Top Secret Strategies to Help You Succeed in CK3

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In this CK3 guide we will cover the top 10 tips and strategies you have probably never seen in game. These secrets, easter eggs, exploits, tips and tricks and developer jokes in CK3 are not widely known - until now! In this video we will boost your learning and explore the dark side of Crusader Kings III. This video was recorded on the most recent Fate of Iberia DLC but will likely remain relevant until some of these strategies are patched out - I’ll update the description if anything changes.
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Table of Contents:
Introduction 0:00
Destress All Stress 0:29
The Kingdom of Fashion 1:19
Undercover Cultures 2:21
Convert to Any Religion 3:41
Stackwipe in Style 5:17
Red Wedding 7:14
Basque Attack 8:12
Nice Glass 9:19
Papal Progeny 10:41
Forever Young 12:03
Concluding Thoughts 13:52

[@AlzaboHD]

Skip the waitlist and invest in blue-chip art for the very first time by signing up for Masterworks: masterworks.art/alzabo. A special thanks to Masterworks for sponsoring today's video.

[@jonathanallard2128]

Excellent writing, man. That: ''Blessing (the Pope's) reign down in Africa'' Toto reference is genius. 1: Wordplay with ''rain'' becoming ''reign''. Points for being an appropriate word for a ruling person, which the pope was. Perfect fit. 2: The more than appropriate happenstance of the word ''bless'' applying it to a pope which is a ''holy'' person. Perfect fit here again. 3: Literally sent the pope to Africa in the game, justifying the existence of this sentence completely, even in the confines of an unrelated purposed video. That was very strong.

[@adrian3853]

Hello Alzabo big fan here can i ask what's your monitor??

[@austincantswim3383]

The longest I've seen someone's character live is 250. This was in the total conversion mod Godherja and they abused the hell out of the magic mechanics so much it needed to be nurfed.

[@AlzaboHD]

That's insane - I wonder if 250 is a hard cap? Time to test it out

[@KFishproductionII]

There was a thread on the paradox forums about a ck2 character who lived to 430 years because they stacked health modifiers up to 64

[@darthplague6173]

Ahh yes the godly renseb

[@viorp5267]

@@AlzaboHD I once spend 200 years on eugenics and got a character to live until 120, more would have ben possible, but the kicker? He got cancer at 37.

[@stevencaskey9440]

@@viorp5267 I got to 164 in non-mod Ck3 by accident with a custom character.

[@samwill7259]

There's a reason we've all got like 2000 hours in these games, and it's because there's always something new to try, see, or at the very least a new way to break it.

[@DonutOfNinja]

No it's because we never go outside

[@jonathankennedy4779]

👏👏👏👏

[@FrostReave]

I literally always play as a Viking. I love it far too much to give it up. And for variety whenever I don’t feel like doing Viking things in the west I can just do a vagrant adventure to some other land. And I never convert just to keep things interesting.

[@Tortellobello45]

@@FrostReave i usually play as a Viking, as a count, or as someone that has a difficult task. Like i played as Ludvig the German and i managed to form the Holy Roman Empire with my son after reclaiming all my lost territories(partition sucks)and i survived a dissolution war and an independence war. I had the help of the byzantines but only in the dissolution war since they had x2 my troops and with ERE it was a fair fight

[@joshbeckett9255]

@@Tortellobello45based chads form the kingdom of Germany and then make it an empire title, Good game dude but hearing of Ludvig ruling the HRE just saddens me

[@AlzaboHD]

Hello strategy gaming enthusiasts! Apologies for the delay in recent content - my computer's PSU (power supply unit) has been fried and crashes my PC during recording sessions. As soon as the replacement is installed more content is on the way, stay tuned for more CK3 and EU4 and let me know what you'd like to see in the comments below. Thanks!

[@dasrepublik8609]

I just wanted to say I have 200 more hours than you.

[@MCQuadSquad]

Don't know what it is about this summer, CK3 and frying PSUs--the same thing happened to me in July. Good to hear you got your PC all fixed up though! Loving the content, keep up the good work. EDIT: Also a "longest possible life" campaign sounds like a great video idea.

[@VensteRec]

Same happened to me around May.

[@ChuntyCops]

@@dasrepublik8609 don’t care

[@ornato-t]

Gotta love Koifish's logo popping out when he mentioned playing as a Viking LMAO.

[@AlzaboHD]

Hahaha im glad someone caught the reference!

[@paulschumacher4308]

I saw it too. Koifish is such a character!

