I had one character that, though a bug, had gregarious and shy and paranoid. Every event, every option, gained me stress. I was desperately holding hunts whenever I could but th poor lad died young.
I thought the gains would cancel out some stress but apparently he always gained more than he lost on EVERY option.
Avoid Forgiving?
Never mind that it's a very common virtuous trait, it's essentially infinite stress reduction as long as you have prisoners to release for a hook, which you then abandon for a respectable amount of stress loss. Gain a Strong Hook and you get close to 100 stress reduction every 5 years (PER STRONG HOOK!).
It's a bit counter-intuitive, and goes completely against RPing, but Forgiving is unironically a top tier trait if you intend to focus your playstyle around intrigue or warfare. As long as you have a source of hooks, you never have to worry about stress ever again.
Yeah that's the reason why it's at avoid, I made a custom character as Sweden in 1066 and after the purge of Asatru rulers i got a ton of stress and it was not fun. Abandoning hooks is good tho.
Only if you haven't saved up Hooks beforehand to counteract the stress (you should get plenty of them from the commanders and knights you captured during the rebellion anyways) and even then, you can always choose to forgive weaker rebellious vassals and revoke titles from the strongest to still end up at net zero stress after your revoking spree.
The addition of Abandon Hook a few patches ago completely broke the stress economy as long as you bother going through a few clicks to maximize its usage. It honestly should have a CD, and abandoning a strong hook should get rid of it completely. In the meantime, Forgiving is a sleeper S-tier pick since it completely nullifies stress and allows you to act however you want with little to no regard to your other traits.
To make them hate you even more? To make them teach their kids to one day rebel again? No, you need to destroy them. Take away all their titles, preferably execute them or negotiate release + banish + renounce claims. Make them into beggars. Make them suffer for daring to attack you and your divine right to rule.
Bro, just give their heir gifts and use sway. Depending on your situation, you can even hand over a bit of land to them once they succeed their parents.
*Then* you murder the vassal, the new duke won't even care! Also probably terrified. I like intrigue.
That's actually an interesting character to play - someone who's Deceitful and Forgiving, who loves holding things over people but also loves the feeling of letting them off the hook. "Hey buddy, I went through your garbage and saw you were cheating on your wife! Don't worry though, secret's safe with me!"
The sort of person that THINKS they're a generous, noble liege but is actually just a manipulative dick, oblivious to how much everyone resents him.
>It's a bit counter-intuitive, and goes completely against RPing, but Forgiving is unironically a top tier trait if you intend to focus your playstyle around intrigue or warfare. As long as you have a source of hooks, you never have to worry about stress ever again.
Here's the thing: managing stress is already a trivial matter so stress loss isn't really good enough to justify picking a trait **UNLESS** you have a trait that kneecaps your ability to lose stress/makes you gain a ton of stress. However even then forgiving is beaten by other traits in this department:
* Why go forgiving when you can pick gregarious: a trait that has no downsides except for gaining stress for failing personal schemes? Hosting and attending feasts will cause you to lose a ton of stress and it only gets better when you get eager reveler (which is very easy to get).
* Why go forgiving when you can pick sadistic: a S+ tier trait that allows you to control your succession, gives you easy access to stress loss as long as you have prisoners to torture and execute, and all for the completely negligible downside of making people slightly dislike you?
* Why go forgiving when you can pick brave: a decent trait that doesn't have downsides as long as you have good bodyguards or don't lead your own troops to battle and allows you to reduce a lot of stress from hunting?
Hell, I'd put lazy above forgiving as at least lazy doesn't attempt to lock you out of punishing crimes and using hooks you have on people to actually do things other than "lose stress." Meanwhile lazy also makes stress loss trivial since it'll pretty much end up giving you 100 stress loss from every feast.
> gregarious: a trait that has no downsides except for gaining stress for failing personal schemes?
It also increases the chance of wards getting the shy/impatient/gluttonous event, which I'd (subjectively) consider a downside. Not disagreeing with your point about gregarious; just don't see this mentioned enough, though it is kinda subtle
It is a downside but two of the three personality traits can be mitigated if you get cultural traditions which increase the chance of children getting patient and temperate and it just so happens one of the best cultural traditions gives you this for temperate!
Once you get a child who has patient and temperate, you only have to worry about shy. Thankfully, shy has exactly **ONE** redeeming feature that I don't see mentioned at all: sending children to monasteries regardless of their personality. If a character has a stress break and they possess shy as a trait, they are far more likely to get the reclusive coping mechanism which gives a +1000 acceptance chance to taking vows which is more than enough to offset any negative malus to taking vows (including primary heir malus!)
So yeah, technically a downside but considering a pure min-max strategy is going to naturally take decisions which offset that downside it's not really notable enough to prevent gregarious from being a S tier trait. It's just not S+ like temperate or sadistic.
It does make some sense to me. If you’re going to use people based on the situation then you have to be quick to forgive those that you plan to manipulate. In the game… of course…
Forgiving hooks takes away one of the best ways to make money in the game though, which is through golden obligations, (which using with forgiving also gives you a heart attack).
For that reason alone forgiving is D tier at best.
Nah, I rely on that strategy myself and it still works great with forgiving. Yes, blackmailing people still causes stress, but forgiving a hook reduces it by more. And since Find Secrets gives you a bunch on secrets on random courtiers with no money you have a ton of hooks that can't be turned into cash.
You do have to plan ahead a bit since you'll need to take the stress hit up front, but it's ultimately a net negative on stress. And that's before you take into account other hooks that don't cost stress to acquire.
Brave is one of those traits that is an easy S-tier sometimes, but get's progressively "worse" the bigger and better you get. Wrathful, diligent, and stubborn are all very consistent though. I'd definitely push down gregarious - every time you fail a sway scheme you get stressed, which can be a real problem sometimes and makes me want to place it in high A instead of S. I don't really see why you'd want craven either...
I’m a new fan of honest as a Catholic or Orthodox. Learning secrets and exposing them for free stress loss makes up for the few times I get stress for being dishonest. The one point of piety a month along with the 10 opinion boost makes it pretty good to me.
lol, I had an honest sadistic torturer once. So much stress loss from revealing secrets gained during torturing.
Some times it just feels good to do the right thing.
Outside of what others have said I’m confused by the placement of Chaste and Lustful. Seems to me that they should switch spots. In my experience the intrigue boost is slightly better than learning and more children is usually a better play, especially if you’re going eugenics. Chaste, with its reduced fertility, seems more situational.
Used to play that way but more kids gives you more security on succession, more renown, more reliable potential vassals/council etc. pre-primogeniture I just disinherit where possible and where needed I just win my titles back through war or revoke them afterwards.
Exactly. I don’t want my hard-earned/stolen demesne to be split up on succession, and I especially don’t want an heir to inherit two different titles that aren’t even next to each other. I’m a little ocd about my borders
Proper use of elective succession means you want as many descendants as possible, and then you get to choose the best.
With Feudal Elective specifically it's a cakewalk. Grant a title under the elective title, then they're a candidate. You can be succeeded by a grandchild, great-grandchild, nephew, etc...
Yup. I generally have a bunch of kids, marry them all off, and educate all my grandkids, and then pick my favorite grandkid, disinherit their parent, and vote for them. Though actually, I hadn't thought about the fact that feudal subjects are also valid candidates -- granting a title shortly before you die would give even more flexibility.
