Am i doing something wrong? Raising kids

[DrakenKin]

3 times in a row, i get low stats in the stat i trained my kid for, and he gets a trait that completely contradicts his main training. For example my current ruler ended up a SHY diplomat, and my next heir that i was training for intrigue became honest!

The last intrigue heir i made ended up being compassionate AND paranoid, which means something like 100+ stress every time he tried to kill someone.

Similarly my diplomat gets 43 stress whenever he tries to sway someone because of his shyness. And i bet my next heir, the honest intrigue guy will end up stressing for every deception because of his honestly.

I don't know what i am doing wrong.

To take the example of my honest spy heir, he comes from a diligent patient shy father and a sadistic arrogant ambitious mother. His trainer has fickle zealous and impatient. She has 27 intrigue and elusive shadow, which is the rank 4 intrigue education trait. She has 94 opinion of me so i don't think it's sabotage.

My son is 11 years old right now, and as i said he has honest fickle and rowdy. His stats are 8 7 7 3 10... basically intrigue is his lowest stat.

Am i doing something wrong or just cursed by the RNG gods?

[FALSC]

ehh, just raise them urself and don't pick bad traits?

[Kapika96]

Are you actually raising them?

You should make yourself their guardian. The traits are only semi-random, in that you usually get a choice between 3 so you can avoid certain ones if you really want. You can only do that if you're actually raising them yourself though.

[Slimane]

I heard that the learning stat of the guardian affects the education and stat gain of the ward the most. Haven't tested it myself yet so take it with a grain of salt.

[DrakenKin]

Holy smokes, i should have been raising them myself. I just assumed it would be better to let the professionals do the raising right. What a stupid mistake.

Ok ill raise the next ones and see how they turn out. Thanks!!

[Steel]

For their stats, I recommend two perks. Groomed to Rule, and Pedagogy, in the diplomacy and learning tree respectively as it gives them upwards to 1-6 extra skill points in things. I've had rulers have the good rating in all stats due to this.

[DrakenKin]

Originally posted by Golden Witch:

For their stats, I recommend two perks. Groomed to Rule, and Pedagogy, in the diplomacy and learning tree respectively as it gives them upwards to 1-6 extra skill points in things. I've had rulers have the good rating in all stats due to this.

Wait, i completely ignored groomed to rule because i thought it only gave them 1-3 points TOTAL. Are you saying it's 1-3 points in each attribute??

[Harris]

Originally posted by Draken:

I don't know what i am doing wrong.

You are mixing up education and personality.

There is a child trait, a talent really, which says what education would be best for that child. If you play as a child you're able to pick education directly, otherwise it's done through a guardian, and having them of high education themselves improves the outcome when your child is 16.

Personality traits exist on a separate level entirely and you get them through events. From what I've seen those are random are you can't reliably influence them through parents or guardian having certan personality trait themselves.

Stuff you can inherit from parents are once again on a separate level, you can inherit beautiful or genius, but not sadistic or compassionate, because that's personality.

Usually you get one of three options so you can plan in advance what kind of character you want it to be. For example I groomed a tyrant chick and was lucky enough to get her sadistic, callous and deceitful. With intrigue education it ends up with an absurdly high intrigue skill.

However, because of mentioned randomness of events you might as well end up being a just compassionate tyrant, effectively messing your plans up royally.

This also means you can't always reliably plan to have a certain kid groomed for a certain role. Like, you can, but only to an extent.

[DrakenKin]

By education you mean learning or the skill that i want, like intrigue? I am guessing the latter.

So if i get this right :

If i want stats, such as 20 intrigue, i pick the highest intrigue guardian.

If i want good traits (deceitful), i have to raise the child myself so i can choose them. No way around that? What if i raise the child myself to take the decisions but swap someone else at 15, would that have benefits?

The combination of these 2 means that i will want to keep my kids doing the same thing as the parent, if the parent is a general with high martial, and i educate my kids to take the decisions, then he will get high martial from me. Correct?

And what you are saying basically is that the parents have no say in traits or stats (as in genetically or raising the kid), they just give him the genetic traits such as beautiful and that's it. Correct?

One thing i noticed however, my 30 learning wife had multiple events when she increased the stats of my kids as they grew. So maybe the one thing parents need is high learning to help the kids gain stats.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Draken:

By education you mean learning or the skill that i want, like intrigue? I am guessing the latter.

Education trait that gives both stat and faster perk gain in the relevant tree.

Originally posted by Draken:

If i want stats, such as 20 intrigue, i pick the highest intrigue guardian.

Picking a guardian that has at least some revelant education trait is important. Of course it's better if they have 3 or 4 stars intrigue education trait, more chances for your kid to get that too.

Originally posted by Draken:

If i want good traits (deceitful), i have to raise the child myself so i can choose them. No way around that? What if i raise the child myself to take the decisions but swap someone else at 15, would that have benefits?

