Crusader Kings 3 Trait Tier List

[@realdaggerman105]

Another positive from diligent os that when you get stressed out you often get to pick athletic as one of your stress traits. This just makes getting that tier 1 stress break a positive.

[@karsaorlong3761]

i cant believe this dude didnt talk about the stress loss benefits of sadistic, where stress become a non issue, while he's creaming himself over a bit of stress loss in other underwhelming traits lol

[@JuGsa]

One thing I've noticed, which makes temperate quite a lot better than stubborn in my opinion is, that it gives an actual health boost to your overall health and makes you live longer, whereas stubborn only counters negatives, which just helps if you get Ill or have to take flagellant or so as a stressevent trait.

[@JustAnotherAccount8]

I find that living longer ends up screwing me over because it's alot easier to manage your direct children and prepare one of them rather than prepare you kid, your kid starts having kids so you have to prepare them aswell, then they start having kids and it becomes a shit show.

[@vovasyhin7219]

Calm used to be S Tier as you could meditate to get permanent stat increases to your learning attribute, which is amazing to progress through your innovations, as well as for playing tall. But after the latest update i have not gotten a single stat boost from meditation, as well as the trait description no longer mentions meditation to gain theologian insights.

[@4GOT10_1]

Yeah all meditation ever does for me nowadays is a little stress relief and a message that says i got better at meditation. But i dont get any bonuses from that cuz next time i meditate it's a similar amount of stress removed.

[@raphaellever7483]

I hate so much the moment when your heir have to choose between impatient,craven and gluttonous and you know he will suck

[@Pascal_Mueller]

Always impatient. The other ones are worse.

[@raphaellever7483]

@@Pascal_Mueller i agree and it's why it's frustating because you have to chose impatiant to save your garage son

[@pepeadamczyk2163]

sadistic is (for me) top tier, especially for starting character. going to war = prisoners, prisoners = stress relief (and +5 intrigue +5 prowess from one perk) aaaand... more dread. doesn't matter how fast it ticks down, when You can at any moment go to prison and get some fun. afraid and terrified vassals don't really join factions or schemes, and if You're not doing any hostile scheme, just try killing any brave vassals, so everybody is afraid. I don't have to say anything about how much stuff player can get from terrified vassals, right? :D

[@FredrikSkievan]

Putting everything in rows of six seems really weird. Defeats the purpose of a tier list if you're going to structure it for tidiness and not based on what deserves to be where.

[@Seto1997]

I agree. I guess he must agree too because he hearted your comment. xD

[@henkhenk1601]

I agree, but to be fair. It does kinda force him to CHOOSE actual rankings. Instead of just putting 80% in the same tier and having a few outliers. Which is always pretty frustrating imo at least.

[@excalibur2772]

I disagree why would you want most of them on the same tier lol

[@FredrikSkievan]

@@excalibur2772 Because that’s how tier lists work? Most will be average while a few will be very good aswell as others will be very bad. What if something is actually an A tier but gets stuck in B tier because A is full. Then the list is faulty and not honest.

[@excalibur2772]

​@FredrikSkievan If it's not as good as the ones in A tier it's not A tier. Tiers are imaginary mate actually seperating them into tiers actually gives more of a semblance of order than sticking 12 things in one tier

[@tonnytrumpet734]

I think both generous and greedy are S tier, just depends if you play tall or build huge empire

[@OptimalToast]

Tiers aside, was helpful learning some of the more intricate aspects and uses for each. Thanks. 😎

[@GoneCrusading]

Glad to hear that, thank you.

[@Frank_duffman]

Super nice explanations and in depth, thank you very much!

[@GoneCrusading]

Thank you!

[@adriano7444]

I'll have to contest one thing: playing with high stress is a viable strategy. For example, the perk 'Thriving in Chaos' gives +18 prowess, +12 martial and +12 intrigue. If you're Greedy, you also get +35% income on top of that. If you're sadistic (which you should want just for the +35 dread) , that gives you full control of your stress by torturing/killing prisoners. And finally, if you're Paranoid, that keeps you at maximum stress at all times. I think Paranoid and Greedy could be reconsidered, especially when you put Humble in B tier.

[@GoneCrusading]

I think this is a valid strategy but very niche and requiring very specific traits and lifestyle choices and still comes with the risks of carrying high stress levels through your character's life.

[@Arodeum]

@@GoneCrusading For normal game with level 3 stress, you just need full upgrade body.

