities. Constantly check back to this page to see where your succession is at.

2. Each heir requires a Duchy and a County (typically)

For any ruler that is a Duke or above, the general rule of thumb is that each possible heir will need a duchy and a county to be satisfied. There are exceptions to this rule, but keep this in mind when you are landing your children. The reasoning behind this is that in Partition and Confederate Partition Law, each child receives an “equal” amount of land. If you are Duke or above, you will have a Duchy title that is passed to your eldest son (or child if you have equal laws). Your other children will also want the same to be “equal” and will require a Duchy as well to stay happy.

For Kings and above, you typically will only have one Kingdom to give to your primary heir. The other children will usually still be satisfied with a duchy and county if you land them prior to dying. The more counties and duchies you have, the more lands the children will require to stay satisfied.

In my runs, I typically start off with this general rule of thumb and add more lands as I go to satisfy the other heirs. This method ensures that my primary heir receives the best counties at the heart of the lands that I have spent time and gold developing.

3. Grant newly conquered lands to other heirs

Constantly check back to the “Title Loss on Succession” tab every time you obtain more counties and duchies to pass some titles off. If you are very successful in conquering lands, you will usually end up above the holdings limit and the duchy limit. My default is to just work my way down this list of heirs and grant a duchy and a county to each one until they are no longer there.

These lands will typically be much worse off compared to your original holdings since they are usually a different culture, lower development level, and lower control. Instead of reserving these ones for your primary heir, give them to your other children to satisfy their land requirements.

Giving these lands to your children rather than your vassals also has benefits of keeping the lands within the family. They are easier to call upon in wars and typically have a higher opinion of you.

4. Splintering the realm is not always a bad thing

If you aren’t able to create a Kingdom by the time you finish your first character, you will end up with a splintered realm due to other children being the same rank as your primary heir. This in itself is not a bad thing since the new realms are usually much weaker than the one your primary heir inherits. Your new character also has claims on the old lands that you had and can start a war to get them back.

It is usually a good idea to immediately declare war on your siblings right after you start the new character since their counties are typically weaker at the start. In most of my games, I haven’t encountered many difficulties with this method of gaining land back. However, it is a bit of a pain having to do this each time and it eats up valuable time that could be spent conquering new lands.

Worst case scenario, your splintered realm remains splintered and you now have another independent Duke in your Dynasty. This actually adds more Dynasty prestige according to the current calculations – allowing you to obtain powerful Dynasty perks faster.

5. Counties are the most important titles

If all you have is your single capital County, you likely won’t be able to defend your entire Kingdom/Empire. With how Levies and Taxes work, your Counties are the absolute most important titles in Crusader Kings 3. Your vassals may be able to provide you with these resources, but things can quickly go sideways once they start joining factions. The Faction Strength is based off of a percentage of your own strength and it is infinitely harder to maintain control when you only have 2-3 thousand men at your command.

Prioritize 2-3 highly valuable counties (in addition to the capital) to be passed down to every single character you play. Give away as much as you need to in order to satisfy your other heirs before you die so that these core Counties remain in your direct command.

This will make your life a ton easier when putting down rebels and fighting your other siblings for control. The larger you expand, the more careful you have to be in ensuring that you stay in command of your powerful base of operations.

6. Partition is better than Confederate Partition at preventing realm splintering

In Confederate Partition, if your child has enough land then they will automatically create a higher tier title to match yours. For example, one of my sons can have the Duchy of Brittany and enough lands to create the Kingdom of Brittany. Upon my death he will automatically create that Kingdom and split off from the Kingdom of France under Confederate Partition. In Partition, this would not happen since titles are not automatically created.

Going with Partition instead is almost exactly the same succession law except for not creating new titles. If you are at a Kingdom level, then it is worth considering changing the law to avoid having another Kingdom to deal with. Like mentioned in Tip #4, it isn’t always a bad thing but it can get tiresome having to constantly fight after each inheritance.

