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:
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.
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.
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.
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