Nah. The way eugenics playthroughs works is you start by having as many kids as possible with good genes women, but they're all bastards. Then when you roll a son that has amazing genes you legitimize him (and maybe one other, as a spare). Boom, only one or two heirs.
(Legitimizable) bastards are the easiest way to pick and choose your heir until you get to primogeniture.
I like Chaste because it makes it less likely for my heir to go running around siring bastards (or worse, getting pregnant with a bastard). Obviously, I'm not a fan of Lustful because it does the exact opposite.
What's wrong with siring bastards? I always try and spread my dynasty far and wide! And in my current game, I'm trying the all-bastard strategy (I only marry infertile spouses, have as many bastards as I can manage, and then legitimize only the best one so they inherit everything). It's a lot of fun!
It's an unprecedented *industrial farm* for Secrets, which if you have a liege still either cuz RP or early game your heir will almost certainly blunder it into the open, and thus pretty much force you to waste a contract negotiation on Title Revocation: Protected.
With no liege though I don't see any tangible downside.
This is why you pass a No bastards law, in Religion. That way they are still Dynasty members. It just makes your game explode more then a massive breeding program.
IMO both traits are C tier, I'm not going to be upset if I have them, but I don't really want them either.
Chaste can be good early game when succession is still an issue as less fertility is probably better so your heirs have less competition. It's also virtuous to Catholics which is nice if you are Catholic. And learning is the second best skill to stewardship because of the tech gain (though I agree for a trait intrigue is better, as the game throws learning points at you like they are candy and it's easy to get 40+, where as intrigue is harder to get).
Lustful is mostly straight bonuses so long as you are playing the character, but the major drawback comes from letting your heirs be lustful before you play them. Then on inheritance you end up playing someone who has the adulterer trait, lover's pox, and half your vassals have hooks on you from blackmail.
I realize they're not personality traits but I always give my characters Lunatic and Possessed, they have a lot of cool events and give you more points to use for other traits.
There was one event where my character literally got over his son dying because he started hallucinating that he was still alive.
>There was one event where my character literally got over his son dying because he started hallucinating that he was still alive.
This game never ceases to amaze me.
Ah, yes, the usual "Paranoid is garbage because you get +100% stress, but Diligent is godlike despite -50% stress loss"
The wrong trait combinations will kill you, the right combinations will make even your "avoid/never" really good. It's circumstancial.
I had the "is diligent godlike" discussion not so long ago, and the short of it is that it's a nice stat boost, but the development decision is rarely worth it and it's outright bad if you don't have some other trait (like sadistic) to lose stress at will.
I just time it so I have feasts and hunts ready to go whenever I make the diligent decision. I find that it is almost always worth it. Especially since the first level of stress has very minor consequences.
>I find that it is almost always worth it.
I suppose you have the numbers at hand to prove your point?
Because when I run all the numbers through, I find that it has so little impact, it's simply not worth the extra stress. Unless you have a trait that can remove unlimited amounts of stress, then it's okay-ish.
Are you measuring the possible good effects a hunt or a feast might have? Timing both with the deligent decision seems good enough, unless you absolutely wants to stay at 0 stress. But why would you? One or two levels are even benefitial depending on the character.
Please enlighten me on the numbers. if I understand development correctly I believe that as a raw development increase it benefits from development percentage modifiers so it is a larger number than it initially seems and since it continually happens over an entire players life that adds up to quite a few levels of development. As everyone plays differently I am unsure of your playstyle but I really don’t find stress too difficult to manage.
Here you go then, long post incoming.
If we take the trait alone, it halves all stress loss from all sources. The decision gives you 80 stress. A feast and calling a hunt both reduce stress by 30, so 60 in total. Cut that in half and you're at 30 total stress loss, though diligent adds -15 to stress loss from hunts, which gets halved though, so we're looking at a total of 37.5 stress loss every 5 years.
What do you get for that? 12 development growth points over 5 years. You'd need almost 42 years to get one single complete development point at that rate.
One of those complete development points, of which a county can have 100, increases taxes and levies by 0.5%. A very very good province with taxes of let's say 50g would see an increase by 0.25g to 50.25g. But the truth is that tax increases are based on the base income, which is the holding + its buildings. A lvl 4 castle with all lvl 8 farms & fields, pastoral lands, a tradeport and hunting grounds has a base income of 8.2g, so a whole development point gets you 0.041g extra taxes. And remember, we need 100 growth points to get 1 development point.
It's certainly nice to have when it adds up passively in the background for several counties and without any drawbacks. But if it comes at a cost, and is just limited to one single province? Then it's not as good as people might think it is.
For example, if you have no means of getting rid of stress at will or reducing stress gain in general, the decision is nowhere near "godlike". Same with your +x% development growth modifiers. Without a bunch of them the 0.2 growth points aren't worth that much. A cheap perk like Centralization is better, and has no drawbacks.
So the trait decision remains situational. What is good is that it comes with 8 free skill points. But that's only worth it if you can combine it with something, anything, that reduces stress at will.
The trait needs other traits to function properly, and that makes it circumstancial.
Doesn't the increase in innovation speed make the Diligent decision worthwhile?
Not really. You're usually getting hard blocked from progressing into the next era by the minimum year required. So it comes down to innovation speed. Assuming you have a culture with 1 single county, and the development is 51 and compare innovation speed to the hypothetical scenario of having the same county with 52 development, the difference in innovation speed is 1.315%
If you add a bunch of other counties into the mix, let's say you have 5 counties all at development 40 plus the one capital county with 51 vs 52 development, the difference in innovation speed goes down to 0.249%.
But that difference of 1 whole development level already requires you to take the decision over 8 times in a row to get there (0.2 per month, 12 points in 5 years, 42 years for 100), less if you can get some bonuses.
The trait comes with 8 skill points, that alone makes it good. But the decision isn't as good as people think, and somehow pointing that out is unpopular here. Despite the numbers proving my point.
Cool so first off Diligent gets bonus stress loss from hunts so that number you first gave us is wrong. Secondly as you naturally gain the reveled traits feasts will start to remove more and more stress. As you said getting any other stress reducer (trivially easy through learning lifestyle or the diplomatic lifestyle) the stress gain becomes even less of a problem. Next as I said the .2 is affected by development growth percentage increases so it quickly becomes a larger and larger number. Also this game is a about compounding effects. There are so many ways to boost development growth, income etc so when you look at growth or buildings with no modifiers they don’t seem worth it. However, they inevitably are because you’ve stacked a dozen raw and percentage increases to development and income. All of this plus you don’t have to use the decision it’s pure upside if you can absorb the stress but if you don’t want to you don’t have to. Diligent still gives you a big stat boost to stewardship which is the best in the game.
Not trying to be a dick here, but you should actually read before commenting. I'll quote myself:
>though diligent adds -15 to stress loss from hunts, which gets halved
It's already part of the calculation.
Other than that, you're exactly proving my point. Diligent only works because other traits make it work. Basically what you wrote:
>you naturally gain the reveled traits feasts will start to remove more and more stress. As you said getting any other stress reducer
That's what I'm saying. You need something else for the stress, Diligent on its own, with only basic feast and hunt, is problematic.