The downside to this is if you do not have enough Gold to create a Duchy title and you are only a Duke, your heir will take the County and remain a vassal. This can be a big problem since you can’t just go to war with them as in Tip #4, and you end up losing that County for good. Make sure to avoid this by either rushing to the Kingdom stage or by managing your Gold properly to ensure titles are granted appropriately before your death.

7. Send your other sons to War as Knights

Unethical and very disturbing, but you can get rid of your other unwanted heirs by “Forcing” the Knight status and sending a small group of them to fight a much larger enemy. Crusader Kings 3 is ruthless at killing off Knights with poor Prowess and your sons are no different. You also don’t get any penalties from this method other than increasing stress due to your children dying.

The biggest downside to this method is that you are placing all of your eggs in one basket. If your primary heir dies, it is game over for you. If you ever want to consider doing this, then make sure to “Forbid” your primary heir from being a Knight.

8. Avoid Disinheriting, Murdering or Imprisoning your other heirs

The penalty for Disinheriting is far too high for this to be a manageable method of controlling succession. You lose a ton of prestige each time you do it and if you have 5-6 viable heirs you will be in a huge amount of prestige trouble.

If you have the sadistic trait, the intrigue option of “Murder” then becomes available to use on your children. However, if you get found out then the Kinslayer penalty for most cultures can be fairly harsh. Repeat this process for another 4-5 other children and it quickly becomes an issue. Like mentioned above in Tip #7, having your children die is a very risky choice since it can quickly result in a game over if your primary heir dies.

Imprisoning and executing is another method to remove heirs from your dynasty. This incurs a huge amount of tyranny to accomplish for anything more than 1-2 heirs. Like above, this runs into issues of being a Kinslayer and increases the potential risk of a game over.

9. Grant Titles to the heir of your heir

If there are no other ways to resolve your current succession issues, granting titles to the heir of your heir enables you to use those Counties at a later point in the game. You can’t grant everything to your son due to the succession law, but it still works for your grandson. One other benefit to this is if your grandson dies, typically the titles transfer back to either you or your heir according to their succession law.

Keep in mind that this method is typically a last-resort since the Counties you are granting are far more useful if they are directly controlled by you. Only do this if you know your character is about to die and no other tip on this list is going to work.

10. Make sure your son’s marriage type is NOT matrilineal

This is a little bit off-topic, but it should still be mentioned in case any new players are reading this. All of the marriages you arrange for your sons should NOT have the matrilineal option ticked since that means any of their children will be of a different dynasty. It is usually safest to arrange for a marriage even when they are children to secure alliances and to ensure that the children still belong to your dynasty. Once they are adults they can marry other people on their own unless you restrict their marriage freedom.

Conclusion

Succession laws are vastly different in Crusader Kings 3 than they are in Crusader Kings 2. It is one of the biggest adjustments to make, but once you get used to it the story of your characters become much more interesting. I hope that this guide has helped you with organizing your realm and ensuring your lands stay strong!

Thank you all for reading and happy conquering 🙂

See our Piety and Prestige Guide here, our Beginner Tips guide here, and our Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count here.

Please follow me on Twitter here and on Facebook here for more updates on our reviews and beginner guides!

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Crusader Kings 3 Prestige and Piety Guide

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Crusader Kings 3 is a medieval strategy RPG game that uses a “Prestige” and “Piety” system. These are rare forms of currency that you accrue throughout your game and have a variety of uses. Careful management of these resources will allow you to expand your lands, obtain riches, and give you bonuses to many aspects of your gameplay. This guide will go over the basics of what the resources can commonly be used for and how to increase your prestige and piety.

If you are new to Crusader Kings 3, check out our Beginner Tips guide here for more information on overcoming early challenges. Our Succession and Inheritance Tips are also available here if you are having difficulty adjusting to the forced Partition system.

What is Prestige?

