There are quite a lot of systems at play in Crusader Kings 3, and it can often take multiple runs before you manage to wrap your head around them. It can be especially difficult when the very next character you play as has the chance to be completely different from your last, making the game an entirely different beast to handle.
However, they will always be of your Dynasty, and that gives you some degree of standardisation. Dynasty Legacies are the main form of controlling what gets passed down to the rest of your Dynasty. These last for your entire run, so it’s worth investing in ones that will suit your playthrough, and these are some of the very best.
Based on how you play, these Dynasty Legacies might not suit you, and as such they are not ranked in any particular order other than their general helpfulness across all playstyles.
10 Traditional Weddings
Activities — One
Introduced with the Tours and Tournaments expansion, Grand Weddings are a means to more strongly legitimise a wedding, and to have a whole event for you to get to know the various other lieges involved in the affair. Many dealing can go on here, and they are a great way to boost your own prestige, as well.
They are also ludicrously expensive, but the Traditional Weddings legacies reduces that cost by 50% permanently. On top of this, people are more likely to accept your promises of a grand wedding, making marriage even easier. And best of all? You might just get a Strong Hook on any and all lieges in attendance with a positive opinion of you.
9 Making A Killing
Pillage — Four
By 1066, many realms in Europe have already transitioned to Fuedalism, save a few. Going back to 867 though, and Tribalism is the norm, and that makes raiding standard fare. Raiding is a great way of making a ludicrous amount of money in the early game as well as giving you the chance to massively boost your development.
The Pillage tree of Dynasty Legacies is a massive boost to this playstyle, but the Making A Killing legacy in particular is immensely powerful. You will by default have 10% higher enemy casualties, but every 100 of those will give you plus five gold. Suddenly, a strong army starts to pay for itself by sheer strength.
8 Graceful Aging
Kin — Five
As the game advances and you (hopefully) start to build up more powerful congenital traits, it can feel devastating when your character dies just before some major campaign completes. And with age comes a loss of skills, making certain actions much harder than in your youth. The Graceful Aging legacy does away with that fear.
With it, you get lots of benefits. For one, your Prowess will no longer decrease with age, making you as capable of handing a weapon as in your youth. On top of that, your skill will start to even increase with age every few years past 30. And just to make it even better, your characters will look more youthful in their old age.
7 Studious Youth
Kin — Two
While you may want your own ruler to last forever, it is just as important to have well-educated children to take over for you. A poor ruler can have your entire realm implode at a moment’s notice, so it’s best to be liked and prepared. And the Studious Youth Dynasty Legacy sees to that.
It is important to assign a Ward to your children so they have a mentor in their formative years. This will give them a chance of gaining a specific education trait based on the skill of their tutor. With the Studious Youth legacy, there is an even higher chance for this education to be even better for your children. Oh, and your children will have a higher opinion of you by default, too.
6 Side-By-Side
Customs — Five
A backdrop that decides much of what a realm has access to is its culture. This changes the units you have, the ways you can manage your realm, how you dress, and even how you interact with others. If you want your realm to span the continent, you’ll have to get used to living with other cultures, and the Customs tree helps with that.
All the legacies along the way will help you when mingling with other cultures, but the Side-By-Side Dynasty Legacy is the strongest by far. Every ten years, it grants access to the ‘Celebrate Other Cultures’ decision, which will boost various of the nations of differing cultures from your own within your realm. This gives massive boosts to general opinion, development growth, building cost, and more. And since it lasts for ten years too, it can be kept active functionally permanently.
5 Noble Veins
Blood — One
While it can be very fun to play Crusader Kings 3 in a very roleplay-led way, you will sometimes want to min-max your current playthrough for various reasons, and that typically involves stacking as many positive congenital traits on your family as possible. This can take centuries of selective breeding, and there are no guarantees.
That’s what the Noble Veins Dynasty legacy does. It boosts the chance of inheriting good congenital traits by 30%, and gives a 30% chance of new congential traits appearing unprompted. It’s essential to creating a literally powerful Dynasty, and is best to aim for earliest among all the Dynasty Legacies.
4 Family Connections
Guile — Five
When you get a large, prominent family, it’s basically a given that people will try to kill you. How many times have you tried to kill your own liege because you had a chance to get something good out of it? Eventually, the shoes will be on the other foot, and people will be gunning for your head.
Family Connections should take some of the risk out of that. With it, there is a very high chance you can prevent the murder of any Dynasty member once, yourself included. It may only ever stop one attempt on your life, but one survived attempt is enough to let you build up your defences.
3 Treasured Knowledge
Erudition — Three
As your realm and culture expands, it can be difficult to keep your development growth high. Seeing as this is key to increased taxes and a higher supply limit, you’ll want to boost it as high as you can, as soon as you can. A larger realm makes this hard, but the Treasured Knowledge Dynasty Legacy should make it that much easier.
With it, your monthly Learning Experience will be increased by 10%, and your Development Growth by 20%. Since this is for your entire Dynasty, it means not just your personally held Domain will get this benefit, but everywhere held by your Dynasty. It is a massive boost if you have your Dynasty spread across your entire realm.
2 House Of Warriors
Warfare — One
Of course, it has to be accepted that no matter how diplomatically you try to play, how peace-loving you may be and self-contained within your own corner of the world, that war will come to your doorstep. It pays to be prepared, and sometimes having money to hire mercenaries and relying on levies just isn’t enough. You need a real army.
House of Warriors is what you’ll want. It will give you a flat +2 to the prowess of every Dynasty member, while also giving a +15% bonus to Knight Effectiveness. Being the very first trait of the Warfare tree means you can get it incredibly early, which can be a massive help to bolster an otherwise middling army.
1 Architected Ancestry
Blood — Four
Congenital traits are a massive boost to the personal abilities to any character, especially as they grow in strength. Years of pairing characters with strong traits will eventually cause those traits to become stronger themselves. That said, the search can be daunting, and oftentimes potential suitors will be of a lower class, causing a large Legitimacy hit.
So it is worth investing in the Architected Ancestry Dynasty Legacy. Why rely on bringing new blood into the family when you can rely on your own? With this legacy, there is an at least 5% chance that the trait you choose will appear on any child in your legacy, regardless of the parents’ own traits.