[@sadunfor4549]

I think the long living character would be a cool play through. I’ve tried this once with a custom character and stayed under 400 points. I don’t remember exactly what the age was but it was close to 115-120. I wish I knew about the starting health because it’s probably easier to play as one of the high health characters than to start as a custom one.

[@PrimeNPC]

I like to do this in Stellaris, give my species traits that cause them to live longer and then combine it with modifier or genetics research. Under Imperial rule my current leader is 197 and has overseen the species entire ftl/space exploration age

[@chrisrudolf9839]

Yeah, that starting health mechanic explains some things. Some of the most powerful health boosts (like the finisher perks from the medicine skill tree) are unlikely to obtain at a young age, so by the time you get them, much health is already lost. The strategy to get the longest living characters would probably be to have them be Herculean (which would give a huge health boost right from birth) and then stack lifestyle XP progress modifiers and go down the medicine skill tree as fast as possible while also travelling and hunting a lot in your younger years.

[@brutusthebear9050]

So you actually probably don't want whole of body, since it requires "Know thyself". "Know thyself" works differently to normal death, as when you have it unlocked, there is a small chance that you will die every year. And while it is useful in casual play regardless, when trying to live as long as possible it leads to early death.

[@AlzaboHD]

This is very useful information, thanks!

[@l0rf]

That... is a ridiculously stupid way to implement that. Makes sense, you're adding an event to the rotation since everything in CK is events.

[@brutusthebear9050]

@@l0rf No, I get it. It's to prevent immortal characters. If you were able to stack the insane heath bonuses of the medicine lifestyle focus with no drawback, it would be more op than it already is.

[@BiglerSakura]

@@brutusthebear9050 so, does that mean that unlocking everything possible in the "Whole of Body" tree except for "Know Thyself" (and what is below it) and adding some other health bonuses like lifestyle focus on health (can be used to unlock other learning trees) will result in longer life than with the "Whole of Body" tree completely unlocked?

[@brutusthebear9050]

@@BiglerSakura Potentially, depending on what health modifiers you stack. You can also savescum to get around Know Thyself, but that seems cheap. At that point you can savescum to avoid any negative events.

[@sarchlalaith8836]

I'd love to see you hybridised the North Germans with India and Mongolia and have an army made entirely of elephants, konnies and 50% horse archers {plus knights and sundries}, you leading them, martial focus, and bloodline focus too, giant and all that, stacking everything from bizarre extimct regions to It would just be hilarious with all those men at arms bonus and watching that army annihilate everything, also an excellent way of earning gold with making a killing and faith with pagan sacrifices

[@maxywaxyxd]

You can convert to any religion for 250 piety a lot easier than in this video; I posted a video where I convert to Hellenism starting as a Karling in less than 5 years. Essentially, the game calculated the cost in three steps and you can bring one of the steps down by more than 100% very easily. I'm pretty sure Mongol cultured characters can do it with just the apostate perk and nothing else. Essentially, you need 2 of these three things: -The cynical trait -A cultural tradition that reduces conversion cost -A special building that reduces conversion cost In addition to the apostate perk. For example, a cynical Norse character with the apostate perk can convert to Zunism for 250 piety. Alternatively, a Norse character with Stonehenge and the apostate perk can do it too! There's a list of the cultures that have the conversion cost reductions in my video.

[@TheSocialStreamers]

Well, it looks like I've got a bunch of CK3 videos to record.

[@sniperduells]

Got red wedding 3 times, it is so satisfying.

[@edim108]

Nice to see Polish Cavalry is OP not only in EU4, but in CK3 too

[@CaptainMorganThe3rd]

Thank you, Papa Alzabo, for the terrific content and groan-inducing puns for which I have come to love you. You always teach me something new about CK3.

[@AlzaboHD]

Thank you for the support Richard!

[@117translyrics]

your videos actually got me into ck3. tried ck2 in my teens, didn't get it, spent 1.5k hours on eu4 and now here we are. great stuff!

[@alexfranklin8136]

THANK you for transcribing your video subtitles. This is indeed a pog moment.

[@arkodutta3273]

Absolutely amazing video. Would love to see more from you any day.

[@AlzaboHD]

Thank you for the support Arko!

[@Spawnofktulu007]

Whoa! A whole host of treats! Thanks Alzabo! I did manage to revive Hellenism from those bonuses. I'm going to have to try the rest of these.

