Crownhold Prestige Planner

Open this planner when Crownhold asks you to spend prestige. It is a sequence, not a spreadsheet. Confirm costs in-game; early videos showed Tier 1 around three points and Tier 2 gated near seven. Pair with how to prestige so you do not confirm a reset by accident, and with prestige unlocks for why a node is ranked.

First prestige (usually 3–6 points)

1. If the tree offers King is Watching and you already understand hover — take it. It makes every later workplace better.
2. If wood blocked the harbor, take the wood node even if gold looks shinier.
3. Otherwise take gold production or click-gold, whichever is cheaper.
4. Fill leftover points into stone or scholars only if that was the actual stall.

Do not sit on unspent points “for later” if Tier 1 still has a node that matches this run’s pain. Unused prestige is a wasted multiplier.

Second prestige (Tier 2 in sight)

1. Royal Servants if available. Auto-click is the second-run identity.
2. Wood if you still hate timber bills.
3. The 60-peasant output node if you are ready to commit staff on one building.
4. Influence or research speed only if the port and university are already in your muscle memory.

If opening the next column costs almost your whole bank, it is acceptable to save. If you can buy Servants now, buy Servants now.

Mapping pain to nodes

Last run’s stall	Buy
Finger tired on the keep	Royal Servants, click-gold
Harbor wood bill	Wood node, then forestry habits from resources
Court stone bill	Stone production
Crop rotation never landed	Scholar / knowledge production
Hovering felt pointless	King is Watching
Influence at zero	Do not buy influence yet — finish trade first

After you click buy

If the game requires ending the run, do it on purpose. Then follow the early-game build and the first-hour checklist. Prestige does not replace hiring scribes.

Revisit this planner after a patch. Node names might localize or retune. The rule stays: buy the bottleneck you felt, plus Servants when they exist. Updates for patch dates. Review if you are prestiging because you are bored — that is a genre tell, not a bug.

Worked example

Run one stalled on wood at the pier. You earned five prestige. Buy the wood node and King is Watching, leave gold percent for later. Confirm the reset. On run two, staff peasants, rush forestry, hover the guild, and you should see timber bills shrink. If run two instead stalls on discovery, the planner’s next take is navigation and expedition ships from trade and exploration, not another gold node.

If you opened the book with two points and every node costs three, close the book and play until you can afford a real purchase. A half-spent tree is how people click the monument every three minutes looking for a bargain that is not there.

Keep this page and the first-hour checklist as a pair. The checklist prevents a messy opening. The planner prevents a fashionable but useless prestige. Together they replace a lot of “what do I do now” pauses without turning Crownhold into homework.