Traits are a huge part of The Elder Scrolls: Castles – they can make or break your productivity, affect relationships between residents and even decide the outcome of battles. If you’ve just unlocked the bed and you’re planning to breed, or you’re just struggling to make your rules happy, a guide that helps you understand how features function in The Elder Scrolls: Castles can be extremely helpful.
Traits play an important role in how well your subjects perform in The Elder Scrolls: Castles. A subject with good characteristics can boost production, work better with others, and even win more battles. On the other hand, bad traits can slow down the effectiveness of your castle, cause conflicts and make life in your castle difficult. But here’s the thing—some “bad” features can still be useful if you know how to manage them.
For example, the Bossy trait will make your workers unhappy, but it also boosts productivity. If you’re willing to pair a Bossy worker with three Volatile workers (who thrive on anger), you can turn a bad situation into a productivity powerhouse. Just be careful; not dealing with Bossy issues properly can cost you more in the long run.
On the other hand, the Consideration and Leadership features are great in all of them. Considerable workers are perfect for places like the Kitchen or Loom, and Leaders can boost the happiness and productivity of everyone around them. If you assign four subjects with matching characteristics to the same workstation, you will see a a big boost in productionwhich will cut resource production and item creation time.
While these traits are the best for work and fighting, some traits, like Charming and Volatile, are more useful for questing. Charming subjects boost your undead summons, and Volatile ones are deadly with shocking abilities.
| feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Bossy | Bosses co-operate around, making them efficient but miserable. |
| charming | Distracts co-workers. Proficient with Summoning spells. |
| Considerable | Best at the Kitchen and Loom. Proficient with Protection spells. |
| Sly | Best at the Kitchen, Oven and Forge. Skilled with Fire. Prone to arson. |
| emotional | Feels everything strongly. |
| Durable | Live longer. |
| Envious | Hate it when co-workers are more productive than them. |
| haunted | Often haunted by a ghost who will sometimes do their work for them. |
| Stubborn | Best at the Oven and Workshop. Proficient in using Shields. |
| heartless | Miserable to work with. Clever with Frost. |
| Jester | Enjoys telling a good joke, even when it’s inappropriate. |
| chief | Brings co-workers together to work faster, their Happiness aligns with theirs over time. |
| Melodramatic | Prone to exaggerated retellings of long stories from history. |
| Powerful | Best at the Oil Press and Forge. Proficient with Melee weapons. |
| perceptive | Best at the Mill and Sewing Table. Proficient with Ranged weapons. |
| pyromaniac | Best at the Kitchen, Oven and Forge. Skilled with Fire. Prone to arson. |
| careless | Works and fights with zeal, but at the cost of their Health. |
| sophisticated | Less productive, but easily happy through music, literature and art. |
| tribal | Works better and fights next to family members. |
| volatile | Fueled by anger. Skilled with Shock. |
As well as these features, there are a number of datamining features that have appeared on the Elder Scrolls: Castles. wiki (no full feature descriptions yet). These are not part of the game yet, but they could appear at any time in the future.
- Academician
- Bookworm
- bully
- Gaya
- Clever
- follower
- generous
- Gourmet
- Influential
- Inspiring
- jealous
- lazy
- moody
- A musician
The best features in The Elder Scrolls: Castles
| feature | Why it is ideal |
|---|---|
| Considerable | Best suited for the Kitchen and Loom and skilled with protective spells. These workers are all about support and harmony. |
| Durable | Subjects with this trait live longer, which is especially useful for your ruler. The longer your ruler lives, the more gems you will earn. |
| Stubborn | Good with shields and works well in the Oven and Workshop. They are your defensive combat experts and solid workers. |
| chief | The main feature is one of the most important features in the game. Having a Leader at each production station is great because Leaders can randomly trigger a Effect Potion of Speed. They can also trigger the effect by passing a station (something I found out when an unemployed Leader was chatting with my kitchen workers). |
| Powerful | Perfect for melee fighters, and increases productivity in Ole Press and Smithy. If you craft weapons, these are your main topics. |
| perceptive | Perfect for archers and boosts production at the Mill and Sewing Table. They are long distance experts. |
| pyromaniac | Proficient in fire-based combat and excels at the Kitchen, Furnace, and Forge. Just be careful — they’re prone to arson (yikes). |
| tribal | Works and fights better when surrounded by family members. Keep these subjects close to their family members for maximum production. |
Why traits matter in reproduction
Once you unlock the Bed, raising your subjects becomes an important part of daily life in the castle. Breed subjects with good traits to create stronger, more productive offspring.
