Here's how players can get their hands on the prolific achievement in Crusader Kings 3.
Loading screen artwork of a couple holding their baby, with an assassin in the background. From Crusader Kings 3.
As Crusader Kings 3 is a medieval dynasty simulator, it's obviously very important that the characters have the ability to build a great family - whether this means in quality or quantity. There are two achievements in the game that encourage the latter playstyle, rewarding players for having large families and a huge dynasty.
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To get the Prolific achievement you need to have 100 living dynasty members at once. This just means 100 members of your dynasty, it does not mean having a close family of 100 members, thankfully. On your way to get this, you will likely get The Succession is Safe achievement which just requires having 10 living children.
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Building A Large Dynasty
The key to having babies is, naturally, fertility. In Crusader Kings 3, fertility is an attribute that dictates how likely a character is to have a child and is not necessarily related to their biological ability to have children. The attribute represents the percentile chance of a couple becoming pregnant each month.
Fertility is affected by many variables, detailed in the table below.
Variable | Effect |
|---|---|
Age |
|
Traits | Many traits affect your fertility, some more than others. Fecund is the most effective, providing a +50% to a character's fertility rate. The various Attractiveness traits also improve a character's fertility to varying amounts. Lustful also increases fertility. On the flipside, some traits will reduce fertility. These include the negative Attractiveness traits, Disfigured, and Sterile/Barren. |
Lifestyle | Lifestyle choices can affect fertility in multiple ways.
|
Perk | The Seducer tree of the Intrigue lifestyle has the Like Weeds in a Garden perk which increases fertility by a large 30%. It's also the first perk in the tree, so it's easy to dip in and get it for an easy boost to fertility. |
Relationship | For female characters, being a wife or a lover has no effect on their fertility rate with a male character. Concubines and secondary spouses, on the other hand, have a 50% reduction in their fertility applied to them. It is still overall beneficial to have them if the aim is to have a huge family. |
Children | For each child a female character has, her fertility is reduced by a static five percent. |
When taking all of this information into account, some strategies for creating a huge dynasty become apparent:
- Pick the lifestyles that provide fertility bonuses, especially Seducer as the Like Weeds in a Garden perk is very easy to get.
- Related to that point, playing the game with an emphasis on seduction can be a great strategy and leads to some fun events in the meantime.
- Faiths that have the Polygamous marriage doctrine will benefit from the large royal families that can produce multiple children at once.
- This is probably the best way to aim for the achievement The Succession is Safe.
- Making sure that you have male heirs can be beneficial as male characters are generally able to have more children in a lifetime than female characters.
- With female children, only settle for matrilineal marriages to spread your dynasty even further.
Once you hit 100 living dynasty members, you will achieve the status of Prolific and acquire the associated achievement.
