Comprehensive guide to education in Conclave

[Alliegorical]

Spoiler Alert: some of this stuff is pretty fun to experience for the first time in the process of playing naturally. Read on if you're just interested in min-maxing your kids 'cause that's what you find fun.

General Disclaimer: This guide may (and probably does) contain errors. If someone sees something they know or suspect to be wrong, point it out and I'll check it out and edit accordingly.

The first thing to understand is that Conclave has not reduced player-agency in child-rearing. If anything, it has increased it. What has decreased is educator agency, which is to say that the traits of an educator are far less relevant (except in a few key situations, which I will explain). If anything, it is now easier to craft your child into the kind of character you desire, but there is still quite a lot of luck involved. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you are the child, you have even more control over your traits than you would as an educator.

Education events are divided into three files. This is logical, because there are really three phases to a child's education: childhood, adolescence, and conclusion when the child comes of age. I will be explaining each phase fully in order.

Phase One: Childhood
Ages 6-11

You can select your pupil's childhood focus sooner than age 6, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't make any difference.

Over the course of phase one, there will be a biennial pulse that fires one of many different event chains. Each chain is associated with a different childhood-trait. These event chains may result in the child gaining the associated trait. If the child is AI, the chance is 75%; if the child is player-controlled, it depends on choices made during the event chain. I haven't carefully poured over every single event chain, but it seems like you can nearly always guarantee you pick up the childhood trait if you want it.

The childhood focuses are:

• Pride: favors Haughty and Brooding
• Humility: favors Affectionate and Timid
• Struggle: favors Rowdy and Willful
• Etiquette: favors Indolent and Playful
• Duty: favors Conscientious
• Thrift: favors Fussy and Curious
• Faith: favors Idolizer
• Heritage: favors none, but increases the chance of flipping the child's culture/religion to that of the educator.

All events are equally probable except that the two traits that are favored by the child's focus are five times more probable than the others. Also, Timid and Rowdy are mutually exclusive; once the child has either trait, the event chain to gain the other cannot be selected.

These traits are very important. Phase one is best understood as the child's formative years, so choose the child's focus carefully.

Finally, if the child is imprisoned (but not under house arrest, in which case the child's education proceeds normally with the captor as the educator), a different set of event chains take place. These can grant the traits Indolent, Affectionate, Brooding, or Timid (in addition to a host of nasty health-traits).


Phase Two: Adolescence
Ages 12-15

During phase two, there is a different biennial pulse which will take one of the child's childhood traits, selected at random, and turn it into an ordinary trait. Each childhood trait can morph into any of three ordinary traits, with a caveat: each childhood trait also has a fourth option, which can only occur if the child's educator has that trait. The child's education focus has no effect on these events; it only comes into play in phase three, the moment the child turns 16. After the childhood traits are replaced, the game remembers which traits the child used to have, which comes into play in phase 3 when the child turns 16 and earns his/her education trait.

For example, Haughty can become either Proud, Arbitrary, or Cruel. After this decision is made (completely randomly), then if the child's educator is ambitious, he/she can choose to try to make the child ambitious instead of whichever trait was selected. The child can then choose to accept the new trait in place of the old.

The possible adult traits in full:

Haughty
Proud, Arbitrary, Cruel.
Educator overwrite: Ambitious

Affectionate
Kind, Content, Trusting
Educator overwrite: Charitable

Timid
Humble, Shy, Craven
Educator overwrite: Content

Rowdy
Strong, Honest, Dumber*
Educator overwrite: Brave

Willful
Ambitious, Brave, Stubborn
Educator overwrite: Proud

Brooding
Just, Wroth, Envious
Educator overwrite: Temperate

Indolent
Charitable, Slothful, Gluttonous.
Educator overwrite: Gregarious

Playful
Gregarious, Deceitful, Lunatic**
Educator overwrite: Cruel

Conscientious***
Diligent or Temperate
Educator overwrite: Just

Fussy
Patient, Greedy, Paranoid
Educator overwrite: Diligent

Curious
Cynical, Religion-Sympathy****, Smarter*
Education overwrite: Patient

Idolizer
Zealous, Erudite, Weak
Education overwrite: Kind

* Smarter increases the child's intelligence by one level, on the scale of Imbecile -> Slow -> Normal -> Quick -> Genius. Dumber has the opposite effect.
** Lunatic is 1/10 as likely as the alternatives.
*** Conscientious has a chance to give the Stressed trait in addition to one of the other two.
**** If the child's educator/location/friend/sibling belongs to a different religion group, then the child becomes sympathetic to that religion. If there is more than one applicable religion, the child chooses one.

Also note that if the child already has a trait that is mutually exclusive to one of the three options, then that trait will not be chosen and therefore cannot overwrite the trait that the child already has. However, the educator's overwrite can overwrite an opposite trait. For example, the child is Affectionate, Ambitious, and Greedy. The educator is Charitable. Content cannot be one of the three traits selected randomly, but if the educator and child both choose to overwrite Kind or Trusting with Charitable, the child will also lose the Greedy trait.


Phase Three: Coming of Age
The moment the child turns 16

When the child turns 16, his education trait is selected. As you probably already know, there are four levels for each attribute. The child will always receive an education trait for the attribute selected in the adolescent's focus. Which level is selected is randomized, with heavy weights thrown in depending on which traits the child has/had. "Good" traits increase the likelihood of getting a better level. "Bad" traits increase the likelihood of a lower level.

@Allastair has created a very helpful spreadsheet to determine the precise likelihood of each education tier, given your child's traits. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q2aEWH1AT_IhTJYMKS7d07M8pk7-7ex9qKJ-YIE7GG4/edit#gid=0

For all attributes:
Good traits: Genius, Quick, Diligent
Bad traits: Incapable, Imbecile, Inbred, Slothful

The game remembers which childhood traits the child possessed when entering adolescence, and applies them now to further determine the likelihood of better/worse education levels:

Diplomacy
Good Traits: Affectionate, Curious
Bad Traits: Willful, Fussy

Martial
Good Traits: Rowdy, Willful
Bad Traits: Timid, Idolizer

Stewardship
Good Traits: Brooding, Conscientious
Bad Traits: Indolent, Haughty

Intrigue
Good Traits: Playful, Fussy
Bad Traits: Rowdy, Affectionate

Learning
Good Traits: Idolizer, Timid
Bad Traits: Brooding, Playful

Summary of Agency

Here's a quick and dirty list of those aspects of education that are under the player's control, depending on the player's role. I'm only about 80% sure that this is all correct, so this either needs to be tested further, or someone who knows Clausewitz better than me needs to check the game files.

Child's Liege (if courtier) or the Child him/herself (if landed)
Focuses, in both phase one and two. Note that since a focus cannot be changed, it's safe to land your child after choosing his education focus once he's twelve years old.

Child's educator
Whether or not to intervene during adolescence with an alternative trait, after seeing what the initially selected trait is going to be.

The Child
In phase one, whether or not to pick up each semi-randomly selected childhood trait as it presents itself via events.
In phase two, whether or not to accept an alternative trait offered by your educator.


For now, I'm going to let strategy remain beyond the scope of this guide. I'm just here to tell you how the system functions, not to suggest how to use it. But since I'm usually such an opinionated blowhard, I'll probably change my mind later, and list all the proper ways to raise your kids, and tell everyone who does it differently that they're bad and they should feel bad.

 

[RykaS]

Awesome, thanks for the writeup! Any tips for handling vassal's kids? Mine are turning out horribly, and I can't afford idiots playing as Zoroastrian Bavandids

 

[RykaS]

For vassals' kids, just give them the Humility focus, then hand them off to someone content. You stand a pretty good chance the kid will pick up the trait one way or another.

