I've compiled a list of all the Knowledge checks characters are likely to make in Curse of the Crimson Throne, in order to determine how best to advise my players if they are unsure what Knowledge skills they might end up using during the adventure.
Firstly, the explicit Knowledge checks called for in the adventures. Most of these checks, if successful, help advance the plot or make things easier for the PCs.
Arcana: 2
Architecture & Engineering: 2
Geography: 3
History: 5
Local (Korvosa): 10
Local (Shoanti): 1
Nature: 5
Nobility & Royalty: 6
Religion: 7
The Planes: 2
Nothing too surprising here. Local knowledge about Korvosa will really come in handy, as will Religion, Nature and History. Nobility & Royalty is surprisingly useful in this adventure path. Whether it's worth taking the necessary skill points to hit the DCs is another matter, of course - see below for the spreadsheet that spells that out.
Knowledge is also used for monster lore, which might be even more essential than the plot point checks above. I tallied the explicit encounters in the adventure path (not counting wandering monsters and the like), counting a specific creature once each time it appears in an adventure. This assumes characters will only get one chance per adventure to identify a given creature, even if it appears more than once in an adventure, but that they will have leveled by the next adventure and can make new checks against creatures they've already encountered before.
Arcana: 14
Dungeoneering: 11
Nature: 22
Religion: 24
The Planes: 22
All the undead in Skeletons of Scarwall and all the devils in Crown of Fangs make Religion and The Planes especially useful. Arcana has perhaps surprisingly few checks for this adventure path - Dungeoneering is almost as useful for monster identification.
For details on specifically what the checks are made for, what monsters can be identified in each adventure, and where in the adventures these checks occur, you can download the Excel spreadsheet I compiled the data in here.
Creative Director
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Keep in mind that, by the rules as written, Knowledge (local) doesn't require specialization. You can combine Knowledge (Korvosa) and Knowledge (Shoanti) into one. That said, compiling the checks needed is an interesting project, if only for the designers to see what skill checks they're over-reliant on and what ones they need to consider throwing some bones to.
Keep in mind that, by the rules as written, Knowledge (local) doesn't require specialization. You can combine Knowledge (Korvosa) and Knowledge (Shoanti) into one. That said, compiling the checks needed is an interesting project, if only for the designers to see what skill checks they're over-reliant on and what ones they need to consider throwing some bones to.
That's interesting - I had always thought of Knowledge (local) as knowledge about the place you grew up, places that were local to your character. I suppose as written it's a catch-all for knowledge of world cultures, customs, people, etc. That makes it significantly more of a must-have!
I agree that it's interesting to see how the adventure path overall breaks down Knowledge checks - DMs could use such information to steer PCs away from Knowledge they don't need, or to shore up adventures with checks for skills their PCs decided to take anyway. I don't subscribe to the Second Darkness path, but I wonder how it would differ from CotCT's Knowledge skill breakdown. Perhaps someone else can pick up where I left off with my Spreadsheet - it's actually not too time-consuming, with searchable PDFs.
To everyone who found this information useful, you are very welcome - glad others found it interesting, as I did.