Crusader Kings 3: Titles Crusader Kings 3 guide, tips

Titles are the most basic unit of ownership in Crusader Kings 3. Each piece of land in the game has its own title. Each character who wants to rule a given area must thus have an appropriate title. For this reason, titles play a major role in the game. Collecting them will be essential for the expansion of your empire, but they may as well be the cause of its collapse. For the titles of different lands, you will conduct wars and plan intrigues.

• What are titles?
• Hierarchy and types of titles
• De jure titles
• Claiming and obtaining new titles
• Title management

What are titles?

Titles are used to define land ownership. They are also an indicator of your rank and importance in a feudal society. Each of the titles is assigned to a specific land - therefore, to take over a given area, you have to obtain the appropriate title.

You can check your current titles in the character window (1). If you click on the Titles tab (2), the lower part of the window (3) will display a detailed list of all the titles you have.

Each title is represented by a unique coat of arms. Clicking on any of them displays a window with detailed information to the left. If you're the owner of the coat of arms, you can:

1. change its name (1), thus changing the name of its corresponding areas as well,
2. destroy it,
3. modify the law of inheritance.

If you're not the owner, you can check who has a claim to the title (2) and who had it before (3). At the bottom of the window (4), you will find information about the current title holder, their successors, and the succession laws in question.

Every character with titles also has the Primary title. It is always the highest-rank title of a given character, and it determines how their lands are visible on the map. If you have several titles of the same importance, you can decide which one will be your Primary title (right-click on the appropriate coat of arms). For example, if you are King of Poland and Lithuania and your Primary title is King of Poland, your lands will be marked as Poland on the map. If you decide to change your title to King of Lithuania, all your territories will be marked as Lithuania.

Each character's Primary title is always shown as the largest coat of arms in their character window. If you lose your Primary title, it will automatically be replaced by the next highest title you have. You cannot destroy the Primary title.

Hierarchy and types of titles

All titles are hierarchical and are determined by the feudal order.

At the very bottom of the ladder there are people with no titles. They may be lowborn people who have never held a title or fallen rulers who have lost theirs. Such characters are unplayable, but they can perform many important functions in your court.

The feudal ladder in a nutshell - follow the yellow lines: the Baron answers to the Count, the Count to the Duke, and the Duke to the King/Emperor.

The lowest rank is Baron or Baroness. Its corresponding territory is the barony, which is also the smallest territorial unit in the game. Baronies are individual towns, castles and churches. The nomenclature tied to this division is as such:

1. the ruler of a castle is a baron,
2. the ruler of a town is a mayor,
3. the ruler of church land is a bishop.

However, to simplify the terminology, we will be calling all characters with the title of these rank - Barons. Barons are unplayable, and this title can be held by low-born people who do not belong to any noble families. If such a character obtains a higher title at some stage of the game, they will automatically create a new dynasty and become a playable character.

A group of baronies makes up a county. Count is the lowest-ranked title a playable character can hold. The counties are marked on the map with the smallest coats of arms. If you click on such a coat of arms (1), you will see a county window on the left side. At the top, you will find some statistics and information on the ruler of the land (2). At this point, it is worth paying attention to three key issues that apply to each county.

Control

This primarily affects how much money in taxes you'll receive. Of course, the lower the control your administration has over a given territory, the lower the income you will receive from it. Control always drops when the county is a place of military operations, whether related to war or rebellion. Control also drops when you take over a new county that you did not previously own. Prolonged low control can lead to corruption and hence various penalties can be imposed on the county. As you can see, maintaining a high control over your counties is crucial.

Development

Another important stat of a County is development. It is a measure of the level of technology and infrastructure development in the County. The development stat affects the tax revenue and also the number of troops a County can deploy and maintain. To increase development, you can assign an appropriate task to your Steward or build specific buildings in the County. The development stat growth also depends on the innovations you have. Once a county reaches development level 10, further growth will be limited by penalties. To increase the maximum development level (for which no penalties apply), you must research:

1. Public Work (max 20),
2. Communal Government (max 35),
3. Urbanization (max 55),
4. Renaissance Thought (max 90).

With the help of these innovations, you can also increase the global pace of development of Counties: Currency (10%), Coinage (10%), Banking (10%), Promissory Notes (10%).

Popular Opinion

The last stat that needs to be discussed is popular opinion. It is mainly related to the religion and culture associated with a given area. If the count believes in a different religion or practices different culture than his subject, they will not be happy with it, which can get them to join up into hostile factions and eventually even cause an uprising.

