Highlights
- To ensure a long and successful reign in Crusader Kings 3, players should hire the best Court Physician to prevent accidental deaths and harmful treatments.
- Choosing the Medicine Focus and unlocking perks in the Whole of Body tree can boost health, prevent diseases, and increase fertility, leading to a longer lifespan for the character.
- Players can turn off harm events or limit them to AI characters if they prefer a lower risk of random deaths, and appointing a skilled Spymaster can help protect against enemy schemes that aim to assassinate the ruler.
Crusader Kings 3 is a game that doesn't end when the player's character dies. Instead, they carry on playing as the heir as long as the heir is of the same dynasty. While occasionally it can be beneficial for the heir to assume power, especially if they have the best congenital traits, successions more often than not are a messy affair.
When a new ruler ascends the throne in Crusader Kings 3 they likely won't have inherited everything, and they will suffer a short reign loss of opinion from vassals who don't yet trust them. All the perks, lifestyle traits, levels of fame, and piety will also be lost with the life of a ruler. With this in mind, players should aim for long reigns in CK3, which pretty much means they need to know how to make their characters live longer.
6 Hire The Best Court Physician
The Court Physician is arguably the most important court position in CK3, but by appointing an incompetent healer, players won't only miss out on the best medical treatment, but they could actually make things worse. An inept physician is more likely to cause harm or even death with their experimental treatments, killing crucial family members or cutting a reign short.
Therefore, players should save up gold to hire the best of the best when using the Find Physician decision, or else they should search manually for a character with high learning and beneficial Traits. It is also important to make sure that the Court Physician likes the ruler in question, otherwise, they could use their proximity as a powerful enemy agent in hostile schemes.
5 Medicine Focus & Whole Of Body Lifestyle
Any player looking to see their character reach old age should absolutely choose the Medicine Focus, which is a Learning Lifestyle Focus and rewards the player with a small health boost on top of a +1 Learning bonus. By gaining Learning Lifestyle points they will then be able to unlock some of the best Learning Perks in CK3, specifically those from the Whole of Body tree.
Perks in the Whole of Body tree give the player more health boosts, make physician treatments more successful, and prevent diseases and mental breakdowns. At the end of the tree, the Whole of Body Trait is unlocked, boosting fertility, reducing stress, and once again providing a health buff. All of these help players live longer in CK3, allowing for long and productive reigns.
4 Turn Off Harm Events
Harm events were introduced to Crusader Kings 3 to spice things up and have more random and tragic deaths or injuries to stop players from steamrolling the game with 100-year-old gods.
However, for players who don't like the increased risk of their ruler dying randomly, there are different settings in the game rules for harm events. They can be turned off completely or set to only happen to AI characters, or if players still want a small challenge the Illusion of Safety option makes harm events fire much less frequently.
3 Protect Against Enemy Schemes
Crusader Kings 3 is a game where even if players take great care of their character's health, death can still find them easily. There are many reasons why AI characters may wish to murder a ruler, from desiring their throne to seeking revenge. Therefore, the simplest thing players can do is avoid making enemies in the first place.
Appointing a skilled Spymaster and setting them to the disrupt schemes task is the best course of action for defending against enemy plots. By unlocking one of the best Intrigue Perks in CK3, Court of Shadows, this task will be even more effective. It is also important that the Spymaster has a good opinion of the ruler.
2 Don't Take Risks
One of the easiest ways to not die early and have a long reign in CK3 is to simply not take risks. For example, if players don't assign their ruler to lead armies in war, their character won't tragically die in battle. Avoiding wars in general can be a good tip for escaping death as opposing forces may siege the player's capital, killing them or taking them captive.
Throughout a playthrough, players will also be presented with plenty of decisions and events, some of which come with danger. By avoiding the RNG risks of certain choices, players have a better chance of making it to old age. Certain activities or even traveling to said activities also pose their own risks. Fighting in a Grand Tournament or hunting down a boar both present serious danger and even if players don't die immediately, any long-term injuries will eventually lead to a shorter reign.
1 Manage Stress
In Crusader Kings 3, players don't only have to worry about the physical health of their character, but also their mental health. The stress mechanic is one of the best things about the game as it rewards players for role-playing and making decisions that align with their character's personality. Going against the grain will incur stress, as will tragic events such as the death of a family member.
Accumulation of stress can result in mental breakdowns where characters either develop a coping mechanism that comes with its own pitfalls or instead, they will gain even more stress. Repeated mental breakdowns can end in death. Thankfully, there are many ways to manage stress in Crusader Kings 3, including activities such as hunting, sacrificing some matters of the realm to avoid stress gain, and gaining the Whole of Body Lifestyle Trait.
Crusader Kings 3 is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.