CK3: Making Your Dynasty Members Into Hastiluders

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. The Benefits of Hastiluder
3. Becoming a Hastiluder Normally
4. The Hastiluder Exploit

This article was written under Crusader Kings 3 Game Version: Peacock (1.11.5)

Please note that much of the information in this article is based on anecdotal evidence and a lot of trial and error. I have not had the opportunity to delve into the actual source code, but I am happy to make any corrections if more accurate information is discovered. If you have any comments, you can either post here or e-mail me at: byzantinekitty@gmail.com

1. INTRODUCTION

(Yes, I am forcing my pregnant wife to become a knight so she can gain the Hastiluder trait. She will thank me for it later!)

The Tours and Tournaments DLC allows you to participate in and host Grand Tournaments. Grand Tournaments offer different types of contests which are based on your attributes, traits, and a special leveled Hastiluder trait with paths in Foot, Bow, Horse, and Wit.

While leveling up the Hastiluder trait definitely helps you with winning tournaments, there are many benefits to having the trait and leveling it up even if you don't plan to participate in tournaments or your age/health prohibits you from competing.

This article will discuss the benefits of the Hastiluder trait, explain the standard way of getting your dynasty members and vassals to get the trait, and reveal an exploit that lets you give the Hastiluder trait to even your most inept dynasty members who are lacking prowess.

2. THE BENEFITS OF HASTILUDER

Each of the four Hastiluder paths has 3 levels, which provide different, cumulative, and stackable bonuses as you achieve each milestone:

Foot

• Level 1: +1 Prowess
• Level 2: +1 Martial, +1 Prowess
• Level 3: +4 Prowess per Stress Level, +2 Number of Knights, +2 Size of Men-at-Arms Regiments

Bow

• Level 1: +0.25 Health
• Level 2: +0.25 Health, +15% Vassal Levy Base Contribution
• Level 3: +0.25 Health, -25% Army Gold Maintenance

Horse

• Level 1: +5% Monthly Prestige
• Level 2: +10% Monthly Prestige, +20 Glory Hound Vassal Opinion
• Level 3: +1 Prowess per Level of Fame, +5% Monthly Renown

Wit

• Level 1: +1 Diplomacy
• Level 2: +1 Diplomacy, +5% Monthly Lifestyle Experience, +10 Zealot Vassal Opinion
• Level 3: +3 Diplomacy, +10% Monthly Lifestyle Experience, +20% Army Movement Speed

Even if you never level up any of the paths, the Hastiluder trait still provides a passive benefit: Hastiluder characters have a +10 opinion bonus towards other Hastiluder characters. Considering how rampant murder schemes are and how troublesome vassals can be, having an extra +10 opinion can be valuable, hence why it is useful to spread the Hastiluder trait amongst your dynasty and amongst your favored vassals.

While you need to be involved in a Grand Tournament to get the Hastiluder trait to begin with and participating is the best way to get experience for the trait, once you actually have the Hastiluder trait, it unlocks alternative ways to gain experience:

• Participating in duels gives you a small amount of Foot XP
• Hunting (not Falconry) sometimes gives you a small amount of Bow XP
• Traveling for any activity always gives you a small amount of Horse XP and Hunting (not Falconry) sometimes gives you a small amount of Horse XP
• Participating in board games gives you a small amount of Wit XP

If you don't have the Hastiluder trait at all, then duels, hunts, traveling, and board games don't provide the extra XP benefit. But once you have the Hastiluder trait, you can level up all four of the paths over time without participating in another tournament.

It also means that even a non-martial character with low prowess can eventually max out two paths by just traveling and playing board games.

And since maxing out the Horse path gives you +5% monthly renown, if you spread the trait throughout your dynasty, regularly host activities, and then invite your Hastiluder dynasty members, you will help them gain Horse XP.

3. BECOMING A HASTILUDER NORMALLY

For your current character, the standard way to become a Hastiluder is attend a Grand Tournament, qualify for a contest, and then participate. You should receive the Hastiluder trait just from qualifying and participating - you do not need to win to get the trait.

It's a bit trickier for other characters that you care about but don't have direct control over.

When you attend tournaments, some of your knights may also attend and attempt to qualify. So one thing you can do is force your dynasty members and vassals to become knights for the duration of the Grand Tournament.

When you are traveling to other rulers' Grand Tournaments, travel speed is probably the most important factor, even more so than diplomatic range. I regularly get invited to tournaments within diplomatic range but which I can't reasonably participate in because I wouldn't arrive in time. As a result, if you want to participate in outside tournaments I would look for ways to increase your travel speed (build multiple stables, hire an excellent caravan master, get the Pilgrim trait, level up the Wanderer path on the Traveler trait, etc.).

You can also regularly organize your own Grand Tournaments. There is a cooldown of 10 years so you can only do this once a decade. Once you start a Grand Tournament, you should also manually invite characters (such as dynasty members) you would like to attend.

4. THE HASTILUDER EXPLOIT

Instead of hoping that your dynasty members attend a Grand Tournament and qualify, there is a clever exploit that you can use to guarantee that any of your vassals or courtiers gets the Hastiluder trait.

If you arrive at the location of a Grand Tournament prior to the beginning of a contest, you have the opportunity to visit various locations and experience random events.

One possible event that you can trigger at the Tourney Grounds is:

There is only a small chance that you get this event and it can only trigger once each Grand Tournament. (But you can get it each time in different Grand Tournaments). However, the effect is strong enough that I usually keep trying for the Tourney Grounds in hopes of getting this event.

The various benefits include improving the score for you and your knights, gaining glory for your accolades, or gaining Hastiluder experience for you and your knights.

Now the third option ("Knights! Prove your keenness, both of eye and mind.") has a key reward - every knight gains the Hastiluder trait. When this event is triggered, nothing happens until you make one of the three or four choices (the first option is available if you have the Triumph intent). You can exit the Grand Tournament screen and do other things before making your choice.

So what you can do is:

1. Exit the Tournament screen without making a choice.
2. Go equip Artifacts that increase your max number of knights.
3. Go to the Military screen and manually assign knights. Force the characters you want (vassals or courtiers, preferably of your dynasty) to be knights.
4. Go back to the Tournament screen and select the "Prove your keenness, both of eye and mind" choice to give the Hastiluder trait to all of your knights.
5. Unassign those characters as knights and go back to your normal artifact selection.

Here you can see the various artifacts I temporarily equipped to increase my max number of knights:

That's 10 extra knights, bringing my standard 21 knights up to 31.

6 slots are for my 3 knights with accolades and their successors. One slot is for my heir. That means I can give the Hastiluder trait to 31 - 7 = 24 of my other vassals or courtiers.

In this case, my son and heir was a legitimate knight with 37 prowess:

After the event he now has the Hastiluder trait.

Here is my pregnant wife with 0 prowess:

I am going to force her to be a knight (I got Equal Martial Custom when I hybridized with Akan culture for Mystic Ancestors):

"It's only for a day, darling!"

So now she gets the Hastiluder trait as well.

Remember that you can only make your direct vassals and your courtiers into knights (your gender options are limited based on your martial custom).

If you have other dynasty members in other courts that you want to become Hastiluders, you should try to manually invite them to the activity.