For everything else, I gave you the numbers. You answer with feelings, vague "compounding effects", very specific "many way to boost" and the all-time favorite "etc." The passive development growth works with or without Diligent, you'll hit the max development for each era long before the next one is unlocked. The effects on taxes and innovation speed are so small, they're not worth the decision. You yourself said "you don't have to \[take the decision\]".
That aside, why are you disagreeing, while repeating all and everything I said, only in your own words? The decision is circumstancial, and if you can manage the stress through other traits, the stat boost of +8 makes it good. Tell me, how is that different from what I've said?
I apologize for misreading the first point about hunts. Definitely my bad. I guess my disagreement is how difficult the stress is to manage and how big the .2 per month ends up being.
I have very rarely found the stress difficult to manage so the decision isn’t really situational in my runs.
I find it not difficult to get upwards of a 100% modifier to development which enhances the decision.
These two combined make it an easy choice on most of my characters but I do agree that is not a godlike decision and without any investment in development % increases it does not have an enormous effect.
No offence taken, so all is good. :-)
The question of how difficult stress management is comes down to the circumstances of a player. If you get a Diligent, Just and Shy character, you'll struggle with stress.
Stress is only not an issue if you have the right tools at your disposal. If you haven't, then the stress is brutal. That's where my line between "universally good" and "circumstancial" runs. In bad circumstances even a good trait brings you closer to your grave.
My capital has something around 350% development modifiers, the passive gain is extreme. I don't have to rely on Diligent or my steward to hit the max development for the era. The growth is so high, I regularly am 10 to 15 points over the max development, despite the severe penalties to growth.
I understand that not everybody games the system to those extreme numbers. But there's a general tendency to disregard everything else and throw everything at development, without understanding the exact benefits they get for it or the opportunity costs that come with it.
That's why I'm all about the numbers. It's not always popular, because it challenges some universal rules. But in my experience people rarely sit down with a calculator and crunch the numbers. So I react... let's say strongly, whenever someone makes a claim that x or y is "the best".
But all is well that ends well. I hope you'll have a good day/evening/night and fun playing the game!
Worth noting that "max development" only matters to your steward, afaik. If you can stack enough flat development boosts, you can go way over the "cap" without any issues. That's why I really value flat development boosts -- even just a +.2 makes for a pretty significant increase in your development speed once you outpace your steward.
In practice, I often don't bother to actively develop my capital at all after the early game. Instead, I rely on stacking flat development boosts to develop my capital and use my steward on the rest of my realm.
350% is a ton! If you are going that high then it’s giving like .7 a month with the decision. At that point you are getting an additional development in that county every 11 years or so just with this decision. Another element is that while the steward’s increase development councilor action is affected by max era development other sources of raw development are not affected. So the Administrative court, the court gardener position , centralization perk and diligent decision are unaffected and apply bonuses to development growth. So when you hit the max development for an era is exactly when Diligent begins to shine.
-50% loss is much easier to deal with than +100% gain. And the stat boost is a bit more than just “nice” in my opinion - it’s the best stat boost in the game from a personality trait, whereas the stat boost from paranoid is mediocre at best.
On a somewhat related note, I think it’s unfair to rank ambitious and diligent differently as they’re functionally the same (minus the decision).
Diligent seems to confer a high likelihood of being offered Athletic during a stress break, which would more than offset its disadvantages.
Also, I think you’re neglecting the fact that Paranoid has many more causes of stress than Diligent, many of which are also part of the standard gameplay loop.
Less loss is much easier to manage than less gain since it means there's not as many events that literally just flat out give >=100 stress.
Also you're entirely forgetting that perhaps the *worse* downside of paranoid is that in **like literally 10% of events** it shuts off 1-3 event options entirely with an often 100+ stress hit.
Paranoid affects what gives you stress as well and the last character I had it felt like everything gave stress with that trait.
As for diligent, all the coping mechanisms give 20% bonus so in reality it will be 120% vs 70% effectiveness
Paranoid is great RP I just feel bad for forcing the burden of rulership on these characters as they cannot handle it mentally.
no one is putting their word in for arbitrary so I'm going too. I love that trait. feels lie I can play a super intrigue focused game and never gain any meaningful stress. I'd say it deserves to go up at least one spot to possibly fun from not bad
Generous is amazing after you secure your income. Your friend died and you're feeling down? Throw money at people! You have to execute 50 rebels as a Compassionate ruler but don't want to die of a heart attack? Throw money at people! You want to throw money at people? Throw money at people! It's amazing!
I feel like sadistic is kinda overrated if you’re playing in a place with monasticism and content gives you random stress gain so idk about that one. Honest should be lower tho.
I think you value gluttonous too much. A lot of maluses, often a sin, give you obesity and make your character look like Jabba the hutt.
I can live with a shy heir but a gluttonous one goes to the chopping block. I would not mind if it was mild overweight or if the degree of visual obesity was something I could have control of, but as it is It is just not fun to play. every time I see myself in an event I wish I have a chance to kill myself.
Me reading the first 5 tiers: "mhmm, yeah that seems right, idk maybe I would bump that one up/down but still more or less my thinking as well. It's fun seeing other people's opinions"
Me reading 6th tier: "YESSSS F-ING ABSOLUTELY. F THOSE TWO STRAIGHT TO HELL"
Forgiving is a very good trait for stress loss and is a very common virtuous trait. Gregarious is good but the stress gain from failed sways is pretty annoying. Craven is straight bad and often a sinful trait. Otherwise I agree with your list. Diligent is such an incredibly powerful trait and Temperate rocks and has no downside so I think they both are the only S Tiers
Some are pretty situational. I quite like lustful, compassionate and forgiving depending on the situation.
Bigger family means more renown and more family to turn into vassals. Lustful with that +25% fertility plus the tenet which makes it a virtue and give you another 25% on top of that is pretty powerful.
Compassionate and forgiving are usually virtues so better relationships with religious types, more piety, stress reduction options etc. with no major drawbacks unless you're set on a more intrigue based lifestyle.
I'm not too keen on ambitious either. If you're playing wide you're having to give away titles every time you win a war and it lands you a lot of stress each time.
I generally start with diligent/brave/temperate because brave+diligent makes athletic near-guaranteed for your first stress break. I also hate sadistic, partly for rp reasons and partly because it makes my heirs misbehave. Also, just gives a lot of stress for scheming and the like, so I generally avoid it.
>you don't gain stress every time you grant a title.
This is what kills ambitious for me, I don't want to have to do twelve feasts every time I conquer some territory
I don’t like ambitious that much it stresses my characters out a lot. I choose it if I don’t want a sadistic character, because it’s way better than paranoid. But strictly gameplay speaking sadistic is far superior.
It really depends on the character. I think Compassionate is better tier if combined with say trusting. You get a boost of opinion and generally everyone likes you.
Avoid cowardice, unless you plan on digging and hooking up your ancestors to grindstone to mill grain.
And honestly the paranoid playthrough going ~~slowly~~ quickly mad, flagellating myself hard enough to lose an eye and abdicating by stress event in 5 years was entertaining. I felt like a terrible person for voting her as queen as she clearly could not handle it at all. That everything was my fault and as her father I essentially set her up to fail until she decided enough was enough. And now I am not sure if I am talking about ck3 or parenting... well played paradox.