There are loads of clever possibilities with child-rearing in Conclave. For example, gain a favor on your liege, call in the favor to educate his heir, then deliberately engineer the heir into a dipshit.

How do you pick landed vassal kids' focuses (foci)? I didn't see an option to so I end up with a generation of terrible clerks and wannabe spymasters, instead of warriors like I want.

 

[Alliegorical]

How do you pick landed vassal kids' focuses (foci)? I didn't see an option to so I end up with a generation of terrible clerks and wannabe spymasters, instead of warriors like I want.

Whups. It looks like maybe you can't. I can't figure out how to get a definitive answer to this.

 

[Rags17]

Fantastic resource - give that man a virtual cigar !

One question though - it looks as if the educator's relevant education stat is not important now, is that correct ? In other words, to train up my future Marshal I should choose a teacher who is Brave and Proud (gives overwrite ability to Rowdy and Willful children), but he could be a Misguided Warrior for all I care.

Is this correct, because if so then that seems kind of counter intuitive. I make a point of bringing in high Martial females to act as educators for my future generations, these changes seem to invalidate that whole approach.

 

[Fabiano79]

Great guide!. But I still dont understand why so many children end up being Slow and how I can avoid it.

 

[Alliegorical]

Fantastic resource - give that man a virtual cigar !

One question though - it looks as if the educator's relevant education stat is not important now, is that correct ? In other words, to train up my future Marshal I should choose a teacher who is Brave and Proud (gives overwrite ability to Rowdy and Willful children), but he could be a Misguided Warrior for all I care.

That's correct. As mentioned in a dev diary, the role of educator is largely ceremonial now, as it was historically. The actual tutoring is carried out by some other dudes.

Great guide!. But I still dont understand why so many children end up being Slow and how I can avoid it.

The kids were probably rowdy. Reduce the likelihood by giving rowdy children to brave educators, so there's a chance the Slow will be overwritten by Brave.

Still trying to figure out exactly how the game determines who actually chooses the education focus in every circumstance. When the player is the child, he chooses it himself. When the child is a courtier, is it his parent? His liege? If the kid is landed, and not a vassal of his/her parent (which one? Father if from a normal marriage, mother if matrilineal?), does the parent still choose?

I'm pretty sure this isn't hardcoded, so if someone can point me to the game file that lays this out, I can incorporate it into the guide.

 

[illathid]

Thanks for the write up! This is great info.

 

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I need a spreadsheet for this
Thanks for the insights.

 

[FakeMessiah27]

A bi-yearly pulse? Do you mean you get an event chain every two years or so? Just to make sure I'm reading it right. But if I am, I'm not sure if I came across a bug or if I'm just doing something horribly wrong.

I started a new game in Italy and so far my Duke has gotten four daughters. For two of these daughters I chose a diplomatic childhood focus, Etiquette it's called I believe. Then when they turned 12 I chose Diplomacy. One other child was given a more financial focused education and the last one was taught in Intrigue. Not only did I never get a single event chain about any traits, when every single one of them turned 16 I got an event saying that I ''failed them in their education'' and they got the lowest level of education trait in a different tree than I had set up. The diplomacy focussed kids got misguided warrior and indulgent wastrel for example. I set myself up to be the guardian of my heir - the oldest and first of the two diplomacy focussed daughters - and also of the youngest, which focused on intrigue (because my character himself was good at intrigue, I know the devs said that the traits and skills of the guardian didn't matter much any more but at that stage I had already apparently failed in the education of three other kids so I was getting a bit desperate).

Funnily enough, at some point I was, apparently, the default educator for some courtier's kid that I didn't even know, and I did get event chains for that child.

 

[Conan Troutman]

And I was wondering where all those dumb kids were coming from. That explains it.

It seems like landed characters choose for themselves, otherwise the liege gets to (not the parents).