Prestige is a measure of how famous your character is and is spent on declaring wars, increasing Realm Authority, changing succession laws, and inviting Knights/Claimants to your Court. Many of the realm expansion methods in Crusader Kings 3 comes down to making a claim on territory and declaring a war for it. Often times you will end up spending a ton of prestige on this feature alone and you should always be ready to take advantage of opportunities to take more land. Increasing Realm Authority is important to maintaining control over your already-obtained lands. High authority will prevent lands from being inherited outside your realm and will also allow you to change succession laws to ones that enable you to pass more fiefs to your direct heir. Finally, the “Decision” option to invite more Knights is invaluable to strengthening your army. A few decent Knights especially for Counts and Dukes can be a game changer when fighting against a similarly sized opponent.

Once you have accrued enough Prestige throughout your lifetime, your Level of Fame will also improve all the way from “Established” to “The Living Legend”. Each Level of Fame provides you with increased Secular Opinion (opinion from anyone that is not clergy) and increased number of Knights. The opinion boost at max level is +30 and it gives you another 4 Knight slots that you can hire for. This bonus can be a great way to ensure your vassals still tolerate you and Knights themselves are fantastic in Wars. When you are able to hire Knights at Prowess 12 or above, they can each take out 50-60 men with ease.

With all of these features in mind, having a good supply of Prestige is extremely important to both expanding and maintaining control over your Realm.

What is Piety?

Piety is a representation of the virtue of your Character in Crusader Kings 3. It dictates how the religious members of your faith view your character and can be used for founding Holy Orders, asking the Pope for funds (if Christian), declaring Holy Wars, creating your own faith, reforming your religion, consecrating your Bloodline, requesting Divorces, and improving the opinions of your clergy. The most useful of these is the ability to ask the Pope for funds as a Christian – for 250 piety you can receive several hundred gold. This is a very useful boost in the early game when you are more likely to be spending gold on things like Knights, Men-at-Arms, or even for bribes. One of the best features of Crusader Kings 3 is the ability to create your own Faith that is tailored to your specific playstyle. There are many different tenets to select from and is a whole new topic in itself – just know that you will need a lot of piety to do so and it will take a long time to accrue enough.

Similar to Prestige, Piety also has Levels of Devotion ranging from “Dutiful” to “Religious Icon”. However, earning Piety is a little bit more difficult and it is rare to reach the last level. Fortunately, the only real bonus from these ranks is improvements to clergy opinion and you don’t really have to worry too much about leveling it up.

Piety is arguably less important than Prestige when it comes to day-to-day bonuses that you consistently use. However, if you want to dabble with religion and conversions, you definitely have to start building up your Piety as soon as you can since it is more difficult to obtain. It will take quite some time for you to get enough to play around with some of the more interesting religious features.

How to obtain Prestige in Crusader Kings 3

Call Hunts

Calling hunts is the most straightforward method of increasing your prestige in a short period of time. Hit F8 or go to your Decisions tab and you can select the “Call Hunt” function. The cost of calling a hunt differs based on your rank, but for Dukes it costs around 67 gold. This cost in itself isn’t too bad when you consider that you can receive several hundred prestige from the single hunt. Calling for Hunts has a 5 year cool down period.

Hold Feasts

Feasts usually give you 150 Prestige upon finishing and occasionally will give you more depending on the random events that come up. Just be aware that some of these events will occasionally cost you Prestige as well, so be extra careful about which option you click. It can be found in the same way as “Call Hunts” above in the Decisions tab. Holding a feast costs around 100 gold for Dukes and increases beyond that for Kings and Emperors. Similar to “Call Hunts”, there is a 5 year cool down period for holding feasts.

Select the “Majesty Focus” in the Diplomacy Lifestyle Tree

This lifestyle provides you with +1 Prestige per month. This might not sound like a lot, but many other variables only give +0.3-0.5 Prestige per month. For example, the Duke of Bavaria in the 1066 start only has +2.65 Prestige per month to start off with and this is already including the “Ambitious” trait that gives another +1 Prestige per month. Of the various ways to build up Prestige, selecting this Lifestyle is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways. There are also numerous useful perks in the Diplomacy tree that you should definitely take advantage of like the “Forced Vassalization” Casus Belli.

