Beginner's guide - CK3 Wiki (2024)

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Welcome to the beginner's guide for Crusader Kings III, a grand strategy game where you lead your medieval dynasty through warfare, diplomacy and intrigue on a path to glory. Whether you're a returning player from a previous Crusader Kings title or a first time player of the franchise, this guide will give you a head-start in playing and succeeding ingame.

At the time of writing there are no expansions for Crusader Kings III, and thus this guide assumes you have none enabled.

Selecting a character[edit | edit source]

In CKIII you follow the lives of a dynasty of rulers, rather than a country itself. To begin, click New Game to choose from a selection of interesting characters in either 867 or 1066. Different interesting characters from the two time periods can be selected from the bookmarks along the top of the screen. Alternatively, click the "play as any ruler" in the bottom left corner of the screen to be allowed to select from any eligible ruler on the map in your chosen year.

Choosing from the vast number of characters on the map can be overwhelming when trying to find a good ruler to begin with. Consider selecting from one of the recommended rulers in the 1066 "Rags to Riches" bookmark when getting started. These include:

• Petty King Murchad of Munster, who rules a small but strong realm in southern Ireland in which you can learn the rules of conquest as you restore your grandfather's kingdom. This start is easier because you are mostly left to yourself on Ireland, with your own autonomous Irish church and little interference from outside the island. If you choose to play the tutorial, you will be assigned this character.
• Duke Vratislav of Bohemia, who rules the Czech people as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire; once he has accumulated enough wealth, he is ready to crown himself King of Bohemia. Bohemia uses the seniority succession method, which lowers the risk of your realm being divided amongst squabbling brothers on a ruler's death. As a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, you are protected from invasion, and can learn how to succeed and advance as the servant of a strong liege lord. His realm's central position is a prime location to learn about the game's de jure drift mechanic (specifically, how it differs from the previous game).
• Duke Robert of Apulia, a Norman conqueror who has established himself in southern Italy. As an independent ruler seeking to establish a kingdom, you have room to expand and grow with the chance to establish strong alliances with your neighbours. However, beware: while the Byzantine Empire is kept busy by wars with Alp Arslan and his Persian empire, said wars won't last forever, and Apulia is de jure part of the Byzantine Empire.

Starting as the head of a large kingdom may be tempting, but often comes with the great responsibility of pleasing and managing dozens of potentially disloyal vassals. You will often find a strong vassal scheming against you early on, leaving you vulnerable to rebellion or attack if you cannot placate them. Whilst powerful, much of a king's power is drawn from his own personal land holdings, and disloyal vassals teaming up can quickly overwhelm you in a direct conflict.

Playing as a vassal of a larger realm provides you with the protection of your liege, at the cost of paying taxes and providing some of your levies (and you can skimp on those if your liege is not your Rightful Liege). You are however still vulnerable from attack from other members of the same realm, and an angry liege may take actions against you if he sees you as a threat to his power. As all potential choices place you at some risk from scheming and warfare, you should always be alert for potential threats when playing the game, and plan ahead.

Before beginning a game, you may choose to modify some mechanics of the game in the game rules menu to suit your personal preference. This can be found at the bottom of the screen if playing from the bookmark menu. You may choose to play the game on a lower (or higher) difficulty, change the rates of disease, religious heresy, cultural shifts, or alter mechanics like the removal of territorial exclaves or diplomatic range. As many of these mechanics are complex, it is better to leave them untouched during your first ruler.

Before unpausing[edit | edit source]

On loadup you will have automatically zoomed in to see your own realm. In the case of independent rulers you will see independent realms around you, whereas a vassal will see other vassals in their realm as well as their liege's direct holdings.

Before you unpause the game, there are critical tasks that you should take care of. The most crucial tasks are indicated by diamond icons along the top of the screen, the most crucial of which exist on their own, and less crucial ones grouped into a cloverleaf shaped icon with a number inside it.