In the central part of the County window (1), you can find a list of the baronies making it up. If you click on any of the icons, you will see information in the lower part of the window on the selected barony, and it also will be marked with a white circle on the map. Here (2), you can check what income you receive from a given barony, both in taxes and soldiers, and what loot you will get if you attack it. The supply limit indicates how many troops the barony can maintain in its area. If an army stationed there exceeds the limit, some of the soldiers will die due to the lack of resources.

Below you'll find a button (1) that lets you raise the level of a selected barony. After clicking it, you will see a window (2) with detailed information on what requirements you need to meet and what benefits you will receive at the next level. At the bottom of the window, there are slots (3) for buildings that you can build in the chosen barony (learn more about buildings on the Gold and buildings page). If the barony belongs to you or one of your vassals, you can also change its name (4). The crown next to the rename icon indicates that it is the capital of the County. Finally, the last, round icon (5) has information on the topography.

The Baron is the Count's vassal, and the Count is the Duke's vassal. The Duke title, like the King and Emperor titles, is a bit more abstract, as you can see that the expansion of your kingdom takes place at the County level. For this reason, it is always worth having several counties under your control, which will be your economic background. The income from such counties is higher than the income from the lands managed by your vassals. Moreover, you can decide on their development yourself. To check what areas belong to a given duchy, kingdom, or empire, just move the mouse over the corresponding coat of arms, which will highlight the corresponding territory.

In general, the hierarchy of titles is as follows:

1. Barony,
2. County,
3. Duchy,
4. Kingdom,
5. Empire.

This hierarchy also affects the relationships between the characters in the game. A ruler with a title of a given rank can only be a vassal of another ruler with a higher rank. As a Duke, you can be the liege of a Count or Baron, but you cannot make a King or an Emperor your vassal. Your vassal cannot have a title of the same rank as you (A Duke cannot be a vassal of another Duke). Given ranks also benefit from increased prestige or the limit of vassals you can have. The higher your rank, the more benefits you'll receive.

De jure titles

One of the most important concepts in the game is de jure titles. This term indicates the lands that legally belong to the title. The ownership results mainly from historical conditions. For example, the Duchy of Lesser Poland is de jure part of the Kingdom of Poland.

Information about de jure teritorry can be found in the middle of the preview window of the selected title. In the example above, you can see that, by law, the Duchy of Thessalonika consists of three counties. Another way to check de jure lands is to use the appropriate map modes (learn more about map modes from a separate page).

De jure titles have a number of consequences. If you have vassals whose titles are not de jure to your titles, then you will receive correspondingly less income from those vassals. At the same time, each such vassal will receive a penalty of -5 to their opinion about you (Not Rightful Liege modifier).

De jure also affects your ability to Create Titles. To create a Duke or King title, you must have at least 51% of its de jure titles. For Emperor titles, it has to be 81%.

An example of assimilation in which dynastic fragmentation led to the creation of de jure of two separate kingdoms: Poland and Greater Poland.

Assimilation

The de jure borders changes over time. This is an assimilation process and it takes very long. It revolves around changing the de jure association of individual titles. If you've just received a county de jure of which doesn't belong to your duchy, it will be assimilated by you if it doesn't change within 100 years. In practice, it is rather unlikely - within 100 years, you will likely become King and obtain a higher de jure title to vast territories. However, assimilation works at any level of the title hierarchy, so it is also possible to assimilate Duke and even King titles, which is possible if your empire is stable for a long time.

The assimilation counter starts running when the given title is taken over. If, however, you lose this title during the assimilation period, the counter will start regressing at double speed. Suppose you assimilated the title of Count of Moscow for five years. In the fifth year, there was a rebellion, and it took you three years to suppress it. Unfortunately, this means that you will have to repeat the entire assimilation process from the beginning. You can also speed up the assimilation of a title by assigning an Integrate Title task to your Chancellor.

Claiming and obtaining new titles

For obtaining new titles, you would need claims - the rights to hold a title that someone else currently owns. There are different types of claims, and they can be obtained and used in various ways.

You can check the claims of a given ruler in their character tab. They are located under the list of titles (1), and after clicking the Claims button, the lower part of the character window (2) will show a detailed list of all claims. Here you can check the types of claims and the current holder of the title they are associated with.

There are two main types of claims:

1. The first type (pressed claim) involves claims that you made or have a strong legal foundation. These are, for example, claims of children to their parents' titles if they have not inherited them, or claims to lands that you have lost as a result of a war. These types of claims are inherited by your primary heir.
2. The second type (unpressed claim) covers all other cases, and they can't be inherited. It means that these type of claims expires with the death of the person who owns them. An example of such are fabricated claims.

It is possible to change the type of claim in both directions. To strengthen your claims (change from unpressed to pressed), you have to declare war over them. If it ends in White Peace, the claims will change to pressed and become hereditary.