[@EvocativeKitsune]

I've never played CK3. And here I am, because AlzaboHD

[@queru1ous]

“I just slaughtered my entire family, but hey, I have so many friends so I literally can’t care less. Let’s party, boys!”

[@peatta]

Thanks Alzabo for these tips

[@AlzaboHD]

Thank you Danny for the support and comment!

[@ChrisSmith-xz1li]

Greatest pro game strategy possible, start in Sardinia. You can build a gold mine after u get enough gold, then 3/5 preexisting castles can build farms and fields and all of them can build trade ports. If you aren't rolling in 10 gold a month by the end of your first lifetime, u done fudged up.

[@smoore6461]

Love to see you do a functional immortality run. I have a mod I am using that let's Me grant and remove immortality. It would be cool to see it done with in game non modded mechanics.

[@ZeroMinima]

As a suggestion: Can you maybe try to unite Africa, esp. with the achievement Mother Of Us All? It's really really hard, harder than any other I've tried. Anyways, keep up the great work! PS: First time I was able to found the Kingdom of Fashion I was so happy to have stumbled on this magnificent purple colour

[@AmUnRA256]

its quite easy (just takes much time) when you first go to the 3 gold mines in Mali

[@freundderironie]

The Konni MaA are even more op if you have like 10-15 domains mirth maxed out hunting grounds. With them you can get your chasing stat to way beyond 100 and literally stackwipe anything. I stackwiped 52k late game Byzantines with 11k Konni lmao

[@cosubo8509]

To be fair that is 11 thousand men at arms units that are really really buffed, almost any men at arms unit can do that.

[@agellidmalik]

I love your vids, man ❤️

[@Chewbert]

C U M A N I A!

[@AlzaboHD]

Ah, a fellow man of culture!

[@smcilia]

Friendship is indeed magic ✨✨ especially in a horse playthrough

[@AlzaboHD]

My Little Horse-Only CK2 Campaign!

[@cameroncook2048]

I have Ewan the Tustwirthy as my spymaster. You get a 25+ intrigue spymaster who will live for another 80+ years and you can forget about that council position

[@ivanbayuk]

Sick content bro

[@dirt0133]

Man, u have a great sense of humor.

[@empressredbird]

I don't play any CK games, but I still enjoy watching Alzabo's videos on them

[@AlzaboHD]

Thank you so much for the support!

[@namenotneeded5128]

The most I've seen up to this point is ~130 so reaching above that will be interesting and might also be impressive enough to gain alot of views.

[@AlzaboHD]

Another comment mentioned 250 to be the highest they've seen - I wonder if it's a hard cap? Looking forward to trying it out!

[@namenotneeded5128]

@@AlzaboHD Even if unlikely still intrigued.

[@Kraken9911]

I always tell myself I'm going to try something different somewhere different. I can't help it ending up with only the strong culture trait, fully stacked heavy infantry, and practiced pirates if coastal. I'm addicted to raiding non-stop.

[@galffygergojozsef7816]

One note on konni and persuit stacking in general, 1 screen counters 2 persuit so if they still have some MaA then this isn't as effective. Also spearmen wreck them, unless u use horse archers, in which case they are good at everything

[@flashcancer5290]

Absolutely love your konni pronunciation

[@baneandeddu8115]

BEAUTIFUL rhymes and puns!

[@vhhawk]

I don't even play CK3 (EUIV dude) but I try not to miss these. "If any dare oppose your drip" 💀

[@saidarmienta9413]

Love this channel

[@orenstep7997]

I don't know if it's a secret, but adoptionism is a pretty op faith that's somewhat hidden

[@Lapkonium]

living long sounds sick

[@Rad_Thibodeaux]

Great content!! Will you make a console edition one?

[@SFtheGreat]

I've just seen the video where Iwan was played as, he lived to 140-something, at the end an information was given that by removing something negative, he lived until 150 years. But I do wonder if all possible health bonuses were stacked with artifacts, traits etc would it be really possible to live 200 years.

[@AshtonTheMelon]

Please do that long life, campaign. The puns will be legendary.

[@iMShroomzy]

Please try the oldest age challenge . Would love to see it

[@Jokewallace]

The kingdom of fashion and Zoolander reference is goated 😂😂

[@Thefizzler69]

I’d love to see alzabo convert the whole world to one culture

[@captainpatchwork8107]

Holy shit is this what the Kingdom of Fashion is? The pope got the title one day and I could not figure out what the hell it meant.