Create Titles

Creating titles will cost you a fair chunk of gold, but will also provide you with a ton of Prestige once you do. For example, creating the Duchy of Moravia costs you 250 gold and gives you 300 Prestige while creating the Kingdom of Bohemia costs you 500 gold and gives you 400 Prestige. If you are already set on creating these titles, the Prestige you obtain from them is usually enough to give you the Prestige needed to start another war.

Be careful to not create too many Duchies since holding onto more than 2 will make your vassals like you less. There is also a risk of these higher titles being lost upon succession since Primogeniture does not exist until 1200AD.

One other method (which is a little unethical) is to grant Duchy titles to vassals where you actually hold the Counties. Once it is granted, the vassal will likely dissolve the title since they hold no De Jure fiefs – allowing you to re-create the Duchy for more Prestige. This method costs quite a bit of money, but you can essentially print Prestige as you see fit. It can also be seen as slightly gaming the system and can take the fun out of your current play through.

Join Ally Wars and Contribute

When you join an Ally War and actually contribute, you will get a split of the Prestige according to the War details. Click on the specific War you are in, go to the “Enforce Demands” tab and scroll down until you see the part that says “Allies share _____ Prestige based on their contributions”. You will actually have to contribute to the total War score for the Prestige to be allocated to you even if you are the only Ally called to war. Also be aware that if you join the War but do not contribute, there will also be an opinion penalty from your Ally.

Raid (if available)

Tribal governments have the ability to raid for loot and you will also gain Prestige for each successful gold you bring back. All you have to do is siege down an enemy settlement and cross back into your own borders with your loot for it to go into your stockpile. If you are attacked on your way and lose, you will also end up losing your gold.

The Raiding option is really only available to Tribal governments and not for Feudal governments. If your goal is to gather more Prestige, also be aware that many of the Men-at-Arms for Tribal governments cost Prestige for both hiring and upkeep. There are other better ways to gain Prestige, but this method is almost required for the Tribal players to keep up with costs.

Set your Chancellor to “Foreign Affairs”

The Chancellor will add to your monthly Prestige gain depending on their Diplomacy Skill. Someone with only 10 Diplomacy will only generate around 0.5 Prestige per month, while a Chancellor with 20 Diplomacy will give you 1 Prestige per month. Like mentioned above, the monthly Prestige gain in Crusader Kings 3 is actually fairly low – these bonuses of +1 per month do end up adding up quite a bit.

Avoid calling every Ally to War if you don’t need them

Even when you do everything right and tried all of the tips here you can still run out of Prestige. In those cases, we have to work on preserving the Prestige you already have by reducing the amount you really need to use. The most important method is to avoid calling every single ally you have to war when you don’t need them since each ally requires a significant amount of Prestige.

Examine your troop count and compare it to your opponent and their allies. If you already have more Levies, Knights and Man-at-Arms than their entire Alliance altogether, chances are you don’t need to call in your King and Duke allies into battle. Don’t hesitate to spend enough Prestige to guarantee victory, but definitely do your due diligence in investigating how necessary they really is.

How to obtain Piety in Crusader Kings 3

Go on a Pilgrimage

This is an option in the “Decisions” tree that will send your character off on a Pilgrimage to any of your religion’s holy sites. The further away the site, the larger the Piety gain. Be aware that this method costs a lot of gold – which potentially makes it not an option for Counts and Dukes. For example, a trip to Jerusalem might be considered to be “Very Long” and cost you 187 gold. During the trip, there will be several events that pop up that give you options to obtain Piety. Some have costs attached to it and others might give you undesirable modifiers like “Ill”.

At the end of the Pilgrimage, you usually receive a large sum of Piety plus the “Pilgrim” trait that gives you +10% Piety per month. Some tenets like the “Armed Pilgrimages” tenet will give you an additional +2% Monthly Piety Per Knight. With 10 knights, this is a 20% boost! In the example above with Very Long trips, the Jerusalem journey that I sent my character on generated 625 Piety at the end of it.

