CK3: Beacon of Learning & Sponsoring Research Projects

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Beacon of Learning
3. Court Scholar
4. How to Sponsor a Research Project
5. List of Research Projects
6. Bugs

This article was written under Crusader Kings 3 Game Version: Peacock (1.11.5)

Please note that much of the information in this article is based on anecdotal evidence and a lot of trial and error. I have not had the opportunity to delve into the actual source code, but I am happy to make any corrections if more accurate information is discovered. If you have any comments, you can either post here or e-mail me at: byzantinekitty@gmail.com

1. INTRODUCTION

The Legacy of Persia DLC introduces the Beacon of Learning cultural tradition. This is an upgraded variant of the Philosopher Culture tradition that is normally available only to the Persian and Tajik cultures, along with associated divergent or hybrid cultures. Without the Legacy of Persia DLC, the Persian and Tajik cultures simply have Philosopher Culture instead.

One of the many benefits of the Beacon of Learning tradition is a unique court position, that of Court Scholar. Filling this position boosts your Learning skill and your Cultural Fascination progress.

Once you have the Court Scholar position filled, this unlocks the capability to Sponsor Research Projects, which grant your House a variety of military and economic benefits.

2. BEACON OF LEARNING

The base game includes the Philosopher Culture tradition:

With the Legacy of Persia DLC, the Persian and Tajik cultures replace Philosopher Culture with the Beacon of Learning tradition:

If we compare Philosopher Culture versus Beacon of Learning, both traditions share:

• Children are 3 times more likely to gain the Pensive trait

• Children are 3 times less likely to gain the Rowdy trait

• +5% Cultural Fascination Progress per Learning Education trait level; +10% Cultural Fascination Progress if Culture Head is Scholar

• +20% Monthly Learning Lifestyle Experience

There is one significant change:

• Philosopher Culture provides +1 Learning per level of FAME whereas Beacon of Learning provides +1 Learning per level of DEVOTION

And then Beacon of Learning provides additional benefits such as:

• Can appoint the Court Scholar position

• Guardians of this culture are more effective

While only the Persian and Tajik cultures start with Beacon of Learning, the tradition can be retained by divergent cultures and can be selected by hybridized cultures.

This is particularly relevant in the 867 start if you plan to get involved in the Iranian Intermezzo struggle. In order to resolve the Iranian Intermezzo you either need to be Muslim (Found a New Caliphate, Dominate the Caliph, or Renewed Caliphate endings) or you need to have Iranian heritage (Iranian Resurgence ending). So one method if you are an outsider (such as the Byzantine Empire) is to find a foothold in Persia - Tabaristan (the Zaydid Emirate) or Gilan can be a good entry point since the rulers are Zayidi and not Ash'ari. That means you can Holy War them without worrying about all their neighbors joining in to defend them. So for example, you could start by fabricating a claim on Gilan and then conquering them and afterwards, declaring a holy war against the Zaydid Emirate. Then work towards hybridizing your culture with nearby Persian counties (having 10 Persian vassals and then visiting them all in a Grand Tour with Cultural Festivities can massively boost your Cultural Acceptance) in order to get Iranian heritage so you can end the Iranian Intermezzo and pick up Beacon of Learning while you are at it!

3. COURT SCHOLAR

The Beacon of Learning tradition gives Kingdoms and Empires access to a special Court Scholar court position. Staffing that position can grant you up to +3 Learning, +10% Cultural Fascination Progress, and +15% monthly Court Grandeur. Like with other court positions, the character that you appoint gets some prestige and has a better opinion of you. However they also get +2 Learning as well.

You will generally want to appoint a character with high Learning and intellectual or scholarly traits. However, you should also consider the health of the character (and relatedly age). Although health isn't an obvious factor for job performance, a Court Scholar needs to be at "Fine" or better health to conduct a research project. So as your Court Scholar ages and their health deteriorates, you may want to retire them once their health falls to "Poor" status.

4. HOW TO SPONSOR A RESEARCH PROJECT

In order to sponsor a research project you need:

1. A Court Scholar with Good or Excellent aptitude

2. The Court Scholar needs to be available and in reasonable health. The Court Scholar can't be injured or sick and needs to be in better than "Poor" Health (i.e. "Fine" or better). The latter part isn't obvious from the tooltips but if you have an elderly court scholar who is not injured or sick, they can not sponsor a research project if their health rating is "Poor."

3. 500 Gold and 150 Prestige

4. You cannot have started sponsoring another research project in the past 5 years

If you meet those conditions, you can go to the Decisions menu and select "Sponsor Research Project."

You can choose between a Military or Civil project. Most Military projects give bonuses to certain regiment types. Civil projects can give skill bonuses or improve development growth, holding taxes, control, or popular opinion.

Once you start sponsoring a research project, it is treated as an Inspiration. There is up to a 75% chance that it progresses each month and it needs to progress 10 times to reach completion.

Inspiration events where you can spend additional gold or would normally improve the quality of the artifact instead increase the chance of success for the research project.

When the research project has reached sufficient progress, there is a chance of failure or success.

While your chance depends on your Court Scholar's aptitude and the types of Inspiration events that occurred, it is not uncommon to have a high rate of failure. I've seen cases where you have a 50% or higher chance of failure:

However, if you succeed, you receive a random House modifier of the appropriate type (Military or Civil) which lasts for 30 years.