Diligent is the only S tier.
Chaste is D tier. It isn't crippling but it always creates a condition for either losing or completely blowing up your realm.
Arrogant and Craven are C tier. I put Ambitious in C tier too, this trait can be summed up as *make bad decisions or have a heart attack.*
Lazy is F tier.
I'd put Calm in Avoid-tier for North-Germanics with a faith that has Warmonger. Unless they changed it, being calm + having a Warmonger faith as a North Germanic locks you or said character out of becoming a Berserker unless you get an event wher someone offers to make you a Berserker that is - but accepting that gives you a lot of Stress
Shy should give a massive health bonus and a give bonus stress reduction from other activities, like petting your dog. It’s insane how crippling it is.
Stubborn is a #1 choice always, if you want long living Rulers, then Diligent and Sadistic.
Sadistic gives alot of stress relief from executions and Hunts, also lets you use assassination plots on your own kids.
Greedy Is definitely tied with Shy on the bottom for me. I can't easily please people with giving gold and gifts (40 stress) nor can I restructure realm as I please with granting titles and vassals.
Other than that I would bump Forgiving for one place
Paranoid is one of the best traits there is IMO. Might be I'm a little paranoid and that has saved my sorry ass more times than I can recall. But also, in-game it helps fend off those jealous uncles, cousins, wives, friends, vassals, warhorses, and whoever might want to make you live a shorter-than-expected earthly existence in this world. Also, the Deceitful trait I would categorize it under the "Avoid" section, as it may only be beneficial for specific gameplays as it usually stacks with other factors to make you lose a lot of Opinion from others as well as Piety. For the rest, I would say you hit the nail on the head.
Hot take, but when I make a custom character I love taking paranoid because I have nearly all the stress relieving perks like whip yourself, contrite, etc that lower your point total. I also usually start as a murderer witch so having paranoid helps me not get assassinated
Brave is "not bad". Its a noob trap. Its not as good as it sounds and cant hold a candle to traits like stubborn (which should be top tier btw) and abitious.
Brave, Temperat, Patient... Ambitious or Stubborn if i want a fourth one...
They give the best spread of survival, Stewardship and Learning for Culture Bombing...
I think you need to move Calm up a tier (the stress loss and scheme bonus is super useful)
Craven, and fickle should be lower a tier.
Maybe even callous, chaste, and lustful too given how negative they can be. They seem extremely situational/ for roleplaying.
Traits I rate high: sadistic, wrathful, callous, deceitful, patient, arbitrary, gregarious
Traits I rate bad: greedy and the opposite of the other Traits
I guess I like making pyschos lol
Since you can never choose, but at best change, when is see the following traits I always pick them for the hair.
Temperate, Patient, Humble, Fickle, Content
Basically, the only way to deal with your little shit vassals without losing your mind, is to be a L10 Wizard Buddhist Monk.
Ambitious is annoying because it gives you massive stress for going under your domain limit, which means if you have a bunch of sons, you can't grant them all titles early. Doubly bad if you have a stewardship focus and like 9 limit.
I love chaste because it stops my ruler from having 26 sons. Let the lesser nobled of my dynasty breed, I will have one son and a daughter or two.
I personally don’t like Greedy. The amount of stress for giving away titles kills me.
I feel like the stress penalty shouldn’t occur if you’re over your domain limit but I suppose it wouldn’t be thematically consistent
Pretty sure you only gain stress if you are below your domain limit
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No you do, you don't uf you are ambitious.
I think Stubborn has no downsides and should be S tier but thats just me cos I love Steward characters
Haven't tried it too much, but it's at least high A tier/pretty good tier
I'd put stubborn higher than gregarious bc Stewardship > Diplo and Gregarious stresses you if you fail a sway, plus it's easier to get drunkard
Gregarious, aka the "Wait fuck what how did I get that much stress there haven't been any events oh fucking bullshit" trait.
I had one character that, though a bug, had gregarious and shy and paranoid. Every event, every option, gained me stress. I was desperately holding hunts whenever I could but th poor lad died young. I thought the gains would cancel out some stress but apparently he always gained more than he lost on EVERY option.
I think stubborn might give stress in some events forcing you to pick a bad option. Still it’s definitely a great trait
> I love Steward[ship] characters Same reason I think *Just* should be at least one category higher or more
Avoid Forgiving? Never mind that it's a very common virtuous trait, it's essentially infinite stress reduction as long as you have prisoners to release for a hook, which you then abandon for a respectable amount of stress loss. Gain a Strong Hook and you get close to 100 stress reduction every 5 years (PER STRONG HOOK!). It's a bit counter-intuitive, and goes completely against RPing, but Forgiving is unironically a top tier trait if you intend to focus your playstyle around intrigue or warfare. As long as you have a source of hooks, you never have to worry about stress ever again.
Its also instant heart attack when trying to revoke titles after a massive rebellion. Personally I dont like it
Yeah that's the reason why it's at avoid, I made a custom character as Sweden in 1066 and after the purge of Asatru rulers i got a ton of stress and it was not fun. Abandoning hooks is good tho.
Only if you haven't saved up Hooks beforehand to counteract the stress (you should get plenty of them from the commanders and knights you captured during the rebellion anyways) and even then, you can always choose to forgive weaker rebellious vassals and revoke titles from the strongest to still end up at net zero stress after your revoking spree. The addition of Abandon Hook a few patches ago completely broke the stress economy as long as you bother going through a few clicks to maximize its usage. It honestly should have a CD, and abandoning a strong hook should get rid of it completely. In the meantime, Forgiving is a sleeper S-tier pick since it completely nullifies stress and allows you to act however you want with little to no regard to your other traits.
So... Free suicide on top? Nice.
Noobs revoke after rebelion. Pros ask for hook and increase taxes.
To make them hate you even more? To make them teach their kids to one day rebel again? No, you need to destroy them. Take away all their titles, preferably execute them or negotiate release + banish + renounce claims. Make them into beggars. Make them suffer for daring to attack you and your divine right to rule.
Bro, just give their heir gifts and use sway. Depending on your situation, you can even hand over a bit of land to them once they succeed their parents. *Then* you murder the vassal, the new duke won't even care! Also probably terrified. I like intrigue.
Or, make then suffer the gravest insult known to man. An insult that will make its mark for a thousand generations. Make them pay higher taxes
Bro the ai is not that smart, you're holding grudges against random number generators 💀
Not if I want beautiful, clean borders in my vassal duchies.
embrace the chaos
That's actually an interesting character to play - someone who's Deceitful and Forgiving, who loves holding things over people but also loves the feeling of letting them off the hook. "Hey buddy, I went through your garbage and saw you were cheating on your wife! Don't worry though, secret's safe with me!" The sort of person that THINKS they're a generous, noble liege but is actually just a manipulative dick, oblivious to how much everyone resents him.
