Crusader Kings III – Guide to maximize Skills for your child in proper direction

Introduction: Skills, Traits and Lifestyle focus

Any Character has Traits, Skills, and Lifestyle focus harmonious combination of which gives you better results.

• Traits
  The first 3 Traits are Personality Traits (rarely character gets 4 Personality Traits), which are obtainable during childhood (during the first 16 years). We will speak about how to get desirable Traits in the next section.

  The 4th Trait is the Education Trait, which character gets at 16 Age due to its education. This Trait is of high importance since it gives a huge boost to your primary Skill and determines your Lifestyle bonus experience. Lifestyle bonus experience facilitates obtaining Perks for your Lifestyle experience tree (click on the round on your Ruler’s image at the left bottom corner).

  Other Traits are :
  – obtainable during your adult life from your Lifestyle experience (Lifestyle Traits);
  – can be inherited from your parents when you are born (Physical Traits);
  – obtainable from your behavior and various incidents or events (wars, for example), such as Commander Traits, Health Traits, Fame Traits

  There is also a Childhood Trait obtained by a child at 3 age (determines its educational focus) and removed at 16. Childhood Trait gives you focus on 2 of 5 Skills. We will speak about how to get a desirable Childhood Trait in the next section.

• Skills
  Skills are essential for the character since they give Effects. The higher skill points, the better Effects. Below is an example of Stewardship:
  

  There are certain milestones (Excellent – above 17, Good – from 13 till 16, Average – from 9 till 12, Poor – from 5 till 8, and Terrible – below 5). The impact of milestones itself is uncertain since the Effect gets boosted with each skill point added (also inside milestone interval).

  That’s obvious that a high amount of skill points in a specific skill gives you much better results in the respective area or with respective Lifestyle.

• Lifestyle focus

  At 6 age, your child gets Education focus. It generally determines the Educational Trait the child gets at the end of its education (its childhood), i.e., at 16. The child gets Education focus depending on your Childhood Trait, which is obtainable at 3 age (one of two skills in Childhood Trait). You can change your Education focus once during education (by clicking Education focus on child character image:
  

  Once a child reaches 16 age and becomes the Ruler, you can choose a Lifestyle for him.
  Obvious that your Top Skill, Education Trait, and chosen Lifestyle should match each other for greater synergy and better results during your rule!

Making your child a super Ruler

1. Once your child is born, you can assign a Guardian which will be educating him (right-click on child image -> Educate Child, then you can change and approve Guardian). Running a little ahead, I would give Educator with high (excellent) skill in the area which you want to focus your child on, good Learning skill, Learning Education Trait and if possible Genius or similar Trait. However, considering the opportunity to roll skill points and traits, the latter requirements seem not 100% mandatory.

2. Each birthday, your child gets from 0 to 4 Base Skill points (4 is very-very rare, 3 is obtainable, and 2 is very common). Base Skill points do not include bonus skill points from Traits (you can see Base Skill point by hovering the mouse over any Skill). To check (remember) your child’s birthday, just hover the mouse over its age:

The amount of skill points seems random. Here we come with certain Hints&Tips:
If you wish you can roll either the amount of skill points (from 0 to 4) or skill points distribution on birthday by saving game before birthday and loading saved game if you did not receive the desirable result. You should save game with certain backup in days before birthday. If you save game just few days before birthday it seems like the game predetermines random events including skill points distribution on birthday. A little bit more than one week should be enough.
I tried to give Guardian with 1) 31 Learning; 2) 22 Learning and Genius Trait; 3) 0 Learning a skill and grew child till 16 age – did not see the real difference in the amount of skill points the child received each birthday. Also was surprised how often the child was getting 2 or 3 points each birthday with Guardian having 0 Learning skill.

3. As mentioned in the previous section, the child gets his first (Childhood) Trait at 3 years birthday. It is random and can be rolled in the right direction similar to skill points. Don’t miss this trait since it will determine your upcoming Education focus (obtainable at 6 age). I tried to give different Guardians (Educators) to children during 0-3 ages to increase the probability of specific Childhood traits, but it seems random (not dependent on the Guardian).

4. At 6 age, your child gets Education focus. Education focus is one of two skills obtained with Childhood Trait. You can change the Education focus once during education by clicking the icon in the child’s image’s left bottom corner (see screenshot in the previous section). Don’t miss this age milestone and change the education focus accordingly.

4. Maximum Base Skill amount during education is limited by 10. Thus no need to roll 4 skill points each birthday – you die faster 😉

5. Your child receives Personality Traits after 9, 11, and 13 age. They appear on a random day during the relevant year (not on birthday); thus, it makes it a little bit difficult to save the game at the right moment to roll these traits.

6. On 16 birthday child gets Education Trait (you have a chance to get an additional trait together with Education Trait). Childhood Trait is removed on 16 birthday. Regarding the number of stars on Education Trait – it seems it is not dependent on Educator’s skills at all. I guess it depends on either the total amount of skill points received during education (16 years) or the number of skill points you were focusing on. After I rolled at least +3 skill points each year and maximized desirable focus skills among others, I tried dozens of tries to get Education Trait below 4 stars (put different educators, removed educator before birthday) with no result…

7. Finally, as an experiment, I was able to “make” a solid Ruler who has 39 base skill points and 58 total skill points (including traits and pets) at 16 age! Long live the King!!!

P.S.: If you wish following a fair play, below is the list of factors which seems influence getting the final high star Education Trait (from the official game forum and game files data mining):

• Whether the child’s education focus matches their childhood trait
• Whether the child is a Genius, Intelligent, Quick, or Shrewd
• Whether the child’s educator is a Genius, Intelligent, Quick, or Shrewd
• The relevant skill of their educator
• The learning attribute of their educator
• Whether they attend university
• Dynasty Legacy buff

Hope you enjoy the Guide about Crusader Kings III – Guide to maximize Skills for your child in the proper direction; if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!