Worst traits for a courtier - dark triads and murder hobos?

[Garnrag]

Just wondering what other people's lived experience is. Who stabs the most backs over all, or what combination yields the most psychopaths for you?

At least one of deceitful, vengeful, or sadist seem to be ubiquitous among the majority of the folks who murder or attempt to murder my character or courtiers.

I had a wandering knight join a tournament earlier - giant, prowess to die from if not die for, a martial stat in the high teens and acceptable values for the others. But he was deceitful, vengeful, and arbitrary.

Never had to use the 'abduct' scheme defensively before, but this felt like protective custody for the rest of us.

 

[tilly]

yeah i mean all the ones youd expect are going to do it for you. a vengeful arbitrary sadist isnt going to be a cool chill guy under any circumstance, so that makes sense

because of the way ai values are handled, though, some trait combos you might not expect turn characters into complete serial killers. a character that is patient and diligent has a positive ai vengefulness score and will basically dedicate their entire life to murdering people, for instance. additionally, there are more traits that tank ai honor than raise it, so youre significantly more likely to roll guys that love to murder than any other kind of guy

not that any of that matters. even with maxed out ai compassion and honor theyre going to be up to some bullshit because of some missing check somewhere, so at a certain point its not worth caring about. i dont think any one combo is much worse than the next because all anyone ever does is murder and commit adultery no matter what, every character is the same

 

[The Shacks]

Haha, yeah to be honest my opinion aligns with the guy above. I honestly dont care much, beside when assigning wards. NPCs usually just romance random mayors and kill people noone has ever heard of.

 

[Emperor 1997]

Haha, yeah to be honest my opinion aligns with the guy above. I honestly dont care much, beside when assigning wards. NPCs usually just romance random mayors and kill people noone has ever heard of.

But this is an clear Example of how bad the Devs have coded the AI, they all do the same, regardless of Personality Traits.

I have seen multiple Times, that my Dynasty Members has romanced some random Nobody and 1 Time, the old Spouse of an Adventurer, while being betrothed to an way better Character with matching Personality Traits and the same Age, where the old Spouse of the Adventurer has had completly different Personality Traits.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Just wondering what other people's lived experience is. Who stabs the most backs over all, or what combination yields the most psychopaths for you?

Sadistic and Callous are the undisputed worst of the worst, not only for what they do but what they enable- The Beating. Once you are at all stable enough in your power to not rely on such people, getting rid of every courtier with either of these traits is a priority to keep The Beating from rolling in court.

Otherwise, the key personality spectrum to avoids are the combinations that lead to low Compassion, high Vengefulness, and low Honor. These are the three that lead to hostile schemes and feud-cycles, which normal RNG events push towards. High Greed doesn't directly contribute to such feuding, but high-greed characters are easy accomplices, is various bad actions if a ruler rather than a courtier, and high-greed traits generally correspond to these other undesirables.


As a result, the 'worst of the worst' trait combinations look like

Sadistic - Vengeful - Greedy - Intrigue Education

Sadistic: -200 Compassion, -75 Honor
Vengeful: +200 Vengefulness, -10 Honor
Greedy: +200 Greed, -10 Honor

The traits alone will get you to (nearly) maxed in all four stats: -100 Compassion, -95 Honor, +100 Vengefulness, +100 Greed. Further, every Intrigue-lifestyle perk further lowers honor, while further empowering intrigue scheme potential.


A 'more dangerous' combination would trade out the greed factor for a bit more dangerous schemer- substituting Greedy for another trait- but those only increase the ability of the character to cause trouble, not their likelihood. (In some ways, it decreases it where Greed would be a factor.)

 

[Garnrag]

Sadistic and Callous are the undisputed worst of the worst, not only for what they do but what they enable- The Beating. Once you are at all stable enough in your power to not rely on such people, getting rid of every courtier with either of these traits is a priority to keep The Beating from rolling in court.