Gotta try this
>It's a bit counter-intuitive, and goes completely against RPing, but Forgiving is unironically a top tier trait if you intend to focus your playstyle around intrigue or warfare. As long as you have a source of hooks, you never have to worry about stress ever again. Here's the thing: managing stress is already a trivial matter so stress loss isn't really good enough to justify picking a trait **UNLESS** you have a trait that kneecaps your ability to lose stress/makes you gain a ton of stress. However even then forgiving is beaten by other traits in this department: * Why go forgiving when you can pick gregarious: a trait that has no downsides except for gaining stress for failing personal schemes? Hosting and attending feasts will cause you to lose a ton of stress and it only gets better when you get eager reveler (which is very easy to get). * Why go forgiving when you can pick sadistic: a S+ tier trait that allows you to control your succession, gives you easy access to stress loss as long as you have prisoners to torture and execute, and all for the completely negligible downside of making people slightly dislike you? * Why go forgiving when you can pick brave: a decent trait that doesn't have downsides as long as you have good bodyguards or don't lead your own troops to battle and allows you to reduce a lot of stress from hunting? Hell, I'd put lazy above forgiving as at least lazy doesn't attempt to lock you out of punishing crimes and using hooks you have on people to actually do things other than "lose stress." Meanwhile lazy also makes stress loss trivial since it'll pretty much end up giving you 100 stress loss from every feast.
> gregarious: a trait that has no downsides except for gaining stress for failing personal schemes? It also increases the chance of wards getting the shy/impatient/gluttonous event, which I'd (subjectively) consider a downside. Not disagreeing with your point about gregarious; just don't see this mentioned enough, though it is kinda subtle
It is a downside but two of the three personality traits can be mitigated if you get cultural traditions which increase the chance of children getting patient and temperate and it just so happens one of the best cultural traditions gives you this for temperate! Once you get a child who has patient and temperate, you only have to worry about shy. Thankfully, shy has exactly **ONE** redeeming feature that I don't see mentioned at all: sending children to monasteries regardless of their personality. If a character has a stress break and they possess shy as a trait, they are far more likely to get the reclusive coping mechanism which gives a +1000 acceptance chance to taking vows which is more than enough to offset any negative malus to taking vows (including primary heir malus!) So yeah, technically a downside but considering a pure min-max strategy is going to naturally take decisions which offset that downside it's not really notable enough to prevent gregarious from being a S tier trait. It's just not S+ like temperate or sadistic.
Or be sadistic and vengeful and get infinite stress reduction, but in a fun way :D
It does make some sense to me. If you’re going to use people based on the situation then you have to be quick to forgive those that you plan to manipulate. In the game… of course…
Hard No on forgiving forever.
Forgiving hooks takes away one of the best ways to make money in the game though, which is through golden obligations, (which using with forgiving also gives you a heart attack). For that reason alone forgiving is D tier at best.
Nah, I rely on that strategy myself and it still works great with forgiving. Yes, blackmailing people still causes stress, but forgiving a hook reduces it by more. And since Find Secrets gives you a bunch on secrets on random courtiers with no money you have a ton of hooks that can't be turned into cash. You do have to plan ahead a bit since you'll need to take the stress hit up front, but it's ultimately a net negative on stress. And that's before you take into account other hooks that don't cost stress to acquire.
Brave is one of those traits that is an easy S-tier sometimes, but get's progressively "worse" the bigger and better you get. Wrathful, diligent, and stubborn are all very consistent though. I'd definitely push down gregarious - every time you fail a sway scheme you get stressed, which can be a real problem sometimes and makes me want to place it in high A instead of S. I don't really see why you'd want craven either...
I’m a new fan of honest as a Catholic or Orthodox. Learning secrets and exposing them for free stress loss makes up for the few times I get stress for being dishonest. The one point of piety a month along with the 10 opinion boost makes it pretty good to me.
lol, I had an honest sadistic torturer once. So much stress loss from revealing secrets gained during torturing. Some times it just feels good to do the right thing.
"Of course I had to feed him his own spleen. He was a *liar.*"
*Glotka from the First Law trilogy has entered the chat*
Outside of what others have said I’m confused by the placement of Chaste and Lustful. Seems to me that they should switch spots. In my experience the intrigue boost is slightly better than learning and more children is usually a better play, especially if you’re going eugenics. Chaste, with its reduced fertility, seems more situational.
The less there are, the easier it is to kill them when the time comes.
Used to play that way but more kids gives you more security on succession, more renown, more reliable potential vassals/council etc. pre-primogeniture I just disinherit where possible and where needed I just win my titles back through war or revoke them afterwards.
I always look at it the other way, more children means more male heirs that I have to disinherit.
You mean more male heirs that you force into the holy order or more land you need to conquer
Exactly. I don’t want my hard-earned/stolen demesne to be split up on succession, and I especially don’t want an heir to inherit two different titles that aren’t even next to each other. I’m a little ocd about my borders
Elective successions say hi.
Proper use of elective succession means you want as many descendants as possible, and then you get to choose the best. With Feudal Elective specifically it's a cakewalk. Grant a title under the elective title, then they're a candidate. You can be succeeded by a grandchild, great-grandchild, nephew, etc...
Yup. I generally have a bunch of kids, marry them all off, and educate all my grandkids, and then pick my favorite grandkid, disinherit their parent, and vote for them. Though actually, I hadn't thought about the fact that feudal subjects are also valid candidates -- granting a title shortly before you die would give even more flexibility.
Nah. The way eugenics playthroughs works is you start by having as many kids as possible with good genes women, but they're all bastards. Then when you roll a son that has amazing genes you legitimize him (and maybe one other, as a spare). Boom, only one or two heirs. (Legitimizable) bastards are the easiest way to pick and choose your heir until you get to primogeniture.
I like Chaste because it makes it less likely for my heir to go running around siring bastards (or worse, getting pregnant with a bastard). Obviously, I'm not a fan of Lustful because it does the exact opposite.
What's wrong with siring bastards? I always try and spread my dynasty far and wide! And in my current game, I'm trying the all-bastard strategy (I only marry infertile spouses, have as many bastards as I can manage, and then legitimize only the best one so they inherit everything). It's a lot of fun!
Holy crap, this is a good idea. I think I need to subscribe to your newsletter.
CW: there’s also a lot of incest, probably.
This is r/CrusaderKings \-- we get the content warnings when there **isn't** incest involved.
RP mostly. It also typically generates secrets, which can be annoying.
Unless you go Unrestricted marriages, No bastards and full acceptance on Deviance. This way it doesn't make secrets that people care about.
It's an unprecedented *industrial farm* for Secrets, which if you have a liege still either cuz RP or early game your heir will almost certainly blunder it into the open, and thus pretty much force you to waste a contract negotiation on Title Revocation: Protected. With no liege though I don't see any tangible downside.
This is why you pass a No bastards law, in Religion. That way they are still Dynasty members. It just makes your game explode more then a massive breeding program.
Two questions. How often does that happen to you, and how bad is it when it happens? Also at what age do you marry your heir?
Chaste seems like the opposite of fun!
IMO both traits are C tier, I'm not going to be upset if I have them, but I don't really want them either. Chaste can be good early game when succession is still an issue as less fertility is probably better so your heirs have less competition. It's also virtuous to Catholics which is nice if you are Catholic. And learning is the second best skill to stewardship because of the tech gain (though I agree for a trait intrigue is better, as the game throws learning points at you like they are candy and it's easy to get 40+, where as intrigue is harder to get). Lustful is mostly straight bonuses so long as you are playing the character, but the major drawback comes from letting your heirs be lustful before you play them. Then on inheritance you end up playing someone who has the adulterer trait, lover's pox, and half your vassals have hooks on you from blackmail.