One last point to consider is that there is a 15 year cool down for Pilgrimages. If you have the means to do so, going on a Pilgrimage as soon as possible will be beneficial if you intend to use a lot of it later on.

Select the “Theology Focus” in the Learning Lifestyle Tree

With how difficult it is to accrue any decent amount of Piety, the +1 Piety per month is a fairly large boost that should be considered for any ruler you intend to use to wage Holy Wars or reform faiths. The perks in the Learning tree are also great for reducing Piety costs and certain perks like Theologian and Prophet also give boosts to monthly Piety gain.

However, don’t pursue this option if you have a ruler that has decent stats in other trees since the additional monthly Lifestyle experience can be much more useful if used properly elsewhere.

Seek Indulgences from the Pope

You can buy Piety from the Pope with gold through the “Seek Indulgences” option that pops up when you right-click the Pope. The cost for this option is usually around 200-300 gold for anyone Duke and above. The higher your rank the more gold you need to pay. Unfortunately, it appears that regardless of the amount of gold you pay, you only end up receiving 100 Piety in return.

With how useful gold is and how difficult it is to obtain for early game characters, this is typically an option for Kings and Emperors. This option is essentially a reverse option for when you ask the Pope for money except you gain opinion instead. Our Beginner’s Tips guide also mentioned using Piety as a method for gaining gold early. This is actually one of the main reasons to gather Piety early game if you have no intention of reforming your faith or declaring holy wars.

Set your Priest to “Religious Relations”

Similar to how Chancellors work, a Priest set to “Religious Relations” will provide you with monthly Piety gain. It appears to operate on the same scale used for Prestige gain where a Priest with 10 Learning generates +0.5 Piety per month and a Priest with 20 Learning generates +1 Piety per month. With how much more difficult it is to generate Piety than Prestige, this is one of the more desirable settings to leave your Priest on whenever possible.

As mentioned in our Beginner Tips guide, the Priest is one of the best ways to fabricate Claims and expand territory. You will end up having to make a choice between building your realm versus building up Piety. I typically find it most useful to focus on claims earlier in the game and Piety later on once I have established a decent base of operations.

Educate Children and select Traits that are Virtuous

Changing traits for your adult characters is extremely difficult and very RNG reliant in Crusader Kings 3. However, you can set your character as the Educator for your heir and other children and you can decide which traits they get when the menus pop up. There is still a certain degree of RNG since they might not always hit the ones that are considered to be Virtuous by your religion, but this gives you some level of control over how it is done.

You can also set the primary focus for your heir to be Learning, but keep in mind that this should only really be done if they innately have a high Learning value. Forcing your child into an education that does not suit their abilities will be detrimental to how well they function as adults. See Tip #14 on our Beginner’s guide for more information about adapting to your character’s traits.

Improve Learning in random events

There are occasionally random events that pop up if you select the Learning Lifestyle Tree that can give you additional Learning points. The higher your Learning, the more Piety you gain per month. Each point your character has in Learning gives an additional +0.1 Piety per month. An average character that has around 12 Learning will have 1.2 Piety per month, but someone who has really focused on Learning and has 25 will receive 2.5 Piety per month. This is a substantial boost to how much you receive each month and can definitely be useful in the long term.

Conclusion

Crusader Kings 3 treats Prestige and Piety as much rarer forms of Currency compared to Crusader Kings 2. They can be immensely valuable in most aspects of gameplay and can be difficult to obtain when you need it most. Hopefully this guide has helped some of you with overcoming the challenges you have faced when you ran out of these resources!

Read our Crusader Kings 3 Beginners Guide here if you are just starting out in the game. Our Succession and Inheritance Tips are also available here if you are having difficulty adjusting to the forced Partition system.

Thank you all for reading and please comment below if you have any other tips or suggestions! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates on our guides and reviews 🙂

Guides

Crusader Kings 3 Beginner Tips

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Crusader Kings 3 (CK3) is a medieval strategy and management game that places you in charge of guiding an entire dynasty through hundreds of years. It is the long-awaited sequel to Crusader Kings 2, and it does not disappoint.