[@thelovebat]

9:15 From my experience, Compassionate is a great trait for someone going a diplomatic route and avoiding a dread approach to running an empire. As long as you're not scheming to murder people to forge your way to the top of a kingdom or empire, you're not going to gain much stress as a Compassionate ruler. And even if you're forced into some decisions that gain you stress such as scheming murder or fabricating hooks on people, there are plenty of ways to lose stress in the game that allow you to reduce the load of stress on your character such as hunting, going on a pilgrimage, hosting a feast, etc. It's good for a younger character that can handle the stress and work it off, since attraction opinion is important and having your vassals like you is also really important for a lot of stages of the game. The Piety gain isn't always important but for spreading your religion to nearby regions it's helpful to have more of it.

[@RAIKUU]

I have to disagree hard on impatient. I play exclusively intrigue lifestyle which is also the most underrated lifestyle and that expedite schemes decision (although only once per 5 years) combined with twice schemed can do wonders. I've done some rough calculations that you can save 10-15 years of scheming per character with that decision. And on top of that, you get +20% monthly prestige!

[@lukestables708]

Virtuous trait rather than "pious". I broadly agree with your list and love you put Brave high up which I agree with; on another list I've seen they put it much further down which I honestly just don't get. Yeah, the problem with all these lists is that "it depends". If it's a 'virtue' or 'sin' the trait could easily go up or down a level. Also depends on if late game or not (Generous, as you said, is probably late game). Also, depends how it synergizes with other traits and other things no doubt too. Lastly, shouldn't underestimate how useful it is if you have two or three virtuous traits which can give you a huge boost if your realm has one faith, especially during succession.

[@GoneCrusading]

Thank you. It's difficult to rank everything fairly cause like you said, it depends. I agree with everything you've said here.

[@lukestables708]

@@GoneCrusading Thx! Sorry, forgot to say it's a good list, best I've seen so far.

[@omaraboal-azm8705]

Respect for putting brave in A tier because in all of my campaigns i didn't ever die in a battle when i had the brave trait i usually don't let my ruler lead armies if his prowess and martial is low so brave for me has no down sides really What i disagree about is martial because i think that martial is the second most important after stewardship because i kinda lead my armies alot but i think i value it because the difference in play style as i don't play tall as mush as i play wide

[@GoneCrusading]

Thank you, I agree Brave is a great trait with an easily controlled downside. Martial is a much more important stat with your described playstyle, and I do value martial more in the early game, it just doesn't matter as much to me as diplomacy/learning later in the game due to general opinion/prestige and faster cultural fascination progress.

[@omaraboal-azm8705]

@@GoneCrusading I can i agree to that I usually pick martial for the first two rulers until I create an empire and control my culture so i be the culture head then maybe I would go stewardship but if I will go world conquest mod then almost always martial and get a wife with high stewardship and intrigue and make her my soulmate

[@loganbarcomb6351]

Great video, I have 1,500 hours in and I guess I need to focus on the achievements because that's a flex lol, would love to play sometime!

[@loganbarcomb6351]

Brave, Just, and Gregarious is a fun kingly build

[@GoneCrusading]

Thank you, achievement hunting is fun for me but not for everyone.

[@Metalscream]

Love your distribution, very well done

[@GoneCrusading]

Thank you!

[@JosefZeethuven]

Greedy is really good early game 45% more gold (stacking with the stewardship trait) is just out of this world.

[@BlindRaven]

Honestly for me the biggest problem with generous isn't the 10%, it's that I like to take Golden Obligations and use my hooks on all my family as my emergency fund. But then I like doing Dynasty of Many Crowns runs (and most of my vassals are also my dynasty), so those hooks tend to net a lot of cash.

[@Mattis06]

8:45 I basically never use those😂. I only use title revocation when my vassals revolt, and kill and blackmail rarely.

[@thelastcrow]

Would you consider doing this tier list again for the Roads to Power dlc updates?

[@GoneCrusading]

Yes I am considering it, I was planning to make one again either after they introduced a new trait, or when my opinions have changed (which they have kinda) so it may be time soon. I feel like I need more time to digest the major DLC though.