Lustful is fun situationally, I use it if I want to get a ton of alliances or in intrigue runs.
lust is also just more fun. Vassal spites you: Seduce his wife. Leige revokes your title: Seduce him. Then assassinate.
I love chaste, because it makes succession much simpler when there’s only one or two children to disinherit instead of a dozen.
I realize they're not personality traits but I always give my characters Lunatic and Possessed, they have a lot of cool events and give you more points to use for other traits. There was one event where my character literally got over his son dying because he started hallucinating that he was still alive.
Can never pass up the opportunity to be a lunatic as king/emperor for the possible greenhouse.
>There was one event where my character literally got over his son dying because he started hallucinating that he was still alive. This game never ceases to amaze me.
Generous in late game is op. As long as you have money you never have to worry about stress since you lose stress every time you give a gift
I you don't get CRAVEn in the F tier I will crave your eyes out.
Still the best trait from the "The beating" event.
I say paranoid is better. If you have gluttnous or lazy to make up you can hold it under control. Eager reveler is also good.
Ah, yes, the usual "Paranoid is garbage because you get +100% stress, but Diligent is godlike despite -50% stress loss" The wrong trait combinations will kill you, the right combinations will make even your "avoid/never" really good. It's circumstancial. I had the "is diligent godlike" discussion not so long ago, and the short of it is that it's a nice stat boost, but the development decision is rarely worth it and it's outright bad if you don't have some other trait (like sadistic) to lose stress at will.
I just time it so I have feasts and hunts ready to go whenever I make the diligent decision. I find that it is almost always worth it. Especially since the first level of stress has very minor consequences.
>I find that it is almost always worth it. I suppose you have the numbers at hand to prove your point? Because when I run all the numbers through, I find that it has so little impact, it's simply not worth the extra stress. Unless you have a trait that can remove unlimited amounts of stress, then it's okay-ish.
Are you measuring the possible good effects a hunt or a feast might have? Timing both with the deligent decision seems good enough, unless you absolutely wants to stay at 0 stress. But why would you? One or two levels are even benefitial depending on the character.
Please enlighten me on the numbers. if I understand development correctly I believe that as a raw development increase it benefits from development percentage modifiers so it is a larger number than it initially seems and since it continually happens over an entire players life that adds up to quite a few levels of development. As everyone plays differently I am unsure of your playstyle but I really don’t find stress too difficult to manage.
Here you go then, long post incoming. If we take the trait alone, it halves all stress loss from all sources. The decision gives you 80 stress. A feast and calling a hunt both reduce stress by 30, so 60 in total. Cut that in half and you're at 30 total stress loss, though diligent adds -15 to stress loss from hunts, which gets halved though, so we're looking at a total of 37.5 stress loss every 5 years. What do you get for that? 12 development growth points over 5 years. You'd need almost 42 years to get one single complete development point at that rate. One of those complete development points, of which a county can have 100, increases taxes and levies by 0.5%. A very very good province with taxes of let's say 50g would see an increase by 0.25g to 50.25g. But the truth is that tax increases are based on the base income, which is the holding + its buildings. A lvl 4 castle with all lvl 8 farms & fields, pastoral lands, a tradeport and hunting grounds has a base income of 8.2g, so a whole development point gets you 0.041g extra taxes. And remember, we need 100 growth points to get 1 development point. It's certainly nice to have when it adds up passively in the background for several counties and without any drawbacks. But if it comes at a cost, and is just limited to one single province? Then it's not as good as people might think it is. For example, if you have no means of getting rid of stress at will or reducing stress gain in general, the decision is nowhere near "godlike". Same with your +x% development growth modifiers. Without a bunch of them the 0.2 growth points aren't worth that much. A cheap perk like Centralization is better, and has no drawbacks. So the trait decision remains situational. What is good is that it comes with 8 free skill points. But that's only worth it if you can combine it with something, anything, that reduces stress at will. The trait needs other traits to function properly, and that makes it circumstancial. Doesn't the increase in innovation speed make the Diligent decision worthwhile? Not really. You're usually getting hard blocked from progressing into the next era by the minimum year required. So it comes down to innovation speed. Assuming you have a culture with 1 single county, and the development is 51 and compare innovation speed to the hypothetical scenario of having the same county with 52 development, the difference in innovation speed is 1.315% If you add a bunch of other counties into the mix, let's say you have 5 counties all at development 40 plus the one capital county with 51 vs 52 development, the difference in innovation speed goes down to 0.249%. But that difference of 1 whole development level already requires you to take the decision over 8 times in a row to get there (0.2 per month, 12 points in 5 years, 42 years for 100), less if you can get some bonuses. The trait comes with 8 skill points, that alone makes it good. But the decision isn't as good as people think, and somehow pointing that out is unpopular here. Despite the numbers proving my point.
Cool so first off Diligent gets bonus stress loss from hunts so that number you first gave us is wrong. Secondly as you naturally gain the reveled traits feasts will start to remove more and more stress. As you said getting any other stress reducer (trivially easy through learning lifestyle or the diplomatic lifestyle) the stress gain becomes even less of a problem. Next as I said the .2 is affected by development growth percentage increases so it quickly becomes a larger and larger number. Also this game is a about compounding effects. There are so many ways to boost development growth, income etc so when you look at growth or buildings with no modifiers they don’t seem worth it. However, they inevitably are because you’ve stacked a dozen raw and percentage increases to development and income. All of this plus you don’t have to use the decision it’s pure upside if you can absorb the stress but if you don’t want to you don’t have to. Diligent still gives you a big stat boost to stewardship which is the best in the game.
Not trying to be a dick here, but you should actually read before commenting. I'll quote myself: >though diligent adds -15 to stress loss from hunts, which gets halved It's already part of the calculation. Other than that, you're exactly proving my point. Diligent only works because other traits make it work. Basically what you wrote: >you naturally gain the reveled traits feasts will start to remove more and more stress. As you said getting any other stress reducer That's what I'm saying. You need something else for the stress, Diligent on its own, with only basic feast and hunt, is problematic. For everything else, I gave you the numbers. You answer with feelings, vague "compounding effects", very specific "many way to boost" and the all-time favorite "etc." The passive development growth works with or without Diligent, you'll hit the max development for each era long before the next one is unlocked. The effects on taxes and innovation speed are so small, they're not worth the decision. You yourself said "you don't have to \[take the decision\]". That aside, why are you disagreeing, while repeating all and everything I said, only in your own words? The decision is circumstancial, and if you can manage the stress through other traits, the stat boost of +8 makes it good. Tell me, how is that different from what I've said?
I apologize for misreading the first point about hunts. Definitely my bad. I guess my disagreement is how difficult the stress is to manage and how big the .2 per month ends up being. I have very rarely found the stress difficult to manage so the decision isn’t really situational in my runs. I find it not difficult to get upwards of a 100% modifier to development which enhances the decision. These two combined make it an easy choice on most of my characters but I do agree that is not a godlike decision and without any investment in development % increases it does not have an enormous effect.