Oooh, this might be something new to me! Is that the phenomenon where 'meet with peers' activities for young rulers exposes how underfunded the medieval social services were? Or something altogether more horrible? I don't really have much experience with the first one, I've played very few young rulers, but I've seen reddit posts about it.

As for the rest of your post, I am in your debt, that is fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. And I now know how I'm going to end my next "bored with this, let's experiment with something crazy" campaign, as well.

 

[The Shacks]

Oooh, this might be something new to me! Is that the phenomenon where 'meet with peers' activities for young rulers exposes how underfunded the medieval social services were? Or something altogether more horrible? I don't really have much experience with the first one, I've played very few young rulers, but I've seen reddit posts about it.

As for the rest of your post, I am in your debt, that is fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. And I now know how I'm going to end my next "bored with this, let's experiment with something crazy" campaign, as well.

The beating is the infamous event where a callous/sadistic guardian triggers an event for the ward where every option is bad. The ward ends up with a sh** trait like craven etc.

 

[Garnrag]

The beating is the infamous event where a callous/sadistic guardian triggers an event for the ward where every option is bad. The ward ends up with a sh** trait like craven etc.

Just shy of 2700 hours played, according to Steam, and I've never, ever seen that event. Dear lord...

 

[DeanTheDull]

Oooh, this might be something new to me! Is that the phenomenon where 'meet with peers' activities for young rulers exposes how underfunded the medieval social services were? Or something altogether more horrible? I don't really have much experience with the first one, I've played very few young rulers, but I've seen reddit posts about it.

The Beating is a childhood education event that a child can get to pick the 3 normal choices. What makes this event so notorious is that the three choices it offers are all notoriously bad / undesirable: Craven, Shy, and Paranoid. All three tend towards high-stress and are generally bad, and can be even build-ruining due to how some of the best traits in the game (such as Diligent) become very difficult to make use of if you have compounding stressors.

Mechanically/thematically, it's a punishment/generational balance to the sort of ruler/character/player who tries to level up on the pure-evil-murder-hobo traits. A tyrant who can terrify the region / employs the most potent spymasters / turns a blind eye to the depravities in their court risks getting their darling child being traumatized.


There is a common friction / player complaint that they can't find / punish / imprison the person who does the beating, but thematically it works well.

As for the rest of your post, I am in your debt, that is fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. And I now know how I'm going to end my next "bored with this, let's experiment with something crazy" campaign, as well.

I'd urge considering the inverse- a virtue-based run mixed with elective laws to the max. All the classical virtues promote the sort of behaviors you want to maximize.

The nature of childhood traits is that a guardian of a child leads the child to having a 4x chance to draw an event with a trait of the guardian, and a 3x chance to choose a guardian's trait (and 0.5x chance to choose an opposing trait). This doesn't guarantee children will have the same traits, but it does mean a child is pretty likely to have 1-2 of the traits of the guardian.

This, in turn, can work well if you spread elective laws onto the duchies across your realm / region, as the way Elective work generally means it will be won by the candidates with the highest diplomacy, general opinion, and fewest scandals... which is to say, virtuous characters with the most desirable AI behaviors.

As a result, over time elective dukes tend to be more consolidated, more stable, pay more taxes, and tend to be Courtly vassal stance characters, meaning they are more likely to accept higher Crown Authority and pay higher taxes.

It can be fun in a sense to see the game-start personality randomness / widespread instability... not go away entirely, but to see how stable a realm and region you can have, where compassionate AI are boosting cultural acceptance, feuds are rare and relatively easily resolved, and so on.

 

[Garnrag]

I'd urge considering the inverse- a virtue-based run mixed with elective laws to the max. All the classical virtues promote the sort of behaviors you want to maximize.

That's my CK equivalent of Skyrim's Stealth Archer - doesn't matter what I try to do for a role play, innate "protect the kids" rules apply when I'm picking guardians, and I tend to avoid any strategy that involves targeting rival or feuding families' kids in a bad way (although I've started coming around to castrations in Byzantium runs...).