[@celwenileran2135]

I have to so hard disagree on intrigue. Intrigue is easily better than diplomacy because unlike with diplomacy, you have actual interactions and can influence the world more. Hook fabrication makes for fantastic way to earn money or alliances. It can guarantee inspired people in your court, it makes messing with enemy empires so much more fun because you can fabricate a strong hook on an emperor, take his kids as wards and flip their culture or religion. Creating either a generally weaker empire in future or flipping an entire nation towards your culture/religion. Not to speak of making use of your spymaster. Then you have assassinations which can give you free reign over a country by being a diarch. Or you know, you systematically wipe out a dynasty until you get a good marriage. They also take out of the picture strong rulers who buff their nation via strong stats. Assassinations themselves also break truces. Lastly, abductions can be OP. You kidnap heirs, ransom for lot of money. Technically can also kidnap people to demand conversions. Alternatively just cheese wars by executing the kidnap event just as you declare war. Thus instantly winning or kidnapping their heir.

[@brendan9868]

I think a lot of these really come down more to how you play. I feel the Compassionate trait is a prime example of that. Like if you aren’t scheming around, revoking a whole lot and just playing a generally low dread & tyranny play through, then it’s actually pretty good. Like generally if you just go with the flow of what your character has then most traits can be pretty solid, with the exception of some like Lazy, Gluttonous or Craven which don’t really help much with anything.

[@celwenileran2135]

Another thing. While Greedy is situational, it can easily be one of the best traits for actually making money. Assuming you combine it with some perks. You go high stress, start pumping out money in expense of your health. Which CAN be a positive. Especially if you're stuck with an old character who refuses to die. The 25% income boost from Greedy is no joke. Combine that with some stewardship, avaricious etc and you're printing money. Lot of newer players are allergic to being stressed and while it's bad, fair amount of perks and artifacts give some ridiculous boosts to 'per stress level' buffs. Just to compensate for the downside. All you gotta do is to very careful and smart about it. You usually never want to go above second level.

[@Pascal_Mueller]

I think dread is a great way to scare off your enemies inside your realm. Also the extra taxes for being dreadful is quite nice (torturer tree).

[@patrickbarnes8149]

Thank you for sharing and posting.

[@viny9666]

I like generous a lot simply due to being able to relieves stress just by gifting people, but Its only really useful mid game when stress is a problem but money kinda isnt

[@jojoironboi]

greedy was is fun if you play in some place like Serbia and try to go become super rich. Stewardship tree income per stress level plus greedy gives you +65% gold on lvl3 stress. I played it once and made almost 200 per month playing Serbia as a vassal of the Byzantines by the 40th in game year. edit: wanted to mention that it may not be exactly sustainable but its still usefull for maxing your provinces really fast

[@roberthudson3386]

Which traits are better or worse depends a lot on your faith and playstyle. If a trait is virtuous to your character's faith, they will gain piety making it extremely useful for faiths where you can request gold from the head of faith (eg Catholicism, Insularism etc). This makes a medicore (imo) trait like Generous really useful if playing as an Insularist, since you gain +2.00 Piety per month with this faith. So for me there is no standard list that applies to all faiths, but I would say the best traits in general include Brave, Diligent, and Stubborn, but then other traits can also be valuable. Arrogant is useful for tribal characters due to the Prestige gain; Temperate is commonly vitruous to Christian faiths, Greedy can be comibined with a Wealth focus and highly stressed lifestyle to make tons of money, etc. IMO, there isn't enough of a balance between Brave/Craven. Craven should have major drawbacks including (depending on culture) loss of presitge or piety, but also, historically, leaders dying in major battles was a significant possibility, whereas I don't think I've ever had a character die in battle while playing the game. I have lost heirs etc but never my actual character. So I think the boost to battlefield survival as a Craven character would be more useful if dying in battle actually happened reasonably often. Also with Gluttonous, there should be some cool perk related to that, such as a major bonus to stress loss when feasting . I know Gluttonous has a stress loss bonus in general, but that doesn't really give enough of a boost to it.

[@spamfilter32]

Has any one else noticed that 40% of every character in the game now has the Sadistic trait?

[@artesque]

I feel like I’ve seen an uptick in sadistic and ambitious.

[@spamfilter32]

@artesque seems since Wards and Wardens. Just the whole court filled with Sadistic people. And all the good tutors and wet nurses always have sadistic.

[@artesque]

@@spamfilter32 yeah, and everyone is out to murder anyone they’ve had a bad encounter with. I’m starting to be overly choosy when inviting people to my court.

[@Thatoneguezzt]

I agree with some, but I want to point out two things: virtues also give you +10 general opinion with same faith and +15 with zealot vassals, and the second is many traits you said give you vassal and liege opinion, like content, actually changes YOUR opinion of them, rather than their opinion on you, which does nothing for player. So it's great to have content vassals or content liege

[@arthasmenethil4399]

I think tier lists are a bit like talking with a friend about the traits, which ones you like etc. for when none of your friends likes PDX games :D

[@GoneCrusading]

Exactly!