It is important to note that this is a House modifier. It's more than just an individual character modifier - everyone of your House receives the bonus, which is particularly relevant if you have a lot of House members that are rulers. However, it is NOT a Dynasty modifier so other members of your Dynasty who are of a different House do not gain the bonus. It also means that if any of your House members create a cadet branch and change Houses, then they will lose any such modifiers.

You can stack research project modifiers of different types (multiple military and/or multiple civil) but once a specific modifier is active you won't get it again (i.e. you can't stack the same exact modifier). Once it expires after 30 years though, it becomes available again and can be reacquired.

The 5 year cooldown for Sponsor Research Project starts when you initiate the project. The 30 year duration of a successful research modifier starts when the project is finished. So if your first project takes a long time to finish and your last project finishes quickly, it is possible to have as many as 7 research project modifiers active at a time.

If there are multiple Kingdoms or Empires of the same House and they are all sponsoring Research Projects, then that House could theoretically possess all 10 of the House modifiers.

5. LIST OF RESEARCH PROJECTS

MILITARY PROJECTS

1. Guide on Skirmishing: Archer Damage +3, Archer Screen +5, Skirmisher Damage +3, Skirmisher Screen +5

2. History of Cavalry Warfare: Light Cavalry Damage +3, Light Cavalry Pursuit +5, Heavy Cavalry Damage +3, Heavy Cavalry Pursuit +5

3. History of Strategy: Martial +1, Advantage +3

4. Manual on Deconstruction: Men-at-Arms Siege Progress +0.1, Siege Weapon Effectiveness +10%, Siege Weapon Maintenance -5%

5. Manual on Defensive Warfare: Heavy Infantry Damage +3, Heavy Infantry Toughness +5, Spearman Damage +3, Spearman Toughness +5

Four of the five military projects help specific regiment types (archer/skirmisher, light/heavy cavalry, siege, and heavy infantry/spearman). The fifth project increases martial and combat advantage for house members.

My opinion is that the Manual on Deconstruction is the most useful, not just for the siege weapon effectiveness but also because it allows all of your men-at-arms to contribute to siege progress. In earlier eras, this can drastically decrease how long it takes to siege a holding.

Since it's random which project you get, Military projects tend to be more of a crapshoot than Civil projects, since 3 of the projects could be for regiment types that you don't use. While Manual on Deconstruction enhances siege weapons the most, it does allow all men-at-arms to contribute to sieging so it can be helpful regardless of what type of regiment types you have.

CIVIL PROJECTS

1. Monograph in Mathematics: Stewardship +1, Learning +1

2. Treatise on Administration: Learning +1, Development Growth +10%

3. Treatise on Authority: +0.3 Control/Month, Popular Opinion +10

4. Treatise on Management: Castle Holding Construction Time +10%, Castle Holding Construction Cost +10%

5. Treatise on Taxation: Stewardship +1, Holding Taxes +15%

Treatise on Management is currently bugged and provides penalties instead of bonuses.

I find that Treatise of Taxation (extra holding taxes) and Treatise on Administration (for development growth) tend to be the strongest. There are three modifiers that provide skill bonuses and they can be stacked so if you have all three then all your House members have Stewardship +2 and Learning +2.

The Mural Sextant innovation is also supposed to be a possible outcome from a research project but that may be bugged and I will discuss it more in the next section.

6. BUGS

As of Game Version: Peacock (1.11.5) there are at least two bugs with sponsored research projects:

A. Treatise on Management

Right now, the Treatise on Management INCREASES castle holding construction time and cost rather than decreasing it. There have been other CK3 bugs where a penalty is applied when it should be a bonus due to how the logic is applied in the equation. For example, the recent Version 1.12.1 "Scythe" (Major patch on 2024-03-04 associated with the Legends of the Dead DLC) fixed two such cases: "Manage Royal Guards Martial Task decreases success chance for Enemy Hostile Scheme instead of increasing it." and "Fixed an edge case where viziers would, under certain circumstances, reduce your tax gain from vassals rather than increase it."

So generally this is actually a bad research project to get. I suppose if you prefer that your landed House members build city or temple holdings and don't want a lot of castle holdings, then this could be a slight deterrent for AI rulers of your House.

B. Mural Sextant

There is a special Mural Sextant innovation (Development Growth in Realm Capital +0.2/month; +5% Monthly Learning Lifestyle Experience) that is supposed to be discoverable through the Court Scholar's Research Project.

This was definitely bugged in the past and was unachievable. Patch 1.11.2 (Hotfix on 2023-11-30) was supposed to have fixed it: "The Research Project event chain will now correctly add the Mural Sextant innovation as a reward if its path was chosen."

But I suspect that it is still bugged because after numerous tries (and reloads for testing purposes), I have not been able to get it.

I've tried exhausting all of the available Civil projects. If you already have all 5 Civil project modifiers and then research another Civil project, you just get Prestige:

I've also tried getting a combination of both Military and Civil projects but to no avail. So either:

• Mural Sextant is still bugged and unobtainable. This seems to be the most likely case since it was previously bugged as well.
• There are additional requirements before the Mural Sextant is obtainable (a year requirement, an era requirement, a cultural requirement)
• Maybe you need to exhaust all of the Military projects (it doesn't work with Civil). Or maybe there is some other sort of trigger (i.e. you need to have acquired every project result at least once?).

Have any of you had success unlocking the Mural Sextant (or Fritzware)?