Last updated on February 17th, 2023 at 07:25 pm
Surrounding yourself with as many highly skilled courtiers as possible comes with multiple benefits. It makes filling council positions easy because you have plenty of good candidates, and there are always suitable matches for marriage available right at your court. It might even help your army by providing a pool of excellently trained knights and commanders.
But how do we get these highly skilled courtiers? Easy, we give the children of our current courtiers the best education and train them ourselves. Of course, this strategy can be supplemented by advantageous marriages.
Why bother with educating children?
- Children growing up to be adults earn lifestyle points from the age of 16
- Characters usually receive 25 lifestyle points per month
- Each perk requires 1000 lifestyle points making the wait time for a perk 3 years and 4 months
- The average age of characters is 60 resulting in 13 perks on average
- With the right education, characters can gain up to 45 lifestyle points per month thus dramatically increasing the perks a character can have during a lifetime
- This is also true for characters you are not controlling yourself, who might gain perks that can help your entire realm
- You want to have the best possible heir for your realm (see Succession Guide).
Education timeline
- First 3 years: Children learn the basics without any real outside influence
- 3rd birthday: Children get a childhood trait that will define their personality
- The childhood trait determines two skills the child will excel in and one skill that the child will struggle with
| Childhood Trait | Impact on skills |
| Bossy | Martial +1 Stewardship +1 Struggles with Diplomacy |
| Charming | Diplomacy +1 Intrigue +1 Struggles with Stewardship |
| Curious | Diplomacy +1 Learning +1 Struggles with Martial |
| Pensive | Stewardship +1 Learning +1 Struggles with Intrigue |
| Rowdy | Martial +1 Intrigue +1 Struggles with Learning |
- Children will get extra skill points until adulthood
- Guardians will help with the education
- 6th birthday: You can choose the education focus of the child (bottom left next to their character picture in the character view)
- The chosen education focus should be a skill the child excels in and can be changed one time
- Find children in your court using the Character Finder (Hotkey: C) and set the Relationship filter to “Court” and the Adult filter to “Child”
- You can see the age of every child in your court and their respective childhood traits on this page
- The earlier you choose the education focus the better the education trait is likely to be at the end of childhood
- Each level (up to 4) of the education trait increases the respective skill by 2 points and increases the monthly lifestyle points by 10%
- A focus on Martial also increases the Prowess Skill and might give a random commander trait (see Commander Traits)
Guardians
- The main factors influencing the success of the guardianship are the intellectual traits of the guardian (the worst being Imbecile, the best being Genius)
- A genius guardian is equivalent to a 30 chosen skill and 15 learning character which makes a genius guardian almost always worth it regardless of their skill
- Another factor is the intellectual traits of the child (the worst being Imbecile, the best being Genius)
- For best results pair a genius guardian with a genius child
- The best way to get potential guardians with favorable traits is through marriage (see Marriage Guide)
- The least important factor is the skill of the guardian in the chosen category and the learning skill with the skill in the chosen category still being twice as important as the learning skill
- Educate a child outside of your court if you don’t have the right courtiers (beware of murder plots)
- Personality traits of guardians will rub off on their wards
- Wards of guardians with a commander trait are more likely to get the same commander trait than another one (see Commander Traits)
Additional factors
- The dynasty legacy “Studious Youth” in the “Kin” tree offers better education traits
Educating children yourself
If you are educating children yourself you get events that can influence the personality trait of a child. Try to establish the personality traits in line with the child’s education.
| Skill | Favorable Personality Traits | Unfavorable Personality Traits |
| Intrigue | Callous Sadistic Paranoid Arbitrary Cynical Deceitful Vengeful Lustful | Compassionate Trusting Just Honest Forgiving |
| Martial | Brave Wrathful Zealous | Craven |
| Stewardship | Stubborn Temperate Just Greedy | Gluttonous Arbitrary Fickle Generous |
| Learning | Chaste Patient Cynical | Impatient |
| Diplomacy | Generous Forgiving Gregarious Honest Trusting Compassionate | Callous Deceitful Shy Greedy Vengeful |
Helpful lifestyle traits for educating children yourself
| Lifestyle | Tree | Lifestyle Trait | Bonus |
| Diplomacy | Family Hierarch | Groomed to Rule | 1 to 3 extra skill points for each child |
| Diplomacy | Family Hierarch | Sound Foundations | Each living child gives 1 random skill point |
| Diplomacy | Family Hierarch | Friendly Counsel | Each friend relation gives 2 random skill points |
| Learning | Scholar | Pedagogy | Wards can get additional skills and can become your friends |
| Learning | Scholar | Scholarly Circles | Learning per level of devotion: +2 |
| Learning | Scholar | Learn on the Job | 20% of councilors’ primary skills added to your own |
Before you go …
Now you know how to give your kids the best education possible. However, education is only one piece of the puzzle to the perfect heir to the throne. The perfect children will come only when you also incorporate the inherited genetic traits of you and your spouse into your planning. Read our Marriage Guide for more information on how to find the best spouse …
Crusader Kings 3 – Marriage Guide
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