This is a good and valid question. In essense this is kind of a trade off - do you want to have a better education trait and look for a guardian that has 3 or 4 stars one. Or do you want more control over shaping their personality while they end up having weaker education trait. It's pretty balanced, now that I think of it.

If you are lucky to get events for 3 "good" traits like sadistic, callous, deceitful you could end up with a total of +8 intrigue from these traits alone - plus an additional bonus of stress loss from executions meaning stress for your character is a non-issue. Same time, getting 4 star education trait is the same +8 intrigue plus +40% learning speed, and since dread tree in particular has many perks to get to say prison-feudal complex (very useful), I'd say it's worth it.

At the end of the day, I'd settle for a set of beneficial personality traits and an okay education of 2-3 stars for a character.

Originally posted by Draken:

if the parent is a general with high martial, and i educate my kids to take the decisions, then he will get high martial from me. Correct?

Game says it's actually a combination of two factors. You want a general with high martial out of your kid.

First factor is child trait (pre-education). If that trait says +1 martial (other can be +1 to any skill) then he has more chances to get high stars martial education skill. Second factor is a guardian.

To sum it up - if you want a good general you need a kid who is talented towards martial and a good general to teach him.

Originally posted by Draken:

the parents have no say in traits or stats (as in genetically or raising the kid), they just give him the genetic traits such as beautiful and that's it. Correct?

I'm saying kids can inherit beauty, intelligence and constitution traits from parents, but they can't inherit personality traits because those they develop on their own.

Of course, parents (the player) can influence personality traits through childhood events. Makes sense?

Originally posted by Draken:

One thing i noticed however, my 30 learning wife had multiple events when she increased the stats of my kids as they grew. So maybe the one thing parents need is high learning to help the kids gain stats.

It's not about her stat though. She must have had pedagogy perk which caused the skill increases you mentioned.

[Myth Alric]

It seems like the skill level does matter. I generally teach the child myself if their starting trait matches something my character is good at, even if I don't have the best education trait possible. If it doesn't match then I search for teachers with the highest skill level that matches what I want to learn. I generally pick based on the highest skill level but if someone has a higher education trait and is just a few points lower, I will pick them instead. If everyone sucks, then I will go with someone with high learning skill and education and hope for the best.

I never had a child with a level 1 education trait so as long as you make sure their focus matches their starting trait, I think that is the most important thing.

[Freedom]

Educate your Heir and Spare, the others have a vassal with good stats raise them. I have 7 kids right now, 4 sit on on my council.

[BrowneHawk]

From what I read the how smart the character is will influence how well trained the ward is. So people who are genius or intellectual will teach better.

For instance my genius ruler who is a brilliant strategist, can still train my kid who has intrigue as a focus, and still a good chance he will become intricate webweaver.

[DecayWolf]

Yeah, my first batch came totally wrong as well.

I got for example a rank 4 intrigue. That's nice, except he was impatient, temperant and something else silly that goes against his behavior.

If for instance, I had any these cynical, sadistic, vengenful, diligent or ambitions, now that would be a completely badass character.

2 rules.

1. Knowing what they'll be.
For example, a character with rowdy he'll start with martial 1 and intrigue 1, therefore he'll either be a marshal or intrigue character.
They'll not turn into anything else.

Say you give that rowdy character to an intrigue education or marshal person, it DOES NOT seems to increase the likehood that he'll end in either direction.

Knowing more or less what they'll be, will give you a direction of where to focus at.

Sadistic and vengeful are good traits for rowdy because it covers both specializations.
Just as an example.

Last but not least, when it comes to your vassals, DO NOT think their own traits will prevail on your character selection.
For example, I had a character with pensative, I knew he'll very likely turn into a priest.

I gave him to a cardial with rank 4 learning... He had 2 good piety traits...
My character came as a rank 3 learning with 2 sinful traits instead... Completely BS.

2. Increasing your education score.
- Let them be educated by your highest character with education that you have. It DOES NOT seems to effect which specialization your educator is. I think rank 4 diplomats are the best, because they have an skill that increases your starting skill by 1 to 3, but I have not tested.

- Bloodlines on kin group, rank 2. Has a skill that increases the chance of higher education.

I have never got any character lower than rank 2.
Most of my character were rank 3 to 4, that's without the kin bloodline.

[Harris]

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

I had a character with pensative, I knew he'll very likely turn into a priest.

I gave him to a cardial with rank 4 learning... He had 2 good piety traits...
My character came as a rank 3 learning with 2 sinful traits instead... Completely BS.

Nope, it makes total sense.

Parents give your child genetics - congenital traits - genius, beautful and the like and nothing else.

Guardians give your child education traits - and nothing else.

Neither can give your child personality traits - they can't become sadistic because their parents were sadistic, or because their mentor was sadistic.

Instead, personality traits are only gainable from events, where you as a player (and a parent, from a game's perspective) can encourage certain behavior, even if that contradicts the parent's own personal traits.

[DecayWolf]

Of course not.

If am a pragmatic person, I'll teach my son to be pragmatic, it's only natural. That's how the real world works.