Each couple can only have one baby a dayso you’ll need to be strategic about who you pair with. Every couple will also only want to have one child running around at any one time, so you’ll have to wait until their little one is up to 16 before they even consider it. A quick note on this – at the time of writing, there is a bug in The Elder Scrolls: Castles where adults who have been aged by a potion are still considered their parents’ children. I have a 16 year old whose parents directly do not want “more than one child under one.”
Breeding subjects with positive traits increases your chances of getting offspring with those same positive traits, although it’s still somewhat random thanks to the RNG (random number generation) system.
For example, breeding two Considerable subjects increases your odds of producing a child with that same trait, which can help keep your Kitchen and Loom stations running smoothly if you choose to assign them there. On the other hand, if you breed two Bossy subjects, you’re almost guaranteed trouble. So, it’s important to keep bad traits separate if you want to control your genome and avoid headaches in the long run.
How to breed subjects for the best results
When it comes to breeding, timing and planning is everything. Since each couple can only have one baby every 24 hours, it’s a good idea to set a regular breeding schedule. This will help you stay on top of your manpower growth as your castle expands.
To get the best breeding results:
- Pair subjects with good features together. This increases your chances of passing on those positive traits.
- Keep bad traits isolated. If you breed subjects with negative traits, you are more likely to end up with unruly offspring that can harm your productivity.
- Don’t be afraid remove subjects with bad characteristics once your castle has enough workers. Traits like Bossy, Envious or Melodramatic will only slow you down. If you’re not sure how to remove themes in The Elder Scrolls: Castles, you can literally just drag them off the castle walls on the left side of your screen. The alternative is to remove them during decisions, but it may take a while for the option to appear.
Be warned that deleting too many topics may cause your happiness in one or more groups to decrease. This happens because kids are automatically put in the yellow happiness category, even though the game doesn’t show you that. After they got older, your happiness levels should sort themselves out. You should also avoid driving away family members or friends whenever possible.
When a new baby is born into the castle, they can have between one and five traits. Some of these may be passed down from their parents, others may be from RNG. The number of traits is determined by the subject’s rarity, which you can figure out from the color on their card:
- Green cards are common and the subject will have one trait.
- Blue cards are rare and the subject will have three characteristics.
- Purple cards are epic and the subject will have four traits.
- Gold cards are legendary and the subject will have five traits.
The best features for your King or Queen
Your ruler’s traits affect your entire castle. For example, a ruler with the main trait can inspire all your subjects, making them more productive and happy. But if your ruler has the Heartless trait, you’ll see a big drop in happiness, even though your subjects will become proficient with Frost abilities. It is not the best exchange.
Here are some of the best features for your King or Queen:
- Leader – Increases productivity and happiness throughout the castle.
- Durable — A long-lived ruler means more gems for you over time.
- Powerful — Increases the effectiveness of your themes in the Oil Press and Forge.
- Considerable — Improves everyone in the Kitchen and Loom, boosting overall production.
- Pyromaniac – Your entire castle becomes smarter with fire-based abilities, though you’ll also burn more oil.
Remember that having a ruler with bad traits, such as Bossy or Heartless, can make managing your castle much more difficult. In those cases, it might be worth changing rulers.
Want to read more Elder Scrolls content on Pro Game Guides? Check out Best ESO DLCs for beginners in Elder Scrolls Online and All ESO DLCs and Chapters in order of release.