[@Terror_Official]

You can stack several bonuses to get -100% stress, such as Arbitrary (-50%), Whole of Body (-20%), Learning Perk-Carefree (-20%) and Gardener Lifestyle (-20%). So the friendship one can be used to fill in the final % you need with ones you don't have yet. Also Ambitious (+25%) and Paranoid (+100%) each add to your stress gain which can counteract some of these bonuses. So if you want a stress free character, aim for those previous traits without getting Ambitious or Paranoid and go down the Diplomacy tree for Befriend perk and Confidants perk. You can stack similar reduction bonuses to bring Tyranny down to 0 as well. Edit: At 10:25 this is slightly incorrect, as it's the only way to choose where a building slot is added to a county, as forming the Kingdom of Mann adds many building slots to the Isle of Mann specifically. You can even change the capital of the county to one with only 3 building slots, in which the Greenhouse will be placed there to add a fourth slot to it. A similar action can be done with adding the Sicilian Parliament to Napoli specifically, so that you can have its Parliament and University in the same county.

[@dylanbuttera]

Lol "the stark satisfaction" when talking about the red wedding part...

[@hmgog6027]

I will make great use of the "red wedding" hehe

[@BiglerSakura]

If I replace the Glass Monument with a different building, will I have a chance to build another Glass Monument to add one more slot?

[@mattgiove]

This was an awesome video, so much shit i didnt even know existed in the game

[@monkeau1740]

i love you alzabo HD

[@AlzaboHD]

I love your comment MonkeAU

[@Battledongus]

You wouldn't stick your click in crazy. Things like this is why I watch this channel even though I don't even know how to play.

[@ZarosTemplar]

2:36 I wonder where you got that soundbite from ;^)

[@o80y1]

The stress part made me think of Denholm Reynholm lol

[@Fumblerful]

Alzabo, when can we expect Cooler Norwegian Lady Pope Empress of Beta Israel run?

[@happyphilosopher596]

Yes! LONGEST LIFE PLAYTHROUGH!

[@kyleplatter8954]

As much as I recognize the superiority of Konni Units, I object as we all know Housecarls/Varangian Veterans are the TRUE best unit… I love RPing as a Norse lord somewhere in the world with VV’s like “you just served the Byzantine court… come join me now in India to stomp on elephant nerds”

[@MrDooshB]

big fan of the rhyming dude

[@Fun4luve]

4:50 The house of wisdom also helps

[@scuph7637]

id love to see the man who ages beyond the tides of time

[@TheRyuSword]

10:25 Actually the Kingdom of Mann decisions spawns 3 building slots on the Isle of Mann.

[@avchoo]

would love to see a character living as long as possible. one of my most enjoyable games was playing as an immortal in ck2

[@spookyboi8446]

If you have a learning character with whole of body, the strong or positive physical traits and the stubborn trait you can make 150 easy and ive gotten to characters to 200 that way.

[@belmarduk]

I honestly like Horse Archers better than Konni, Horse Archer pursuit is still high enough to stack wipe any remotely similarly sized unit and their base damage is considerably higher

[@Zeiliock]

i have always belived in form over function so now i need to try making the kingdom of fashion a thing i'll probably fail miserably but nobody can say i didnt try

[@derekskelton4187]

Highly recommend using it as a base for creating a Custom Empire

[@WulfrunAethelthryth]

could you in one video come from like mongolia and go to form brittania in ck3

[@martialgirl8301]

What is the name of the painting at 9:19?

[@AlzaboHD]

Its an AI created painting of lunacy as depicted by Pieter Bruegel the elder. Although its not a "real" painting, Bruegel's actual paintings are very similar. Hope this helps!

[@Lady_highrock]

Yeah, Imma need you to see just how long you can live in ironman mode.

[@dadity9142]

One of my favorite games to daate was starting as that county west of France, I want to say Haesting of Montigue, and invading Naples. After establishing a foothold with minimal losses I was able to eventually declare war on the pope for his lands. Eventually I was able to take all of Italy and Sicily, and was able to spread Asatru to the entire region before dismantling the papacy. And after helping my norse allies with their wars in the British Isles and myself taking most of Germania, The Norse Culture and religion have almost wiped out Catholicism

[@BanglaBish]

I. Love. You. for the Zoolander references. So so much

[@AlzaboHD]

I love your comment!

[@silentreflection5350]

Hi Alzabo, I love your work. I was wandering if while playing CK3 you'd ever seen the Adoptionism Christian faith? I've only ever heard of it, but I hear it has some powerful and unique modifiers.