But as for the dark triad traits and experimenting in the game... spawning a few intrigue courtiers in foreign courts and setting up that Vantablack-dark dark triad through the console might be worth a chuckle in a game I'm no longer investing myself in emotionally.

 

[DeanTheDull]

That's my CK equivalent of Skyrim's Stealth Archer - doesn't matter what I try to do for a role play, innate "protect the kids" rules apply when I'm picking guardians, and I tend to avoid any strategy that involves targeting rival or feuding families' kids in a bad way (although I've started coming around to castrations in Byzantium runs...).

But as for the dark triad traits and experimenting in the game... spawning a few intrigue courtiers in foreign courts and setting up that Vantablack-dark dark triad through the console might be worth a chuckle in a game I'm no longer investing myself in emotionally.

Here's one better for you...

Demand a hostage.
Abuse the hostage into the worst person possible.
Send back to their family court.

 

[Garnrag]

Here's one better for you...

Demand a hostage.
Abuse the hostage into the worst person possible.
Send back to their family court.

Just can't do it. Had a crappy enough childhood in real life, it's just hardwired in me that even the virtual kids need hugs not thugs.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Just can't do it. Had a crappy enough childhood in real life, it's just hardwired in me that even the virtual kids need hugs not thugs.

You know what? I can respect that. Play the virtuous route without shame.

...which can lead to another form of more virtuous amusement. Get wards / hostages out of a sinful/abusive/heathen liege's court and raise them to be virtuous.

Due to how the CK3 child personality trait events are rolled (a strong bias towards the guardian's traits, and away from the traits opposite of the guardian's traits), children tend to take after parents (or at least guardians). Therefore, evil rulers tend to raise evil children.

But you can stop that! Break the cycle! Save the children! Educate them to your virtuous traits, to your more enlightened culture, and so on. Have the best revenge / punishment of all- wards who love you more than their own wicked fathers. Adopt them as able- either through the hostage event that can spawn from being close to the child, and/or through Noble Adoption tradition.

This can be especially fun-ish if you deliberately play the culture game not for min-max development or conquest, or play a fundamentalist religion where you just reovke titles of unbelievers, but to spread a virtuous elite caste and a more tolerant religion.

Set up a legalism-legalistic tenet-tradition combo so that Just becomes both a huge super-trait and more common.
Add Charitable tradition so that kids of the culture are more likely to become Generous or Compassionate, and then add Islamic or Christian Syncreticism as a tenet so that both of these traits will be virtues.

Add Pacifism as a third tenet, so that you can't Holy War at all, but holy legends can convert neighboring realms. Add the Forebearing tradition so that children are more likely to be Calm (the virtue) or Patient.

Assuming Christian, commit to adding feudal elective laws to whichever duchies you can, so that the virtuous rise to the top.



This can help lead to a game where instead of out-powering everyone on the back of min-maxing, it becomes a broader struggle in a cruel world to help enlighten convert and guide by generational change rather than wars of conquest.


(Shorter build concept-
-Custom Christian / Islamic religion of Legalism, Christian/Islamic Syncreticism, Pacism. Have doctrines of Pluralism, Clerical Alms & Pacification,
-Customize culture to have Legalistic, Charitable, and Forebearing, and Noble Adoption. Throw in similarly thematic traditions- like Ritualized Friendship, or Beacon of Learning.
-As able, convert duchy-capitals to your ruler-caste culture, so that nobility will (usually) convert and stick to it.

 

[Dayvit78]

This can be especially fun-ish if you deliberately play the culture game not for min-max development or conquest, or play a fundamentalist religion where you just reovke titles of unbelievers, but to spread a virtuous elite caste and a more tolerant religion.

Set up a legalism-legalistic tenet-tradition combo so that Just becomes both a huge super-trait and more common.
Add Charitable tradition so that kids of the culture are more likely to become Generous or Compassionate, and then add Islamic or Christian Syncreticism as a tenet so that both of these traits will be virtues.

