Crusader Kings 3 Guide: How to Fabricate a Claim

If you’re trying to expand your realm and declare war in Crusader Kings 3, you’re going to want to know how to fabricate a claim. Maybe you’ve got a nice, vulnerable neighbor, a huge army at your disposal, and enough coin to hire mercenaries in case something goes wrong. The only problem is you don’t have a claim on the territory you want.

Crusader Kings 3 can be a labyrinth of menus if you aren’t accustomed to it, and it can be easy to forget where certain declarations are located. And even if you know how to find them, there are sub-actions you have to take to set them in motion.

Here’s how you can and why you need to fabricate claims in Crusader Kings 3.

Fabricate a Claim to Get a Cassus Belli

There are rules about when you can go to war in Crusader Kings 3, especially if you aren’t an extremely influential leader.

You need a Casus Belli to go to war, and those don’t just fall out of the sky for minor Counts or Countesses in the Holy Roman Empire. Pressed claims are only useful for certain territories, counties, or realms you have a legitimate claim to through marriage or blood. Unpressed claims are more general in nature. 

One of the easiest ways to get a Casus Belli is by fabricating a claim on a territory. It will cost you a bit of gold (and will piss off the actual ruler of the territory), but it will allow you to go to war and, hopefully, add a new territory to your realm.

If the old ruler is in prison or something else befalls them, who cares if they don’t like you?

How to Fabricate a Claim in Crusader Kings 3

You’ll often see a tooltip suggesting you fabricate a claim, but you can’t trigger it through just clicking the tip like you can with some other actions in Crusader Kings 3.

To fabricate a claim, you need to go through your council.

First, you need to open up your Council overlay. This can be done by hitting “F4” or by looking to the icons on the right side of the screen. Underneath the green crown icon and the red military icon, you will see a light blue icon that brings up your council.

The councilor in the top right of this screen is your Court Chaplain (or religious equivalent, such a Bishop). This is the representative of religion on your small council.

There are a few icons on their picture. One looks like a hand grabbing a shield. This is the “Fabricate a Claim” action.

Click that, then click the territory you want them to begin working on a claim for. For the claim to be fabricated, the territory, barony, county, etc. must be within diplomatic range, which means it needs to be close to your realm.

You can then return to this screen to see how much progress your councilor has made and about how much time is left until the claim is complete. The higher the councilor’s Learning skill, the faster the claim will be made and the less likely that bad side effects, like loss of vassal opinion or an upset target ruler, will occur.

What Happens When I Fabricate a Claim?

Once the councilor’s progress hits 100%, you will receive the option to approve the false claim. Doing so will cost you some gold coin, and refusing will cost you some prestige. Since it’s going to cost you either way, make sure you’re ready to pay the piper when the fabricate claim action concludes.

Once the action is complete, your ruler will have an Unpressed Claim on the territory you selected with the action. You can then declare war on that territory with the claim as your Casus Belli. If you are able to win the war and enforce your demands, that territory will fall under your control.

That’s all you need to know about how to fabricate a claim in Crusader Kings 3 to create a Cassus Belli for war. Make sure to check our Crusader Kings 3 guides page for more tips, tricks, and strategies. Good luck on your conquests!