Most rulers will need to attend to the following tasks on day one:

Choosing a lifestyle[edit | edit source]

During the course of their lives, rulers will focus on many different aspects of governance and personal development that will determine how effective their rule is. In the choose a lifestyle menu, shown in a red diamond with three gold arrows pointing upwards, you will be prompted to choose from 5 different lifestyles, each with 3 different lifestyle focuses. If your ruler is a child, you will not be able to unlock a lifestyle until you reach the age of 16, but you will be able to choose which type of Education Trait to pursue.

The five lifestyles are connected to the five main skill point groups in-game, being diplomacy, martial, stewardship, intrigue and learning. Depending on what kind of education your character received, you will receive a bonus in experience gain in the relevant lifestyle. It can sometimes be advisable to choose a lifestyle that does not match your character's Education Trait if another lifestyle would benefit them more, especially if your character's Lifestyle experience bonus is small.

Choosing a lifestyle focus will immediately give you a bonus to skills or attributes and will begin to unlock further bonuses as you progress in-game. Your choice of lifestyle and focus should reflect the priorities in your realm, which could include earning money, fighting in wars or murdering your enemies. Choosing a focus does not stop you from taking actions connected to other focuses, but you may miss out on benefits from other choices.

Marriage[edit | edit source]

Many rulers in-game will start unmarried, although others may already have a spouse and children. If you have no other eligible family members of your dynasty to inherit, getting married will be a crucial early step to avoid a sudden game over. Finding a spouse before you unpause is crucial because many of the best choices will be married off to other rulers very quickly.

Marriages and betrothals (an arrangement to become married after both of the betrothed come of age at 16) can be used to secure alliances (which can help you to survive early on with support in wars), or to gain claims on titles, which under specific circ*mstances can be passed on to children. Marriages have an impact on the prestige of the spouses as well, based on their house and the relative title ranks of their highest ranking close relative.

Congenital traits (which can potentially be passed on to children, or even augmented if both parents have the trait, and can be either beneficial or detrimental) and fertility, (which is influenced by age, especially for females, who become completely infertile after the age of 45) are important considerations when selecting a spouse. Keep in mind that marrying close relatives (inbreeding) can also result in undesirable congenital traits.

Spouses can also help manage your court, based on their own skills (you can direct your spouse to focus on helping with a particular skill by clicking Choose Task under their portrait on the Council screen, or leave them on the default task of Assist Ruler, which adds a small degree of each of their skills to yours). An especially important skill for the spouse of a ruler is stewardship, as every five points of stewardship increases a character's domain by 1.

A matrilineal marriage will cause any offspring of the marriage to be of the wife's instead of the husband's dynasty. This is important for multiple reasons, including determining which court the couple resides at and the inheritance of titles and claims. The potential spouse's liege (which may be themselves) may prefer a patrilineal or matrilineal marriage, depending on the balance of power between the potential spouses. Note: as of version 1.0.3, female AI rulers won't enter matrilineal marriages. This will inevitably move titles held by independent female rulers out of your dynasty. Until this is patched, female preferred/dominated games or equal gender rights are much harder.

To find a spouse for an unmarried character in your court, click on the silhouette with wedding rings to the right of their character in the character screen, or right click on the character and under the Diplomacy heading, choose Find Spouse. To find a spouse for a character from among your own court, right click on that character's portrait and under the Diplomacy menu, click Arrange Marriage. To select a potential spouse, click on the rectangle that contains the potential spouses' attributes (not the prospective spouse's portrait). A hook or a gift may be used to help persuade the character's liege to allow the marriage. You can narrow down the list of potential spouses by clicking the magnifying glass icon to Toggle Filters, or click the arrow icon, drop-down list or a skill icon to sort the list in ascending or descending order.

Educating children[edit | edit source]

A child tends to develop traits that belong to their guardian, especially their education trait, which gives a bonus to experience gained toward a specific lifestyle. When your own character educates a child, you can make choices that direct what traits the child develops, but some of these choices may produce stress if they are contrary to your character's personality.