 

[Seelensturm]

A bi-yearly pulse? Do you mean you get an event chain every two years or so?
...
Not only did I never get a single event chain about any traits,

The children themselves get the trait events, only in a few special cases the guardian can intervene.

when every single one of them turned 16 I got an event saying that I ''failed them in their education'' and they got the lowest level of education trait in a different tree than I had set up.

Sounds like you suffer from the bug which is fixed by the beta hotfix:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...not-for-problem-reports-checksum-xkjy.906086/

 

[FakeMessiah27]

The children themselves get the trait events, only in a few special cases the guardian can intervene.

Sounds like you suffer from the bug which is fixed by the beta hotfix:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...not-for-problem-reports-checksum-xkjy.906086/

Ah, thanks a bunch!

 

[Vourtigaunt]

This should be pinned, the author worshipped.

 

[Alliegorical]

Was looking in defines.lua to see if I could include some information on how attributes tick upward during childhood, and I found this:

CONCLAVE_CHILDHOOD_ATTRIBUTE_INCREASE_CHANCE = 20,    -- The chance of increasing an attribute during childhood
CONCLAVE_ADOLESCENCE_ATTRIBUTE_INCREASE_CHANCE = 25, -- The chance of increasing an attribute during adolescence
CONCLAVE_UNKNOWN_PARENT_DEFAULT_STAT = 5,            -- If a child has no parents represented as characters in the game, this stat value is used when getting stat increases
CONCLAVE_INHERITED_ATTRIBUTE_INCREASE_CHANCE = 1.0,    -- The parent's base stats influence stat increases in children by this much

Anyone know what these numbers actually mean? The top two seem especially important; it can't be a MTTH, because it wouldn't make sense for attributes to increase more slowly during adolescence than during childhood. Or would it?

 

[gedsaro]

Was looking in defines.lua to see if I could include some information on how attributes tick upward during childhood, and I found this:

CONCLAVE_CHILDHOOD_ATTRIBUTE_INCREASE_CHANCE = 20,    -- The chance of increasing an attribute during childhood
CONCLAVE_ADOLESCENCE_ATTRIBUTE_INCREASE_CHANCE = 25, -- The chance of increasing an attribute during adolescence
CONCLAVE_UNKNOWN_PARENT_DEFAULT_STAT = 5,            -- If a child has no parents represented as characters in the game, this stat value is used when getting stat increases
CONCLAVE_INHERITED_ATTRIBUTE_INCREASE_CHANCE = 1.0,    -- The parent's base stats influence stat increases in children by this much

Anyone know what these numbers actually mean? The top two seem especially important; it can't be a MTTH, because it wouldn't make sense for attributes to increase more slowly during adolescence than during childhood. Or would it?

Don't know what the numbers mean, but Before conclave I think children got stat increase chances on their birthdays every year(or once a year anyways) with the stats of the educator playing a large role in what got an increase and by how much.

That is not the case now though as far as I know, the educator has no(or little?) influence on stats, and the above suggest what does have an influence now, though its hard to guess the magnitude of that influence.

 

[KingNothing]

A bi-yearly pulse? Do you mean you get an event chain every two years or so? Just to make sure I'm reading it right. But if I am, I'm not sure if I came across a bug or if I'm just doing something horribly wrong.

I'd also like clarification on the meaning bi-yearly. It can both mean twice a year, or once every two years. Normally we use biannual, or twice a year, or biennial, every other year.

 

[Es57]

Awesome work, this belongs to the wiki !

 

[Alliegorical]

I'd also like clarification on the meaning bi-yearly. It can both mean twice a year, or once every two years. Normally we use biannual, or twice a year, or biennial, every other year.

It's biennial. I only wrote it as "bi-yearly" because that's how it's written in the event files themselves, and I was sleep-deprived when I first wrote this (I started writing it at midnight in Baltimore, and I'm a morning person).

 

[Markwart Storme]

With the new system, I do not get the notification abotu finished educations anymore.
I used those to have a reminder that there's a new marriage to plan, which I now regularly forget. :/
Is there a way to get that back?