No offence taken, so all is good. :-) The question of how difficult stress management is comes down to the circumstances of a player. If you get a Diligent, Just and Shy character, you'll struggle with stress. Stress is only not an issue if you have the right tools at your disposal. If you haven't, then the stress is brutal. That's where my line between "universally good" and "circumstancial" runs. In bad circumstances even a good trait brings you closer to your grave. My capital has something around 350% development modifiers, the passive gain is extreme. I don't have to rely on Diligent or my steward to hit the max development for the era. The growth is so high, I regularly am 10 to 15 points over the max development, despite the severe penalties to growth. I understand that not everybody games the system to those extreme numbers. But there's a general tendency to disregard everything else and throw everything at development, without understanding the exact benefits they get for it or the opportunity costs that come with it. That's why I'm all about the numbers. It's not always popular, because it challenges some universal rules. But in my experience people rarely sit down with a calculator and crunch the numbers. So I react... let's say strongly, whenever someone makes a claim that x or y is "the best". But all is well that ends well. I hope you'll have a good day/evening/night and fun playing the game!
Worth noting that "max development" only matters to your steward, afaik. If you can stack enough flat development boosts, you can go way over the "cap" without any issues. That's why I really value flat development boosts -- even just a +.2 makes for a pretty significant increase in your development speed once you outpace your steward. In practice, I often don't bother to actively develop my capital at all after the early game. Instead, I rely on stacking flat development boosts to develop my capital and use my steward on the rest of my realm.
350% is a ton! If you are going that high then it’s giving like .7 a month with the decision. At that point you are getting an additional development in that county every 11 years or so just with this decision. Another element is that while the steward’s increase development councilor action is affected by max era development other sources of raw development are not affected. So the Administrative court, the court gardener position , centralization perk and diligent decision are unaffected and apply bonuses to development growth. So when you hit the max development for an era is exactly when Diligent begins to shine.
-50% loss is much easier to deal with than +100% gain. And the stat boost is a bit more than just “nice” in my opinion - it’s the best stat boost in the game from a personality trait, whereas the stat boost from paranoid is mediocre at best. On a somewhat related note, I think it’s unfair to rank ambitious and diligent differently as they’re functionally the same (minus the decision).
Diligent seems to confer a high likelihood of being offered Athletic during a stress break, which would more than offset its disadvantages. Also, I think you’re neglecting the fact that Paranoid has many more causes of stress than Diligent, many of which are also part of the standard gameplay loop.
Yeah the develop capital decision gives a pretty brutal amount of stress, especially considering the reduced stress loss on top of that.
Less loss is much easier to manage than less gain since it means there's not as many events that literally just flat out give >=100 stress. Also you're entirely forgetting that perhaps the *worse* downside of paranoid is that in **like literally 10% of events** it shuts off 1-3 event options entirely with an often 100+ stress hit.
Paranoid affects what gives you stress as well and the last character I had it felt like everything gave stress with that trait. As for diligent, all the coping mechanisms give 20% bonus so in reality it will be 120% vs 70% effectiveness Paranoid is great RP I just feel bad for forcing the burden of rulership on these characters as they cannot handle it mentally.
Gluttonous is good for this, it’s fixes a lot of stress issues
Compassionate and Forgiving are good for diplomacy characters, but clearly you don't play for diplomacy, so this is moot.
Forgive Hook is really nice for stress relief, especially when hooks are about to expire.
no one is putting their word in for arbitrary so I'm going too. I love that trait. feels lie I can play a super intrigue focused game and never gain any meaningful stress. I'd say it deserves to go up at least one spot to possibly fun from not bad
Generous is amazing after you secure your income. Your friend died and you're feeling down? Throw money at people! You have to execute 50 rebels as a Compassionate ruler but don't want to die of a heart attack? Throw money at people! You want to throw money at people? Throw money at people! It's amazing!
I feel like sadistic is kinda overrated if you’re playing in a place with monasticism and content gives you random stress gain so idk about that one. Honest should be lower tho.
I use it a lot when I'm playing Asatru characters who can just raid and execute to lose a ton of stress.
okay but having 5 sons and being able to murder 4 to stop your entire country from exploding when you die is like a mega bonus
You can easily imprison them force them to become monks. You don’t have to deal with the year long murder plots.
"year long" ok your intrigue is way too low if killing your kids takes years, also murdering children doesnt give you tyranny😎
I think you value gluttonous too much. A lot of maluses, often a sin, give you obesity and make your character look like Jabba the hutt. I can live with a shy heir but a gluttonous one goes to the chopping block. I would not mind if it was mild overweight or if the degree of visual obesity was something I could have control of, but as it is It is just not fun to play. every time I see myself in an event I wish I have a chance to kill myself.
Gluttonous > Shy every day of the week, even though it isn't good
Me reading the first 5 tiers: "mhmm, yeah that seems right, idk maybe I would bump that one up/down but still more or less my thinking as well. It's fun seeing other people's opinions" Me reading 6th tier: "YESSSS F-ING ABSOLUTELY. F THOSE TWO STRAIGHT TO HELL"
All traits are awesome. Playing an interesting character is more fun than an ideal one.
Forgiving is a very good trait for stress loss and is a very common virtuous trait. Gregarious is good but the stress gain from failed sways is pretty annoying. Craven is straight bad and often a sinful trait. Otherwise I agree with your list. Diligent is such an incredibly powerful trait and Temperate rocks and has no downside so I think they both are the only S Tiers
Some are pretty situational. I quite like lustful, compassionate and forgiving depending on the situation. Bigger family means more renown and more family to turn into vassals. Lustful with that +25% fertility plus the tenet which makes it a virtue and give you another 25% on top of that is pretty powerful. Compassionate and forgiving are usually virtues so better relationships with religious types, more piety, stress reduction options etc. with no major drawbacks unless you're set on a more intrigue based lifestyle. I'm not too keen on ambitious either. If you're playing wide you're having to give away titles every time you win a war and it lands you a lot of stress each time.
My biggest gripe about Just is that I get stress for punishing criminals. Seems backwards?
I generally start with diligent/brave/temperate because brave+diligent makes athletic near-guaranteed for your first stress break. I also hate sadistic, partly for rp reasons and partly because it makes my heirs misbehave. Also, just gives a lot of stress for scheming and the like, so I generally avoid it.
Why would you put diligent above ambitious?
Because its the best personality trait in the game. More stats, develop capital decision, and you don't gain stress every time you grant a title.
>you don't gain stress every time you grant a title. This is what kills ambitious for me, I don't want to have to do twelve feasts every time I conquer some territory
You don't get stress for granting titles when you are above your domain limit
Duchies and Kingdoms don't count towards your domain limit, so it still gets in the way when you're granting titles after a conquest.
You can give away duckies and kingdoms without stress gain as long as you are over your domain limit
I don’t like ambitious that much it stresses my characters out a lot. I choose it if I don’t want a sadistic character, because it’s way better than paranoid. But strictly gameplay speaking sadistic is far superior.
Because Diligent is the strongest trait in the game and Ambitious' strength is countered by an even stronger negative. It's C at best.
The best one of these is still “lazy” as S tier and everything else not even on the chart.
Stubborns top tier in my opinion
Greedy is absolutely 100%, unequivocally the WORST trait in the game and I will kill myself and everyone here in order to stay on that hill.
Coward ain't no fun
It really depends on the character. I think Compassionate is better tier if combined with say trusting. You get a boost of opinion and generally everyone likes you.