Managing your titles[edit | edit source]

As a general rule, always fully control at least the duchy where your Realm Capital is located; doing so helps consolidate your power and avoids offending your vassals who might desire your titles. Conversely, if you have domain counties who are de jure part of your vassals' titles, you might want to make a mental note to eventually dispose of these counties. If you are playing as a count-level ruler and hold multiple titles, its important to note that early game succession for the majority of rulers is limited to a form of partition, which will see the titles divided and made independent upon death. To avoid this, you will want to get to a duchy level title, or higher, as soon as possible, or in rare instances, adopt a different form of succession.

Foreign affairs[edit | edit source]

Look around the neighbourhood and the foreign rulers nearby. Check if they have any claims on your (or your vassals') titles. Also, see if any marriages (and thus alliances) can be made. If playing as a vassal, should your Liege becomes weakened or distracted by other adventures, you should be prepared to join your Liege as an ally to defend your titles. If you are playing as a vassal of a stronger liege lord, check the status of factions in your realm and make sure you are not inadvertently part of a faction that might draw you into an early war (e.g. Duke Vratislav of Bohemia in the 1066 start is a member of the Independence faction in the HRE.)

Status of innovations[edit | edit source]

In 867, many cultures are missing innovations, such as Casus Belli (for De Jure County Claims) and Plenary Assemblies (for Limited Crown Authority, vital for Feudal and Clan rulers as this allows them to revoke titles). Before unpausing, you'll have to decide if you want to pursue the goal of becoming your Culture's Head and thus be able to pick the Innovation for your culture to be Fascinated by. If not, a possible way to hasten Innovation discovery is by increasing the Development of counties of your culture.

Early game[edit | edit source]

After unpausing the game (␣ Space), you can adjust the speed (+/-), as the default speed of 1 is very slow. Faster speeds allow things to go by quickly in peacetime while slower speeds make managing wars easier. Speed 5 causes game time to pass as quickly as your computer can run the simulation and should only be used to pass a large amount of time quickly. Be warned that running the game on Speed 5 can make it difficult to micromanage the different aspects of your realm.

Domestic affairs[edit | edit source]

In addition to foreign affairs, there are often many small domestic affairs that need handling in the first few days. It is important to ensure that your Realm Priest (if your Faith allows for the position) endorses you, which provides a boost to tax and levies. This can be as simple as appointing them to the position of court physician, or might require you to win their approval with gifts or a sway scheme. You might also want to adjust the composition of your council and ensure that powerful vassals are represented to avoid them creating or joining factions against you, and also assign them tasks to perform throughout the realm. Finally, check the status of your laws and succession.

Deal with Factions as Liege[edit | edit source]

Remove Faction Members:

• Obtain Strong Hooks (Send Spymaster to Find Secrets (unreliable), fabricate strong hooks (requires Truth is Relative perk)).
• Alliance (negotiated or marriage).
• Become friends or lovers.
• Increase opinion to over +80 opinion (sway, gifts).
• Transfer 2-tier or lower disloyal vassals to higher-tier loyal vassals.
• Make Faction Member Court Chaplain if Faith permits it (can still join claimant factions).

Push back Discontent:

• Increase Total Soldiers (Increase Martial, hire Mercenaries or Holy Order).
• Hard Rule perk (raises the Discontent threshold).
• Remove another weaker faction (each extra faction lowers Discontent threshold by 5).

Other methods:

• Raise Dread (less effective on characters with bold Traits).
• Assassinate Claimant of Claimant Faction.
• If vassal, may petition Liege for help.

Use Factions as Vassal[edit | edit source]

Why use factions:

• Faction members fight together against their liege.
• Join an already strong claimant Faction to get a Weak Hook on new liege (can be used to modify the vassal contract favorably, although fabricating a hook on liege might be safer and faster).
• Can usurp liege title as the claimant (can create claim with the Meritocracy perk).
• Become independent with the help of vassals.
• Destroy the liege's main title to prevent future reconquest.