Add Pacifism as a third tenet, so that you can't Holy War at all, but holy legends can convert neighboring realms. Add the Forebearing tradition so that children are more likely to be Calm (the virtue) or Patient.

I've been doing this since Iberian struggle because I found a culture that loves everybody and every religion just works better.
If Muslim, I love Generous because not only is it a virtue, but unlimited stress relief for the low cost of ~100 gold.
I usually set it up so I have children with 3 virtues + virtuous Witch, which gives an automatic +40-50 for same religion people and as you said, helps with elective successions, in addition to being good traits to have anyway (I like temperate, just, generous, but others are cool, too) Gregarious is never virtuous but a good 4th trait to have.
I've fine with Pacifism, because... there's only so many kingdoms to conquer. better to have the free domain and a more stable realm.
Also pop opinion helps with electives.

Just seconding what you said that it's a virtuous cycle.

 

[DeanTheDull]

The Iberian Struggle was where I learned that some religious law setups can be surprisingly enabling. Like same-sex relations- it turns out that it's a bit of a secret superpower for the peninsula faiths, since in Mozarabic Christianity / Muwaldi islam same-sex relations are accepted, which means everyone with the Sodomite trait just has +10 relations, no penalty, and the potential lover bonus.

Which- when paired with mutual friendship- can make for some powerful cross-religion opportunities to, ahem, stabilize the realm through the power of diplomacy. The struggle for dominance on the Iberian struggle takes a different meaning when the power of love- and bisexuality- triumphs all.




...plus it makes it a great way to mess with rulers of other religions, like the French Catholics up north, since it is a scandal for them. So with the right setup (being either man-sexual yourself or investing in the seduction tree), you can use Seducer to destabilize Catholic / Muslim realms by buggering the ruler, and then not caring when the inevitable secret exposure leads to them getting an infamy trait / easy excommunication / etc.

Which is an easy way to crack up major regional powers and then press claimants and so on. Truly, religious tolerance is the way.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

I had a court with a solid core of Temperate / Diligent and then often either Stubborn / Brave in most people, especially House members. Very few Sinful or Intrigue-focused traits at all.

It was *still* a goddamned Thunderdome, with everyone murdering people with more or less the exact same traits. I hesitate to imagine what it would be like in an Intrigue-focused dynasty, not sure anyone would last into their 30s.

 

[JonZone]

Just wondering what other people's lived experience is. Who stabs the most backs over all, or what combination yields the most psychopaths for you?

In my own experience, out of the character traits, to bring out the biggest douchebags out of my courtiers:

Sadistic > Callous > Wrathful > Vengeful > Deceitful > Arrogant > Paranoid > Arbitrary > Ambitious > Cynical

Mostly vibe based. A lot of events run a check if "the character is any of the following" and it feels like Sadistic is a part of many events - especially the worst ones.

 

[tilly]

I had a court with a solid core of Temperate / Diligent and then often either Stubborn / Brave in most people, especially House members. Very few Sinful or Intrigue-focused traits at all.

It was *still* a goddamned Thunderdome, with everyone murdering people with more or less the exact same traits. I hesitate to imagine what it would be like in an Intrigue-focused dynasty, not sure anyone would last into their 30s.

see my post at the top of the thread. if you open the game in debug mode you can get a breakdown of the ai values of a character. diligent, temperate, and brave have a positive ai vengefulness value and nothing that boosts honor or compassion, so this combo works out as a bloodthirsty lunatic

stubborn also gives a high boost to ai vengefulness, but thats supposed to be balanced out by the fact that it also boosts ai honor by the same amount. in practice, though, theyre going to be constantly forming rivalries because theyre hugely vengeful and constantly trying to murder their rivals because the ai doesnt seem to be checking their own honor value, theyre checking their direct traits for a conflict and not finding one. this said, even if they DID have a trait that would hard block this (honest/just/compassionate, etc) some event is eventually going to fire that completely ignores that and make them into a murder machine anyway, so it doesnt matter