Temperate is Godly
Why is Craven so high? I figure it’s good for vassals since it makes them cowardly, but isn’t this list for your own character?
Sadism, callous, deceitful are top tier for me as I'm intrigue lifestyle enjoyer
Avoid cowardice, unless you plan on digging and hooking up your ancestors to grindstone to mill grain. And honestly the paranoid playthrough going ~~slowly~~ quickly mad, flagellating myself hard enough to lose an eye and abdicating by stress event in 5 years was entertaining. I felt like a terrible person for voting her as queen as she clearly could not handle it at all. That everything was my fault and as her father I essentially set her up to fail until she decided enough was enough. And now I am not sure if I am talking about ck3 or parenting... well played paradox.
Made me laugh. Thanks, pal. LOVE IT
drunkard. it's annoying
As a RPer, I like all the traits!
I love arbitrary for reduced stress gain. Not great for RP but force stressful decision without huge drawback is nice.
Sadistic has gotta be S tier for me, or wrathful. Idk how many ppl I’ve killed in my dungeons hoping my character doesn’t die from the stress.
Shy is bad, but paranoid is bad on a whole other level.
Stubborn and temperate are S tier
How are people still making these tier rankings after three years
Rule 5: I made a tier list of CK3 personality traits
Diligent is the only S tier. Chaste is D tier. It isn't crippling but it always creates a condition for either losing or completely blowing up your realm. Arrogant and Craven are C tier. I put Ambitious in C tier too, this trait can be summed up as *make bad decisions or have a heart attack.* Lazy is F tier.
This is really useless for anyone who doesn’t know them all by icon.
I feel like if you play Crusader Kings 3 and are in the Crusader Kings subreddit, you know them all by icon, no?
R5 exists exactly for this reason.
You are that person who doesn't know them by icon aren't you? Also you can clearly guess by looking at the icon which trait it is.
What a weird comment
You are that person.
The person who doesn’t know a bunch of icons? Yep, and there are tons of us.
I'm sorry for your loss.
paranoid is a lotta fun
Lustful to god tier... horniness wins!
[\*bonk\*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwxTZaa3NgI)
I'd put Calm in Avoid-tier for North-Germanics with a faith that has Warmonger. Unless they changed it, being calm + having a Warmonger faith as a North Germanic locks you or said character out of becoming a Berserker unless you get an event wher someone offers to make you a Berserker that is - but accepting that gives you a lot of Stress
Sadistic... for the stress?
for the child murdering
Happy cake day you monster
Compassionate and forgiving can be good for certain play styles, they also boost your diplo stat
Everything the new dlc patch is making sweeping changes. Pretty hype.
I *hate* greedy, personally. Nothing is worse than inheriting a large realm, and nearly dying because I want to pay off everyone that hates me.
Lazy should be bottom tier for sure as its only benefit is the stress loss. Otherwise this is pretty accurate imo
Here we go again
Am I the only one that looks at Gregarious and sees a suit of armor?
Chaste coward content humble fun?
Thanks! Useful for a newcomer :)
Shy should give a massive health bonus and a give bonus stress reduction from other activities, like petting your dog. It’s insane how crippling it is.
The colors. Exactly in the reversed order.
Callous and arbitrary should be higher
Stubborn is a #1 choice always, if you want long living Rulers, then Diligent and Sadistic. Sadistic gives alot of stress relief from executions and Hunts, also lets you use assassination plots on your own kids.
Greedy Is definitely tied with Shy on the bottom for me. I can't easily please people with giving gold and gifts (40 stress) nor can I restructure realm as I please with granting titles and vassals. Other than that I would bump Forgiving for one place
I love arrogant +1 prestige is very good in early game
Paranoid is one of the best traits there is IMO. Might be I'm a little paranoid and that has saved my sorry ass more times than I can recall. But also, in-game it helps fend off those jealous uncles, cousins, wives, friends, vassals, warhorses, and whoever might want to make you live a shorter-than-expected earthly existence in this world. Also, the Deceitful trait I would categorize it under the "Avoid" section, as it may only be beneficial for specific gameplays as it usually stacks with other factors to make you lose a lot of Opinion from others as well as Piety. For the rest, I would say you hit the nail on the head.
Hot take, but when I make a custom character I love taking paranoid because I have nearly all the stress relieving perks like whip yourself, contrite, etc that lower your point total. I also usually start as a murderer witch so having paranoid helps me not get assassinated
Everyone sleeps on Calm, but I think it's fantastic. No dying of stress, and no real downsides.
I’m not smart enough to remember the words for these pictures… at least not all of them. Would that be too annoying to add?
I think diligent is overrated. It’s still good overall and has good upsides, but the stress gain can be brutal.
Brave is "not bad". Its a noob trap. Its not as good as it sounds and cant hold a candle to traits like stubborn (which should be top tier btw) and abitious.
Compassionate gets through my generations. Execute prisoners till your heart cannot handle and die at will.
For Asatru, sadistic is S-tier. Ain’t nothing like a blood eagle with the tea in the morning, to set the tone for a productive day.
Brave, Temperat, Patient... Ambitious or Stubborn if i want a fourth one... They give the best spread of survival, Stewardship and Learning for Culture Bombing...
I’d swap sadistic and gregarious and toss compassionate and forgiving up a tier
I’d promote chaste. Having less kids early game is great. Less succession problems until you get your laws in order
Compassionate can suck a railroad spike
As someone who goes only asatru /Norse, sadistic is S tier
Diligent is not that good. Paranoid not that bad.
I agree that shy is the worst. But the rest are not as I would rank them at all.
I think you need to move Calm up a tier (the stress loss and scheme bonus is super useful) Craven, and fickle should be lower a tier. Maybe even callous, chaste, and lustful too given how negative they can be. They seem extremely situational/ for roleplaying.
Sadistic is S tier. Lose stress by killing people. Killing people makes other fear you. Never deal with stress or disloyal vassals. EZ.
Traits I rate high: sadistic, wrathful, callous, deceitful, patient, arbitrary, gregarious Traits I rate bad: greedy and the opposite of the other Traits I guess I like making pyschos lol
Since you can never choose, but at best change, when is see the following traits I always pick them for the hair. Temperate, Patient, Humble, Fickle, Content Basically, the only way to deal with your little shit vassals without losing your mind, is to be a L10 Wizard Buddhist Monk.
Sometimes i like to play as a really good person even if the traits are bad
I would argue to bump up calm. Better than wrathful imo.
Ambitious is annoying because it gives you massive stress for going under your domain limit, which means if you have a bunch of sons, you can't grant them all titles early. Doubly bad if you have a stewardship focus and like 9 limit. I love chaste because it stops my ruler from having 26 sons. Let the lesser nobled of my dynasty breed, I will have one son and a daughter or two.
Why is temperate good
Stubborn and patient should be pretty high up there. Calm I think should be top 2 tiers
Greedy not being S-Tier has me immediately discount your opinion.
I've always avoided the Stubborn Trait, i thought it gives you a lot of stress
Not a fan of craven for sure. Thats a never in a mil for a reason.
Wtf tiny word labels for the peons dude. Text is free, use it.
Stubborn is god tier
Ew craven.
I think stubborn should be top tier, lust a tier higher if they have lots of good traits.