The new expansion "Tours and Tournaments" for Crusader Kings 3 focuses mainly on activities. The existing activities were revamped for every player through the Lance Update, and the expansion adds new "Grand" activities that give players things to do in between wars and scheming.
One expansion-exclusive feature is Accolades. Accolades in Crusader Kings 3 allow the Knights of the realm to earn Glory. With enough Glory, these knights will give the ruler special bonuses like more men-at-arms, skill bonuses, and so on. The only trouble is figuring out how to use the Accolade system, and then generate enough Glory to get these bonuses.
How to Use Accolades
The maximum number of acclaimed knights any ruler can have is 5. However, most rulers will have fewer, and many low-tier rulers don't start with any. Here's how to get them:
- One each from reaching the King and Emperor tiers
- The Renowned Name Dynasty Legacy in the Glory tree
- The Bannus innovation from the Tribal Era
- The Knighthood innovation from the High Medieval Era
Any independent ruler can have acclaimed knights, so a count from a dynasty with Renowned Name and a culture with Bannus can have 2 Accolades.
Creating a new Accolade is easy. First, go to the Military menu and open the Knights section (or Champions, or Faris, or whatever the cultural name is). If the "Tours and Tournaments" expansion is active, and if the player ruler can create at least one acclaimed knight, then five empty portraits should appear at the top of this screen. If players can create an Accolade immediately, the portrait frames will be gold. If not, the frames will be silver.
Next, click on any of the portraits to create a new Accolade. A list of knights who can become acclaimed will appear below. Selecting one of them will generate a new Accolade title with primary and secondary attributes. These attributes allow acclaimed knights to give their rulers powerful bonuses, at least when their Glory is high. A knight must have certain traits, skills, or experience levels to qualify for a given attribute.
Acclaimed knights must also be landless or hold a baron rank at best. This means that player rulers can never be acclaimed knights, even though their heirs sometimes can. As soon as an acclaimed knight gains a county title or better, they stop being an acclaimed knight.
There are a few differences between primary and secondary attributes:
- The Accolade's primary attribute never changes, but their secondary attribute can change when a new knight takes on the title. If this happens, the Accolade loses a rank of Glory.
- Many attributes provide their ruler with extra men-at-arms. For instance, Pike Captain increases the size of spearmen regiments by up to 6. However, this bonus can only come from primary attributes.
- Primary attributes apply their bonuses at ranks 1, 3, and 5. Secondary attributes apply their bonuses at ranks 2, 4, and 6. These bonuses are the same either way, aside from any regiment bonus.
- No ruler can have two attributes of the same type active at the same time. If this would happen thanks to an Accolade successor, the game may force the Accolade to retire instead.
Players should keep these facts in mind when creating new Accolades, especially since extra-large men-at-arms regiments are very valuable. When creating a new Accolade, players can select the arrow button next to the attribute name to swap in a different attribute, though the list usually isn't very long. Still, it's a way for players to swap the primary and secondary attributes so the right one sticks with the Accolade.
Finally, players will need 150 Prestige to create a new Accolade. It's not much for a high-ranking ruler, but it must be paid.
Succession, Retirement, & Reinstatement
Like any other character in Crusader Kings 3, knights don't live forever. If players want to keep getting their Accolade bonuses, they'll need to set up successors for each one who can take on the title and continue to bring Glory to the player ruler's name.
To set up a successor, start by clicking on the acclaimed knight's portrait along the top row. Selecting them from the list of knights will only bring up their character information. On the screen that appears, players will see what the knight's Glory and rank are, what bonuses players can expect from a high-ranking knight, and who the title successor is. If there isn't one, players should hit the arrows button next to the word "Successor."
This brings up a new screen explaining the requirements a character must have to be a successor for the title. Below that is a list of courtiers, vassals, and guests who have the right traits and stats. However, a successor must already be serving as the player ruler's knight to become a successor.
Creating Worthy Successors
If an otherwise worthy successor doesn't have enough Prowess to be a knight automatically, players can back out a few levels and find their name in the list of eligible courtiers and vassals. There's a new option next to each name, "Force," which lets players make certain characters knights even if their Prowess is low compared to the realm's standard. Once the character is an actively serving knight, players can go back to the successor screen and choose them to continue the Accolade tradition.
If no worthy successors are in the player ruler's court, they can press the "Seek Worthy Accolade Successor" button on the succession screen. This will spawn a qualifying character who will automatically join the ruler's court, but who may need to be Forced into serving as a knight. The new character appears within the next 6 months, but the decision costs 125 Prestige and has a cooldown of 2 years. This cooldown persists between all the Accolades, and it isn't separate for each one.
Retiring Accolades
Players can retire Accolades to make room for new ones. Simply go to the Accolade's screen and hit the "Retire Accolade" button at the bottom. The currently serving acclaimed knight won't be happy, but there isn't much they can do about it. Retiring an Accolade costs Prestige, and the amount needed depends on the Accolade's current rank. Accolades will also retire on their own if players allow the current holder to die without a successor, or if the successor would cause an attribute conflict with an actively serving acclaimed knight. If this happens, the Accolade loses a rank.
On the bright side, retired Accolades don't disappear. Instead, a new button will appear on the knight screen called "Inactive Accolades." Players can press the button to see all the inactive Accolades of the realm. If a currently serving knight qualifies for the Accolade (and players have fewer than their maximum number of active Accolades), they can hit the "Reinstate" button to put them back into active service. The Glory rank of the Accolade will also be where it was when it got retired. Players may have to reinstate Accolades with valid successors that got retired thanks to attribute conflicts.
Players can also choose "Destroy" to get rid of an Accolade for good. Finally, if the realm has at least one inactive Accolade and no knights who qualify for it, a new decision will appear called "Restore Accolades." This will cause characters to spawn in the ruler's court who qualify for each inactive Accolade. Restore Accolades costs 150 Prestige and has a cooldown of 5 years.
Players with enough Prestige and Gold to spare can take advantage of the retirement and reinstatement mechanics to boost their men-at-arms numbers. If players create larger regiments by using Accolades but then retire them, the regiments will stay at their current size. By cycling through several Accolades that boost regiment size, players can create an entire oversized army.
If a player ruler's heir holds a title before they become the new player ruler, they may end up bringing the Accolades from their previous position to the player's court. These new Accolades will replace the ones already in place, so players may need to retire and reinstate a few acclaimed knights as part of the succession crisis.
How to Gain Glory
Since players can never be acclaimed knights, it's largely up to the NPC knights themselves to improve their Glory. However, there are a few things players can do to help increase their Glory more quickly.
- A battlefield victory with an acclaimed knight in the army will give them Glory.
- If players bring acclaimed knights with them on activities that involve a lot of travel, such as Grand Tours and Pilgrimages, the knights can earn some Glory on the road.
- By far the best activity to generate glory is the Grand Tournament. This connection is probably why Accolades are part of the expansion and not the Lance Update. During peacetime, acclaimed knights can go to Grand Tournaments hosted nearby and will earn Glory by participating in competitions.
- Players can also host their own Grand Tournaments, and they can give their knights extra Glory by choosing competitions the Accolade requires experience in and by choosing certain responses during Grand Tournament random events.
Crusader Kings 3 is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.