It is also possible to change the claims from pressed to unpressed. This is the case with inheriting claims that change to unpressed when being passed to your heir.

You can also view the claims in a given title's window. By clicking on the Claimants button, you will see a list of all people who have claims to the title on the right side.

You can obtain claims in several ways. We've already mentioned inheritance and fabrication, which involve assigning the appropriate task to your Court Chaplainiest. If you are the head of your dynasty, you can claim titles held by the other members of your dynasty. To do so, select the dialog box with the chosen character and check the diplomacy category. The Claim Title option will cost you Renown, while Request Claim requires Faith and approval from your religious leader. It is also possible to buy claims for Faith, but it is only available to characters who have the Sanctioned Loopholes skill from the science tree (the second tree - Scholarship Focus - the last but one position).

War

The claims you have collected will be mainly used to expand your influence and gain new titles. They are the casus belli for declaring wars over other ruler's titles. If you win such a war, you will get the title, and the previous owner will be left with strong claims to the lost territories. Remember that you can also declare war on someone else's behalf. If any of your vassals, courtiers, or even guests have a title claim, you can raise arms on their behalf. However, winning a war will result in the title will be given to the claimant and not to you, so always pay attention to whether you are acting on your behalf or someone else's. It is also possible to use de jure land claims as a case, but this requires appropriate innovation:

1. Casus Belli from Tribal-era for De Jure County;
2. Chronicle Writing from the Early Medieval-era for De Jure Duchy;
3. Rightful Ownership from ate Medieval-era for the remaining de jure titles;

Claims are not the only casus belli for wars over other people's titles. If you are interested in the title of a ruler of different Faith, and at the same time your Faith makes you perceive them as a religious enemy, you can declare a Holy War upon them. The Crusades or Jihads are examples of such conflicts.

Revoking a vassal's title

While war is one of the main ways to gain new titles, it is not always necessary to use such drastic methods. If you are interested in a title held by your vassal, you can simply take it from him. To do so:

1. open the vassal's dialogue window and select Revoke Title (1).
2. on the left side, you'll see the Revoke Title menu.
3. at the top you'll see the list of titles you can revoke from your vassal (2).
4. below, there are two tabs (3) - on Accept and on Decline, that let you see the consequences of the vassal's acceptance or refusal.

If you have Hooks against this particular vassal, you can also use them here (4). In practice, revoking a title will ruin your relationship with the vassal and can often lead to outright rebellion. You can ease the situation by having claims to the title you are revoking - otherwise, doing it will be perceived as tyranny and will worsen your relations with all your vassals. Revoking titles should thus be your last resort, only to be done if you're sure you know what you're doing. The option to revoke titles is only available if your Crown Authority is level two or higher.

Usurpation

Another way to gain new titles is usurpation. To usurp the title of another character, you have to own most of the de jure lands associated with that title. The requirements here are similar to those you need to meet when creating new titles - the only difference is that, in this case, you are assigning an existing title to your character.

There are also special forms of conquest through casus belli gained from skill trees:

1. Claim Throne from the administrator tree lets you gain a claim against your sovereign through a scheme.
2. Ducal Conquest from the diplomat tree lets you acquire a casus belli against neighboring duchies.
3. Forced Vassalage from the diplomat tree lets you acquire a casus belli of vassalage against neighboring rulers.

Title management

There are many ways to gain new titles. However, it is also important not to have too many of them at a given moment.

1. A Count and a Duke can control, directly or through their vassals, no more than 30 counties.
2. Any county above this limit will cause a 10% penalty on gold received.
3. The King and Emperor can have a maximum of 2 duchies, and exceeding this limit will lower the opinion of their vassals by 15.

It is also possible to exceed the Domain Limit, i.e. counties and baronies under your control. In that case, your new properties (those exceeding the Domain Limit) will not bring you any profit, and each of them will add -10 to all vassals' opinions.

Sometimes disposing of redundant titles can be worth it. In the case of titles with a rank higher than the county, you can destroy them, but it is always worth considering whether they can be used in any other way. We recommend destroying titles only if you have several titles of the same rank - in that case, giving one of them to a different character will make them independent, and you will lose some of your lands.

Otherwise, you can give redundant titles to your subjects. To do so, open the dialogue window with the given character and select the Grant Titles (1) option. On the left side of the screen, you will see a menu with a list of titles (2) you can grant.

This is perhaps one of the most effective ways to improve relationships with other characters. It is an excellent political instrument, but it carries some risks.

1. granting a title with the same rank as your main title means granting the vassal independence,
2. there is a risk you'll let one of your vassals grow too powerful.

Remember that giving a character a title improves your relationship with them. In the next generation, the benefits will disappear, and you may soon end up facing an unruly subject who's much more powerful than you.