this is the major issue with the whole ai values system. a lot of stuff is implemented without any thought about how it translates into ai behaviour, and the game is inconsistent about how much it actually cares about these values in the first place. bring in the fact that basic checks are CONSTANTLY missing and you get a world full of ai characters that just do whatever, nothing to differentiate them and no reason to care

edit: hold on, my mistake, temperate reduces ai vengefulness so diligent/temperate/brave is actually neutral ai vengefulness. so it turns out this ones a murder hobo combo purely just because theres nothing at all to explicitly prevent it. the ai has to be deliberately chained down to stop it murdering, this and cheat on soulmate spouse is the only mechanic the ai has been taught and by god theyre going to make use of it

 

[Garnrag]

In my own experience, out of the character traits, to bring out the biggest douchebags out of my courtiers:

Sadistic > Callous > Wrathful > Vengeful > Deceitful > Arrogant > Paranoid > Arbitrary > Ambitious > Cynical

Mostly vibe based. A lot of events run a check if "the character is any of the following" and it feels like Sadistic is a part of many events - especially the worst ones.

Two and a half weeks of fighting with a Raptor Lake chip later, I hope this isn't going to count as necroing the thread. Thanks for this, I'm not surprised at all about any of the traits in your list other than maybe Cynical, but the order is interesting.

On feels alone, I'd have put deceitful at the top. This was the single most common trait in my CK2 homicide investigations. For CK3, yeah, Sadistic. But I'd then go Vengeful, Deceitful, and have to flip a coin between Callous and Wrathful.

My current spymaster has a ridiculously high Intrigue, my court is so bloated the game stutters to open the list from the character window, and I'm therefore uncovering enough schemes to start building a statistically (barely) significant sample size. Now to go make some notes!

 

[Garnrag]

...

this is the major issue with the whole ai values system. a lot of stuff is implemented without any thought about how it translates into ai behaviour, and the game is inconsistent about how much it actually cares about these values in the first place.

...

edit: hold on, my mistake, temperate reduces ai vengefulness so diligent/temperate/brave is actually neutral ai vengefulness. so it turns out this ones a murder hobo combo purely just because theres nothing at all to explicitly prevent it. the ai has to be deliberately chained down to stop it murdering, this and cheat on soulmate spouse is the only mechanic the ai has been taught and by god theyre going to make use of it

Moving parts that aren't designed to interface with each other will still interact with each other in ways you don't expect. I'm far too removed from it to remember the details, but 3.x Dungeons and Dragons established a framework where certain abilities could be countered by the player or environment, while others couldn't. Then they gave players spells that could adopt some of those abilities, without consideration for the counters, and then they got sloppy when adding new monsters and classes, and how their abilities were being coded.

End result, Polymorph wound up breaking the game bad enough it needed multiple rewrites and rulings, where a principle of "theorycrafting to break the rules is not cooperative game play" would have been more appropriate.

Here, in CK3? I think it's fair to ask the audience to engage with the spirit of the game as intended, but we can't discuss a poorly written rule with the DM in the runtime environment. It's one thing if my understanding of the INTJ personality type from the name and description of the traits is at an oblique angle to the developer's intentions. It's another entirely if the core model is, as you say, "Murder, rape, cannibalism, treason, yes to all the above"

PCGamer has an article up about Will Wright opining that the AI in the original Sims, 25 years ago, was too well tuned, and it was difficult for a player to make a more optimal choice if the goal is to keep all the numbers going up / bars in green.

That wouldn't be much fun for CK3, but I think a broader bandwidth of possible behaviours/interactions, paired with understandable, interpretable personalities driven by the traits, would keep the game going into 2030.

I mean... isn't that what we're playing it for? The stories and soap operas driven by the characters, rather than just painting the map overlays with our realm, culture, or religion's colours?

Well, the stories, and to see if we can create a strain of fecund albino god-kings who breed true and turn our family name into its own ethnic group?