[@Bulyaification]

To see Adoptionism you need to have a character with 18 learning ( if I remember well) and landed in tha Aquitaine kingdom or the Iberian peninsula (not sure). And you need to have an event before 850 ( again not sure). It’s really a good christian faith because you can chose between 3 modifier

[@silentreflection5350]

@@Bulyaification I've never gotten the event myself, only ever heard about it, but apparently you also need to follow a faith that has the catholic pope as a head of faith.

[@maidros9856]

Immortality run would be fun

[@Quarks123]

is it possible to get a glass monument, sawp it to another building get lunatic with another character and build aother glass monument ? so you get unlimited holdings ?

[@AlzaboHD]

I think its capped one per province but I do know you can get lunatic with your heir, swap capitals and then build a second glass monument in a different county. Thanks for your comment!

[@Terror_Official]

Glass Monument can only be built once per game, it has a decision flag similar to greater decisions like forming the HRE. It adds the flag:lunatic_building_decision to the global_variable_list to prevent it happening again.

[@juansjoberg6496]

"Inlägg godkänt av Sverige" 🤣My guy trynna kill me 😂

[@SarcasticSloth69]

“STARK satisfaction of a job well done” 😂

[@Dell-ol6hb]

I would like to see you try and live as long as possible would be a fun challenge

[@BiglerSakura]

11:25 - "ensure all counties of Latium are landed" - what exactly is the point of this? Should the counties be granted to vassals or can they stay mine?

[@asham868]

Oldest I've ever had someone live (that I was playing) was about 80

[@SimplyJustRed]

Torebka herbaty caught me massively off guard.

[@Likeahorse88]

Do you do videos with no lymrics?

[@BiglerSakura]

What a poetic language! "Papal ==> PayPal" or _"blessing his reign down in Africa"_

[@sarchlalaith8836]

New England was a saexon resettlement of crimera when they fled Norman's after 1066. Really really Lol at the koifish popup

[@Argie87]

2:19 Zoolander reference

[@jonathankennedy4779]

Nice Zoolander reference 😂

[@neiph8686]

Love the Zoolander references lol

[@nathanmartyn2403]

Yes please see how long you can live and see what you can do in that time

[@elvastan]

Really disappointed that you got a Masterworks sponsorship, but gotta pay the bills I guess

[@birdofterror6628]

4:05 KOIFEESH IT IS KOIFEESH

[@Copycatpilot48]

I actually once saw the AI Pope form the Kingdom of Fashion and I have no clue how they did that.

[@MrXintron]

yes new video long life yes

[@BlackReshiram]

i wish ck3 had weird shit like ck2. i miss hooking up w a centaur and giving birth to horse babies also yes i want to see you try a run where ur character lives as long as possible and what u can do in that long life!

[@mattparker9726]

4:07 FOR PERUUUUUUUUUUUUN! Oh wait I mean OOOOOOOOOODIIIIIIIN!

[@WeArMature]

Please do longest life possible and Convert to Pope playthrough

[@celwenileran2135]

One of the reasons why lot of people quit is that they fall into monotony of doing the same thing over and over again. Why do this bad thing when doing the other option is much more beneficial, right? So one game after another, their game is the same. There's unbelievable depth to this game and so much can be accomplished if the player is smart about it.

[@attrage7545]

Totally agree. I roleplay, making decisions based on what I feel my player character would do, not the "best" decision, and I've never had a playthrough go the same way twice. Much more enjoyable than playing simply to "beat" the game, where's the fun in that?!

[@daltonmussi5775]

hey hey hey, zeth here, man your devotion to ck3 is 10/10 but the persona of seth is seth ma man cmon

[@BiglerSakura]

Concerning "Konni". (actually, there should be just one "n". "Koni" simply means "horses" or "steeds" in Slavic languages.) Is strong Pursuit really better than strong Damage? Other units, e.g. heavy infantry, can be pumped up to a level of Damage comparable to that of Pursuit of Koni and stackwipe enemy armies the same way on the 2nd stage of a battle so there is no one left to pursue on the 4th stage. Needless to say that 300%-efficient Knights do this job the best. However, even if an enemy army is reduced to zero, its Knights usually survive and the commander has high chances to escape. I jus don't know, but if strong Pursuit units help to kill even retreating Knights and commanders, then it makes sense to ramp them up.

[@NezAndy]

Nice @1:46

[@rdsh3434]

Pls try living the longest time possible there are so few videos about it.