[@ItIsYouAreNotYour]

I feel like this being your opinion should be assumed, but sadly in this age you have to state it.

[@victor382]

The health boost in temperate is better than stubborn because the boost is a net positive to your health, while the health boost in stubborn is only countering health penalties. Basically the health boost in stubborn only works when you’re sick. While the health boost in temperate works all the time. That being said, I agree both are S tier. Great job. I did disagree with you in that greedy imo is not an F tier trait. I’ll take greedy over compassionate, arbitrary, fickle, deceitful or sadistic any day. But your criticism was valid. Also, eccentric I love. I’ll place it right behind diligent. I was surprised you valued it so low. Like 20% to lifestyle is amazing, like that trait it’s totally broken.

[@GoneCrusading]

I appreciate your thoughts. Eccentric I still think is amazing but it seems to, for whatever reason, be more rare than most other traits.

[@callum105]

i just got eccentric, ive never had it before, seems really rare

[@GoneCrusading]

Yes I think so! It seems less common than the others.

[@ub3rfr3nzy94]

sadistic and eccentric are S tier. Eccentric gives 2 entire bars worth in university just for having it., the stress loss and gain isnt an issue. Sadistic is a massive stress loss and youcan murder your own kids which makes inheritance way easier

[@gizel4376]

i just start the game and my character is both vengefull and sadistic, there's some aspect of the game that i haven't had the chance to explore yet, what's the point of being like by your vassals, i have -100 with all of them and only a few of them revolt? and what stress does, it always go down and never goes up?

[@GoneCrusading]

It can depend on your rank I think. At count, your vassals cannot revolt, as a duke, a revolt isn't too threatening. Once you're a powerful king or emperor, a revolt could ruin your game.

[@gizel4376]

@@GoneCrusading i mean, both trait give a lot of dread and both trait relieve stress non-stop, i'm emperor with around 65 dread, revolt are very minor, maybe if i start giving kings titles, they would be more of a threat?

[@GoneCrusading]

@@gizel4376 Revolts usually are usually most threatening upon succession I find. But it sounds like your game is going good!

[@gizel4376]

@@GoneCrusading yeah that's my 2nd character, i had to kill 3 of my brother after succession, but i didn't had any major revolt since then, i feel like people with claims are a lot more treatning

[@SwordEncarmine]

generous ha the downside that you cant use the demand pament mechanic very well

[@vipermdk8196]

well done looks great

[@youngsteph1]

Compassionate is dreadful despite its bonuses. There is no way to play Intrigue or Stewardship with it as you can hardly do the fun things like blackmailing & fabricating hooks, without becoming stressed out. I can understand Intigue but it annoys me seeing it on characters (AI or Human) going on natural Stewardship lifestyle, without any help from player.

[@ShayGamerD3]

First and foremost, traits in CK3 are for role-playing. The game heavily emphasizes role-playing, the whole process of making your character, and then improving it over time is literally taken from RPG games. Traits are also there to guide AI, since they incentivize some decisions and punish others (players, as you showed, are able to circumvent these limitations). Therefore, min-maxing personal traits doesn't really make sense. You should select traits to inform your role-play as the character, rather than to bring you benefits. So, you select traits like craven, shy, and paranoid, because your character is craven, shy, and paranoid, regardless of their numerical values. If you want totally min-max why not ignore personal traits entirely since you will be avoiding downsides, and you can go for the most beneficial traits of other kind?

[@dracodarastrix4175]

I would have put vengefull a bit higher.

[@robertandersson3417]

Yeah, we have totally different play style, I dislike the generous and forgiving, since it makes it harder to act against people.

[@sadettinarslan5324]

these are called personality traits to be precise.

[@hifromcyn]

I recently hit 3000 hours played, I also almost exclusively play Christian & Muslim, so we are definitely in the same head space. There are only 3 I disagree with. I think Generous is a bit too high (I usually start as a 1-2 county Count, so 10% is punishing early game, especially if you're near tribals and get raided causing -50% on top of that). Brave I personally think is S-Tier, I do usually start as a female though so as you mentioned attraction opinion is huge (even works on the Pope, so it instantly negates the female ruler opinion loss), I also think I value Martial more than you in general. Lastly is Deceitful, more for roleplay reasons than mechanical, I just hate it, it's F-Tier for me, I also refuse to recruit any NPC with Deceitful even if their stats are godly. Other than those 3, I agree essentially top to bottom.