Any new players interested in starting with Crusader Kings 3 will likely meet a fairly sharp learning curve initially. Even if you have played Crusader Kings 2, there are still quite a few subtle differences that can stump you in your first few rounds. This list of beginner tips will hopefully help with getting you started in Crusader Kings 3!

See our Piety and Prestige Guide here, our Succession and Inheritance Tips here, and our Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count here.

1. Fabricate Claims using the Bishop (or other religious leader)

This is one of the biggest changes since Crusader Kings 2. Instead of the Chancellor, it is now the religious leader that is used to fabricate claims. Another change is that it is no longer a randomized chance that rolls every year – there is simply a progress bar that fills up for the claim to occur.

The speed of progress and whether or not you receive a duchy claim instead of county claim is dependent on the skill of the bishop. Typically it can take around 1-2 years for the county claim to go through and it costs around 70-100 gold to claim. Please also keep in mind that you cannot be negative in gold to start a war so have some saved up in advance.

2. Learn the basic hotkeys

There is a LOT of clicking that goes into Crusader Kings 3. It is definitely worth learning the basic hot keys for bringing up menus if you plan to play for any longer than a couple of hours. Here are the simple ones that I like to use:

  • F1: Character Screen
  • F2: Realm
  • F3: Military
  • F4: Council
  • F5: Court
  • F6: Intrigue
  • F7: Factions
  • F8: Decisions
  • 1-5: Game speed (5 is extremely fast, be warned)
  • Space: Pause and Play
  • E: Regular Realm map toggle
  • T: Cultural Map
  • R: Religious Map
  • U, I, O: Duchy, Kingdomg, Empire Titles (shows them regardless of whether or not they’re formed)
  • W, A, S, D: Map Movement
  • B: Go back to previous menu

There may be other hotkeys people use, but these are the ones I’ve run into so far that I consistently use all the time. The escape key is just the usual button for exiting out of tabs. However, if you are trying to get rid of only the “Issues” menu then hit Tab instead since the Escape key will exit out of everything else first.

3. Increase County Control using your Marshall as soon as possible

Control makes a huge difference in how much levy and taxes you receive from a county. Anything below 50 Control will be a huge hit to what you can receive. It is usually worth sending your Marshall in to return Control back to 100 as soon as you are out of a war. This is actually one of the mechanisms that Paradox included to prevent snowballing since it’ll increase how long it takes for you to reap the benefits of new counties.

One caveat to this is if you are expecting someone to initiate another war with you in a short period of time or if you have a really great claim on someone who is momentarily weak. In this case, keep your Marshall on the “Organize Levies” tab for the extra Levy Size and Reinforcement Rate. However, during peace time increasing Control is much more important than increasing levies or improving commanders.

4. Christian Rulers can ask the Pope for Gold – use this ability early game

You can easily get anywhere between 125 to 200 or so gold as a Christian ruler in exchange for 250 Piety and a temporary decrease in relationship with the Pope. To qualify, it is best to have a good opinion score, some virtue traits, and as few sins as possible. There generally isn’t a good reason to not take the gold especially in the early stages of the game.

If you start off as a Duke or King, gold problems will likely still be at the front of your mind. Piety is a resource that does play a big role in being able to wage Holy Wars, but gold can usually take you a lot further. You need gold to pay for starting up your Men-at-Arms Regiments and to hire Knights with high Prowess. Without this fighting ability, it is hard to wage wars in the first place. Take the gold and think about Piety later.

Once you hit the part of the game where you are interested in reforming religions or embarking on Holy Wars, check out our Prestige and Piety guide here for how to obtain Piety.

5. Hover over information for a few seconds before moving to the tooltip

Once you wait around 3 seconds or so, the information bubble changes borders and sticks around for you to move your mouse onto it. For example, if I want to check my Monthly Income breakdown, I would hover over the tab so that the information bubble pops up, wait for around 3 seconds for the border to change, then move my mouse onto the bubble itself. Hopefully this helps with preventing any mild annoyances about getting the information bubble to stick around.

