Crusader Kings 3: How to make money

Check out how to make money in Crusader Kings 3 to finance your ambitions and desires

Everything in the world is about money – that certainly holds true for Crusader Kings 3, which has recently received a new expansion with Tours & Tournaments. Ruling a medieval realm, no matter how big or small, in peace or at war, requires copious amounts of gold: armies must be paid, buildings constructed, feasts and hunts financed, and then there are the bribes for agents in your murder schemes that need to be considered. It’s a tough life for counts, dukes, kings, and emperors, no matter how easy the peasants think you have it.

While random events can always fill or drain your coffers at a whim, there are a few reliable ways to increase your gold income on a consistent basis, giving you more resources to work with in the political, military, and social arena.

Here are a few tips on how to make more money in Crusader Kings 3 – including some new tricks from Tours & Tournaments.

Crusader Kings 3 tips: How to make money

Lifestyle Focus: Stewardship

Paradox Interactive

Most of your income in Crusader Kings 3 comes from your domain – be it directly held by you or by your vassals. You can vastly increase the amount of money you receive by having a high skill in Stewardship as each level provides a 2% boost on your income.

Choosing the Stewardship Lifestyle Focus opens up various additional modifiers and active ways to generate even more gold. The Wealth Focus straight up boosts your income by 10% and allows you to accumulate skill points to invest in the three Stewardship Lifestyle Focus trees. Those have a few useful bonuses for you in store.

Avaricious allows you to demand gold payments from people you have hooks on, which is particularly great in combination with the Intrigue Lifestyle Focus Schemer – you only need to invest one point into that tree to gain the ability to fabricate hooks. You gain additional money from ransoms as well and are able to extort your subjects for money, though that won’t exactly make them love you. This tree contains great passive income modifiers from Heregeld, Golden Aplomb and Detailed Ledgers, too. Completing the tree gives you the Avaricious trait with a +15% modifier on your holding taxes and +2 Stewardship.

Architect isn’t that great for directly making money, but in case you’re planning on a big building programme in your domain during your lifetime, it can be worth grabbing to reduce building costs and build times and boost development.

Administrator has some money-making capabilities from Honored to Serve, increasing the tax contributions of powerful vassals on your council by 20%, but overall this is more of a stability tree than a monetary one.

Choosing the Wealth Focus, going down the Avaricious tree, and – ideally – having a character with the Greedy trait will give you the most income modifiers. You can further maximize your income bonus on a ruler with Greedy and Golden Aplomb by increasing your stress, adding +10% per level.

Special Buildings: Mines

Paradox Interactive

Just like in real life, some regions are especially blessed with valuable resources. In Crusader Kings 3, some counties contain special building chains or historical landmarks. Among the first kind of curiosity are Mining Settlements, which provide a hefty gold income and some juicy development modifiers. Aim to conquer and hold these counties and you’ll soon swim in gold.

Here are all Mining Settlement locations in Crusader Kings 3:

• Polygyros (Siderokausia)
• Siguiri (Gold Mines of Mali)
• Yaresnā (Gold Mines of Mali)
• Niani (Gold Mines of Mali)
• Turiec/Turóc (Kremnica)
• Mudigonda (Kollur)
• Innsbruck (Schwaz)
• Cagliari (Argentiera) – only in the 1066 start
• Falene (Falun) – only in the 1066 start
• Čáslav (Kutná Hora) – only in the 1066 start
• Goslar (Rammelsberg) – only in the 1066 start

Economic Development

Paradox Interactive

This is an obvious one, but worth mentioning regardless: Building castles and structures from the economic building chains will add to your holdings’ base incomes as well, so never neglect investing into your counties – starting with the main holding your heir will inherit. You should also focus on increasing this area’s development, as every level of county development adds +0.5% to the domain’s taxes.

Having a steward with high Stewardship on your council helps as well, adding modifiers to your taxes or development, depending on what task you give them.

War and Raids

Paradox Interactive

War has always been a great source of income for rulers, and it can be one in Crusader Kings 3 as well – especially for those cultures with the ability to raid their neighbors without declaring war. Obviously, plundering counties generates some loot that adds to your income. The other source of gold from wars and raids is the ransom you can demand for letting noble prisoners go free.

As we’ve seen above, the Avaricious Lifestyle has some nice bonuses for this in store, allowing you to demand higher ransoms or letting people go in exchange for hooks, which you can then allow them to pay off. The same skill tree contains the War Profiteer ability, adding +10% to your monthly income when you’re at war.

You can boost your ability to raid with the Strategist tree’s Living Off the Land ability, which boosts your raid speed. The Overseer tree’s Prepared Conscription is another good one if you want to make money off warring, as it decreases your army maintenance costs by -15%.

Taxation Tours

Paradox Interactive

A new way of making money comes from the Tours & Tournaments expansion in the form of Taxation Tours. For this, you’ll need to choose the Grand Tour activity and then customize the purpose of the journey, choosing Taxation Tour. This will allow you to travel through your realm and visit your vassals, demanding tribute and taxes. If they refuse, you can gain hooks on them, which you can then transform into money through the Avaricious Lifestyle – or use it as a pretext to replace them in their position in favor of a vassal who is more willing to part with their money.

This is a very powerful new tool and is a cool way of actively making money in times of peace for income-focused characters.

Ask the Pope

Paradox Interactive

Asking the Pope for money has always been a powerful way of getting additional income for Christian rulers – it just costs you a bit of opinion and piety. While Paradox has nerfed this option a bit, cozying up to the Pope in your freetime, which is now easier than ever thanks to activities like Grand Weddings (just invite the Pope and set befriending him as your goal), can be a worthwhile side hustle.

What you do with your money is completely up to you – do you make life for your people better, wage war on your neighbors, or indulge in your vices?