When not to use factions:

• Your liege is surrounded by realms which have Faiths which regard your faith (assuming you share the same faith as, or has a similar faith to, your liege) as Hostile or Evil. Becoming independent in such an environment may do more harm than good.
• Your liege is not your Rightful Liege and your Feudal contract is set to Low Obligations (e.g. when you swear fealty to a nearby realm and your potential liege accepts). At this level, you pay almost no taxes or levies while still enjoying your liege's protection. Note that with de jure drift, your liege may eventually become your Rightful Liege.

Tips for vassal:

• Obtain Strong Hooks (Send Spymaster to Find Secrets (unreliable), fabricate strong hooks (requires Truth is Relative perk)) to force other vassals to join factions. It might be the only way, if liege completed the Glory Dynasty Legacy.
• Help an already strong faction to revolt without being part of it, by creating another faction to lower discontent threshold by 5% (revolting vassals cannot join another faction).

Preparing for succession[edit | edit source]

Managing your realm as your character's primary heir after your character's death can be one of the most perilous moments in the game, so it is important to prepare a smooth transition.

• Make sure that your player heir is also your primary heir. Take note of your realm's succession laws and any active elections, and change them if necessary. Ensure that your heir gets the lion's share of your inheritance by selecting the most favorable succession laws available.
• Prevent your realm from fragmenting upon succession if you have both multiple heirs and multiple titles of your highest rank (if above count-equivalent) by creating a higher-tier title or destroying extra titles that are equivalent to your highest rank title. However, please note the following exception: under Confederate Partition, if there are lands inside your highest level title that constitute another De Jure Kingdom whose title has not yet been created - the game will automatically create these titles and assign them to your heirs accordingly.
  • On the flip side, take advantage of Confederate Partition to create titles for your Dynasty. Non-Tribal characters can still consolidate their domain by having 1 county (the capital county) and controlling as many baronies within the capital county as possible. Certain Faiths (those that allow secular characters to hold temples) fare better with this strategy.
• Characters' opinions of your character modify their opinions of your heir upon succession. Dread is useful while your character is alive, but is not inherited by your heir. Either make amends with your domestic enemies or neutralize them when your character becomes old, has health penalties or you suspect that murder plots are underway against your character.
• Don't panic if your realm fragments or powerful factions are created against your character upon succession. You will get claims to any titles that you lose. Plot to take your former realm, even if it takes more than a generation to do so. Remember that unpressed claims are only inherited by your children if you fight a war for those claims while your character is alive.
  • Due to the game's dynastic focus, don't panic if your titles are inherited or otherwise taken by members of your Dynasty.
• Marrying your heir to the relative of a powerful vassal can help protect your heir against factions.

Follow-up[edit | edit source]

Authority[edit | edit source]

• If playing as a feudal liege, remember that you can always lower Crown Authority to ward off liberty factions; the cooldown only applies to increasing Authority.
• If playing as a feudal vassal, remember that you can unilaterally change the feudal contract once per character. If you are not a rightful vassal of your liege, you already have lowered obligations; make use of this by increasing your obligation one step in order to secure a right. What right to secure depends on your situation:
  • If you are of a different culture and/or religion from your liege (and intend to maintain the differences), protection from title revocation should be a priority.
  • If you plan to expand within your liege's realm and your liege is at level 3 crown authority, consider getting sanctioned war declaration.
  • If you wish to increase your income, secure guaranteed Council Rights and force your liege to accept you as Steward; this gives you various monetary benefits.