Alternatively, you can go into the “Game” section of the settings and change the Tooltips to Action lock or Mouse Tendency. This will give you a bit more freedom in choosing what you prefer. I personally stuck with the original method since I hate having to click again and again for the tooltips.

6. Forbid Sons with low Prowess from being Knights

Found this out the hard way when 3/4 of my sons died in the same battle. If they don’t have high prowess then they are much, much more likely to be killed in battle. Keep in mind that Martial and Prowess are two completely different values that represent different things. Martial is the main value you usually see that represents their ability to command troops – it is also the value you use to select for a good Marshall. Prowess is the ability to actually fight, you can see a person’s prowess when you look to the right of the main stats and see the hand grasping a sword.

To forbid a person from being a knight, hit “F3” to bring up the Military Menu, click on the Knights menu, scroll to your sons and select “Forbid”. In some cases, you might even want to keep your heir safe and forbid them even if they have a high prowess score. Things can randomly happen in battle and sometimes avoiding the risk altogether can be better for your dynasty.

One other thing to keep in mind is that some characters have the “Brave” trait. This trait increases the character’s chance of dying in battle by 100% while offering a few bonuses to combat ability. It is great that some characters are monsters and can carry a fight, but don’t let that character be your only heir (unless that is what you are role-playing). Keep an eye out for this trait specifically just in case!

7. You can increase Men-at-Arms regiment sizes directly

Simply click on the regiment portrait to bring up the menu and hit “Increase Size to ____”. This gives you more variety in which Men-at-Arms types you want to bring into battle with you. The overall cost would still be the same since the size upgrade is the same as the initial buy cost, but you get to hire different types of regiments as a result.

8. Diversify your Men-at-Arms Regiments

Unless you did some extra work in scouting out your enemy’s troops when they fought in other wars, it is difficult to determine which regiments they will be bringing to the fight. The “counter” mechanism can limit your opponent fighting efficiency by up to 90% if it is a direct counter. For example, instead of your Armored Footmen dealing 32 Damage, it’ll only deal around 3 if the opponent brings a unit of Skirmishers to the fight.

Diversifying your regiments gives you a much better chance at negating your opponents and having at least some of your regiments do full damage. This might not always apply depending on cultural troop availability and terrain, but if you are all over the map then this gives you the most flexibility. If you follow tip #7 as well, then you should have no issues with adapting your army to the enemy you are expecting to fight.

9. Bring Mangonels or Onagers if you are sieging

They are cheap compared to other regiments and the decrease in overall time required to siege down a castle is definitely worth it. Instead of the default 1.0 progress per day, you now have 1.6 with Mangonels (1.3 with Onagers). This is a boost of 50% – meaning instead of 3 months to siege down a city, you now have to only wait for 2. If you are fighting any other kingdom or even duchy, the time you save can literally be the difference between victory and defeat.

If you are worried about cost – don’t be! The total for a Mangonel is 0.32/month when raised while a regiment of skirmishers is 0.44/month. For the benefit that it brings for sieges, this should be at least the third regiment you pick up.

The big downside to this is that they have no bonuses to fighting power during regular field battles. The opportunity cost lost here is that you could have afforded another unit of bowmen or skirmishers that might have been handy if it was a close battle. Buying this regiment third would be a good balance between improving your fighting ability and your siege ability.

10. Choose the right Commander

A good commander can influence a battle a ton and even win you fights where your army is objectively weaker. Having a higher tactical score is one thing, but many good commanders also have traits that give bonuses in certain terrain types or to increase damage altogether. Selecting the right commander means you sometimes have to override what the automatic selection is and carefully look through the traits of who you have available.

To change commanders, highlight your army and hit the “Select new Commander” button in the very lower left corner of your screen. Sometimes this button will be greyed out if you are either in battle, or were recently defeated and the army is still retreating. It is usually a good idea to hit that button right when you raise army just to be sure there aren’t any better choices for commanders.