[@GoneCrusading]

These are all very fair. Generous can be a bit punishing in the early game but becomes much better later on, and Brave is definitely top tier when playing any female ruler!

[@PaperMicShow]

Good-list ,, i think we should consider relegion ,cultur and build - I assume u are into stewardship, diplomacy and some martial

[@dingus6317]

I would put eccentric at A or S

[@MesiasMark]

this is the goofiest tier list of all time.

[@jkwayne7174]

for brave you just gotta not lose battles *fivehead*

[@googane7755]

Honestly i dont find craven bad if you dont plan on going the torturer or prowess route. You get so many destress events when you travel and act like a coward. Even leading your own troops isnt as bad since you will likely never get captured.

[@sykes5000]

Hello, I appreciate the video and I subscribed, but I want to point out something: Some of your rankings are inconsistent within your logic, not just by other peoples' preferences. For example, I can't see how you rate honest over content. You said you'd rate learning and diplomacy stats of the same value, according to you, the stress loss opportunity for honest isn't very useful. At the same time, content has flat-out increased stress loss and significantly better opinion modifiers while only losing 1 intrigue, not 4. Not to mention honest basically locks away the whole intrigue mechanic in the game due to stress gain, but you said it's not part of your playstyle, so you don't care about it. I just picked this example, since you rated the traits after each other. I didn't want to state my different opinion on certain traits, but rather shine light on my impression that your opinion is not consistent within itself. Probably many people rate traits depending on how much they like the icon :)

[@GoneCrusading]

Thank you and I appreciate your thoughts. Honest is also a virtuous trait in the religion I play mostly, so that does give some benefit there. Content blocks Ambitious which I enjoy playing with, and also is looked down upon in certain cultures that I play frequently (French culture -15 general opinion) so it definitely affects my perception of it negatively even though looking back at it, I probably have underrated Content a bit here.

[@hansbaum0923]

For me Generous and Greedy is swapped 😂

[@Damiano465]

content is def B it has no negatives just positives

[@GoneCrusading]

That's fair but I find myself usually favoring other traits content is chosen against.

[@wendigo7176]

sadistic is SSS

[@callum105]

compassionate is stupid, why do i gain a 100 stress for killing a sadistic child murderer, it's only not F tier because it gives 1 piety if ur christian, if i was norse it's F tier for me

[@arkadiuszjuszczak565]

Of course my tier list would be better than your tier list, duh!

[@GoneCrusading]

Naturally

[@Zseventyone]

Sadistic is not A-tier; it’s C at best. You shit on it the whole time you talked about it then put it in A??

[@GoneCrusading]

Why are sadistic enjoyers always the weirdest?

[@Zseventyone]

@@GoneCrusading Do such people exist? The question for you is, why’d you make it A-tier?

[@sezione]

A good idea with the video my man but I think it`s rather badly implemented, you should redo it more in tune with the ''you wanna` play supreme leader admiral general aladeen, you need this traits (wrathfull, brave, zealot)'', or ''diplomacy god - gregarious, generous paired with some diligent or trusting/forgiving'' or jeff bezos style with ambitious diligent and greedy/just... something of this nature, in my opinion...

[@villepalmu348]

Arbitrary literally the best trait in the game after diligent you are tripping, but I guess ambitious above c tier already should tell me that the author of this list is lacking in braincells. also paranoid+greedy work well together for a kamikaze tall stewardship build(make money at max stress for like 25 years and die)

[@villepalmu348]

like dread is obviously very good and flexible but with arbitrary stress literally does not exist so you can take it to help with high stress gain builds etc but even by itself you can just not even think about stress cuz arbitrary removes it from the game.

[@villepalmu348]

so like yea stats represent around -1 stewardship value which is obviously bad but the upside is just insane

[@GoneCrusading]

There are better ways to deal with stress than arbitrary. Great for new players though. Especially if you think ambitious is not a good trait, we are seeing the game in very different ways, as stress for me is not a difficult mechanic to deal with. If you really want to play with greedy/paranoid/arbitrary... do your thing! 🤪

[@villepalmu348]

​@@GoneCrusadingyou misunderstood or chose to take my words out of context. not having to deal with stress and dealing with stress are 2 different things, not having to feast, hunt or take into account stress gain with decisions is going to rake up value in the long run. Also I dont play paranoid or greedy but sometimes its fun to just get 60% monthly income and farm cash for heir.

[@villepalmu348]

also ambitious is +1 to all skills with a slight negative. yes its good obv but putting it above mid c I think you overestimate how much value that actually is.