Succession[edit | edit source]

• Monitor which titles will be lost upon succession: Click the "Succession" tab under the "Realm" window.
• If maintaining realm integrity is desired, get out of Confederate Partition as soon as possible: It is the only succession law which creates new titles upon succession, thus almost guaranteeing a split in your realm unless you restrict the realm to the de jure counties of your primary duchy or kingdom. If expanding, you should aim to occupy at most 50% of the de jure titles of other duchies/kingdoms to avoid having enough land to cause a split.
  • Tribal realms are locked to Confederate Partition; they must reform to either Clan or Feudal government before being able to select other succession types.
  • Feudal rulers can use title succession laws on their primary title to prevent realm fractures; the ruler must not have other titles of the same rank as their primary title.
  • On the flip side, Confederate Partition will increase dynastic Renown gain, due to independent landed dynasts. If this approach is desired, then junior heirs should be given sufficient counties as their power base, so that they are less likely to fold to factions (or lose their title in a civil war).
• If you have a partition succession and multiple heirs, you may want to remove all heirs except one, if possible, so that your primary heir inherits all titles. This is difficult to do, but there are ways. (The easiest way is to make them take the vows and become monks either willingly or after being imprisoned once they are at least 10 years old. Sons with low prowess can be forced to serve as knights, and may die in combat. If you are the dynasty head, you can disinherit all heirs but one, at a cost of renown. If you have the sad*stic personality trait, you can use murder schemes against your children. And so on.)
• If an event allows you to choose an "elective" title succession law, be aware that this only applies to the title in question. For instance, if you play as the King of Scotland (Goidelic culture group) and you have partition succession, switching Scotland to "Tanistry Elective" will not affect how your duchies and counties are distributed. When you die, if your primary heir is not your tanist, you may find yourself playing a new king with very few holdings and a great deal of internal "border gore".
  • If you have another kingdom in addition to Scotland, then Scotland will be completely removed from partition. All your titles under de jure Scotland will be inherited by the tanist, and your children will inherit the second kingdom and other external titles. This will split your former realm but you will not lose all your domain. On the other hand, if this second kingdom is also under tanistry, it will also be removed from partition and your children will only divide your titles outside of both kingdoms. This will not split your realm, but the electors in both kingdoms have to elect the same person.
  • If you only have one kingdom with tanistry and partition, you can save your domain by adding tanistry law to your duchies. This is expensive (1500prestige each) but such a duchy will be removed from partition and its de jure counts (which is usually only you) will vote for the successor of the duchy title. You should appoint the same person who is going to inherit the kingdom.
    • Note that the "one kingdom and multiple elective duchies" case only works when you don't have an elective law at the kingdom level. Basically, anything under an elective title is usually not subject to partition. However, that law disappears if you only have one top level title and that title is elected. So if you only have one kingdom, don't make it elective. Instead, make your duchies elective and vote for the person who will naturally inherit your kingdom. On the other hand, if you have two kingdoms, you can make both of them elective and all titles underneath both will ignore partition.

Exclusive to HRE[edit | edit source]

• Keep track of the other (non-emperor) electors from time to time, as electors do change due to various circ*mstances.
• To become an elector, you must obtain another secular elector title; seizing another theocratic elector title will just result in another theocratic elector.
  • If you are already an elector, obtaining another (secular) elector title will not change the number of electors or give you more votes.

Dynasty[edit | edit source]

• Give titles to dynastic members: Landing Dynasty members allows them to have their own Court, allowing them to better procreate. Under partition type succession, giving titles to junior heirs reduces the number of claims they receive, reducing infighting.
• Allow landed dynastic members to be independent of you: Dynastic members who are Vassals (direct or otherwise) of another dynasty member do not generate Renown.
• Wed dynasty members to non-vassal rulers: Being married to a ruler generates 80% of the Renown that holding their primary title in one's own right does.
• Interests of the Dynasty come first: Consider alliances with dynastic members, and help them with their wars, especially those which would cause them rank demotion due to the loss of their primary title, or allow them to advance in rank. On the other hand, they only need one title to increase their Renown contribution.
  • With dynastic vassals, consider revoking their titles as a last resort.
  • Disgruntled dynastic vassals can be given independence (or granted to your liege as their vassal) so that they don't add power to factions. This has the added advantage of increasing Renown gain.
  • Dynastic wars should be avoided as much as possible.