11. Be mindful of River Crossings and Boat Landings

You get a fairly large debuff whenever you are trying to attack someone across a river. It is a much more defensible position and can easily give the weaker army enough of a bonus to win the battle. Taking the long way around might be less time efficient, but it avoids getting you into sticky situations. This is also one of the areas I started paying a lot more attention to than I did in Crusader Kings 2 since I saw many of my armies get wiped by the mechanic.

Likewise, any army that just got off the boat will have a debuff that makes them much less effective. If you are defending against an invading army, stopping them right at the shore is usually one of the best tactics to maximize your winning opportunity.

12. Read through all the Lifestyle Perks

Some of the bonuses from these perks go beyond just being percentage based increases to character ability. For example, the Diplomat Tree has a perk called “Forced Vassalage” that unlocks the “Forced Vassalization” Casus Belli. It is a great way to start wars straightforwardly instead of having to either wait for fabrication or going through the whole process of finding and landing a claimant.

It is also worth reading the tooltips for these new abilities since they can give you a much better idea of what character you could be building into. Using the same example, the “Forced Vassalization” Casus Belli is initially restricted to only being valid on Rulers that have no more than 3 Counties in their realm. However, it can be further improved based on the cultural innovations you pursue. Once you have innovations like “Divine Right” and “Rightful Ownership”, it can increase the vassal realm size by 2 each. Knowing this, you can now tailor your cultural innovations to these specific ones if you are the cultural head.

Reading through the tooltips for all of the perks can be tedious, but it will give you a ton more role-play value and give you greater customization of how you want to play the game.

13. Start with Petty King Murchad in 1066 to explore mechanisms

This is a really common tip but it is one worth repeating. It is considered to be one of the best starting situations for learning since it gives you a really great opportunity to explore the various ways to expand your territory and provides you with advantages over all of your immediate enemies.

You start the game with one County for yourself and one for your vassal while everybody else in Ireland starts with just one. Already this is enough for you to win the De Jure war that you begin with. From there, you can experiment with the “Fabricate” function or learn how to obtain claims through marriage or landing claimants. It is also a situation that forces you to be good with your money since you really have to save up for the men that you want to buy.

Once you have unified Ireland into a Kingdom, you can then experiment with larger-scale intrigue and claiming systems like marrying off your son to one of the lesser noblewomen that still have a claim to England. You will usually encounter issues like rejections due to Patrilineal Marriage concerns which give you a realistic taste of what the rest of the game could be like.

14. Adapt to your character traits

Unlike Crusader King 2, Crusader Kings 3 has a much higher importance placed on traits and how they affect character interactions. Playing every single chractert you use as a Warrior will inevitably lead to your demise. Look at the traits, perks, and stats that your character has and determine which lifestyle would best suit their abilities. From there, read through the possible perks and explore the new mechanisms they unlock. This way you can fully experience the full extent of features the game has to offer.

I initially started with purely going the same strategist/commander character playstyle, but once you being dabbling in other treas like stewardship and diplomacy you begin to realize there are a ton of other options out there. A stewardship focused King can literally generate enough income to max out a stack of men-at-arms and still have some to spare for Mercenaries. Slap on a good commander in your court and you’re set to conquer the world.

My point here is that Crusader Kings 3 opens up a ton of replay and role-play value. Even if you just want to paint the world in the colour of your Empire, there are many different ways for you to do so. I hope that this tip gets you exploring into the diversity that exists in the game.

Conclusion

Crusader Kings 3 definitely lived up to the hype for me and I hope that this list of beginner tips will help you enjoy the game in the same way. There are ton more features in this game and I will do my best to cover them for you. Please comment below if there are any specific questions you have or if you have any other tips that you want included in the guide!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you have a great time conquering 🙂

See our Piety and Prestige Guide here, our Succession and Inheritance Tips here, and our Top 10 Tips for Starting as a Count here.

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