Bannerlord Caravan Guide

What is a caravan in Bannerlord?

In Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord, caravans are one of two ways you can turn a one-time investment into a continual source of income. The others are the workshops, which we covered in this workshop article. Caravans are exactly what you expect–you send a companion with a troop of soldiers to take trade goods from one settlement to another in the hopes of profiting from price differences; that is, buying low and selling high.

The success of a caravan is in the hands of AI logic in part, but there are measures you can take to up your chances of continued success. In this Bannerlord Caravan guide article, we cover these measures and hopefully clarify some of the mystery behind one of the more uncertain mechanics in the game.

How do I form a caravan in Bannerlord?

Forming a caravan is a matter of starting a conversation with any of the game’s merchants or artisans, which are the faces that appear on screen as soon as you enter any of the game’s cities. By “cities”, we refer to the large settlements where there are tournaments and smithies and taverns, not the keeps or villages that litter the landscape. The merchants and artisans are always on the left of the row of faces, and shouldn’t be confused with the gang leaders, who offer workshops but no caravans. You can mouse over any of the faces and look beneath their names to see which type they are, as it will clearly display ‘Merchant’, ‘Artisan’, or ‘Gang Leader’.  

Either of the discussion options (‘visit’ or ‘talk’) will allow you to select the dialog option to start a caravan: “I want to start a caravan in this town”. The prompts will be self-explanatory thereafter. You’ll be asked if you’re sure and told of the price to start a basic caravan, which is between 10-11,000 denars (usually 10,800). You will be given a dialog option to purchase a caravan with better troops for 14,000 to 15,000 denars. 

You can stick with the standard and save 4,000d upfront, or you can invest more and increase your chances of continued profit. Once you select one of these options, the caravan will appear on the world map once you leave the settlement. You can see an icon similar to the ones used to track armies indicating its location at any given time, and clicking the tracking circle in the icon will let you see where it is even when it goes offscreen.

How do I make Bannerlord caravans profitable?

Caravans are currently a risk/reward endeavor in Bannerlord, not so much a gamble, but one where factors out of your control can hurt your profits even if you set it up perfectly. The most important part of a profitable caravan is your choice of companions, which we cover in the next section. Most consider the use of elite troops to be a foregone decision because of how often the weaker troops lose their goods to bandit parties.

This is true in the later stages of your adventure–once you reach tier 3 and the bandit parties get bigger–but the lower level caravan is probably sufficient for your first one since the bandit parties will be much weaker at that stage of the game. 

Logically, the settlement you choose also has an effect on how profitable the caravan is. Caravans sent from rich settlements are bound to have more success than one that is struggling for obvious reasons, so it’s a good idea to check the prosperity of the settlement when deciding which one to use. Since you have no control over where the caravan goes from this city, it’s also a good idea to send your caravans from settlements where you operate frequently, so you can eliminate bandits and make the routes safer while you tend to other business.

Should you get better troops in caravans?

Yes, you should get better troops for your caravans. This protects them from losing profit by being captured by bandits (a frequent occurrence otherwise). 

All you need to do is select the option for better troops when creating a caravan.

Best companions for caravans

As mentioned the most important part of managing a profitable caravan in Bannerlord is the companion you choose to lead it. Look for caravan leaders with these attributes:

• Trade – The most important trait for a good caravan leader is trade skill since their AI decision-making will buy and sell the most profitable items at any given time. This is really a role-playing way of saying that the higher this skill is, the higher the return is on any caravan.  
• Scouting – This skill affects how fast a party moves, particularly in difficult terrain, and it makes your caravan much less susceptible to bandit parties who can’t catch them. Some say it makes the AI pick better routes between settlements, but the decisions here are usually binary (go left or right), so there’s not much evidence that supports the idea that pathfinding matters to a caravan.
• Tactics – The Tactics skill is specifically geared toward simulated battles.  Since the caravan will inevitably engage bandits at some point, it is useful to have a leader with the skill and perks to win these battles more often than not. 
• Leadership – This skill is necessary just for the second perk in its skill tree called “Stout Defender” which will raise the morale of troops in the caravan leader’s party any time they are attacked. Since the caravans will always be on the defensive, it’s another way to hedge your bets against failure.  
• Riding – This skill also translates into faster party speed, since its tree contains perks that affect horsemen, and because caravan parties are always heavy on the cavalry. 
• Steward – Many of this skill’s perks are centered around making parties more equipped to handle tough fights, reducing wages, and maximizing profit.

The caravan leader will fill all the roles of the party, so using a companion with an ideal set of trade and speed-related perks are the smartest bet for a caravan leader. You could try out different combinations of combat-based archetypes, but the “Spicevendor” characters are made to be caravan leaders. These Aserai women usually come into the party with 80-100 ratings in the specific skills required to be good caravan leaders. Most importantly, they are the only companions who have a trade skill anywhere near 100 at the onset of their recruitment.

These characters also come with good Riding, Steward, and combat skills, so they’re essentially the default ‘merchant’ archetype, and there’s really no point in picking a different type if the goal is to get the most out of your caravans.

Caravans versus Workshops

Caravans and workshops aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive–meaning, you can run both for max profits–but there might be limited funds in the early game preventing wholesale business acquisition. While deciding between them, consider these factors:

• A workshop is the more stable option of the two since it is not susceptible to bandit raids and will continue to operate even if the city’s ownership changes hands. Using the right product in the right settlement can give a virtually guaranteed source of income for the remainder of your career.  Put to paper, workshops are a better financial investment than caravans, except you don’t have the option of using a cheaper workshop. You’ll always pay around 15,000 denars for one, whereas a caravan has a cheaper option.
• One would assume that the benefit of a caravan is a higher chance of profit based on the stability of the workshop, but this isn’t really the case.  Both avenues of income max out around 700-800 denars in ideal situations. The upside of a caravan is the continual training of its leader. Imagine you send out a companion with an 80 in Steward skill and leave them as the caravan leader for several years. After dozens of trips, that character can come back to your party with 120+ in that same skill, and you’ve created an ideal governor, war party leader, or even a new vassal that will strengthen your kingdom.

A shrewd warlord will employ both of these options to make their daily funds. It’s important to remember through all this that these mechanics aren’t really about getting rich, but a means to offset the daily loss of troop wages. If you’re fielding an army of 200 troops that costs you 2,400 denars a day, and you’re running caravans and workshops that equal 2,401 denars a day, you’re doing okay. The battle loot, trading, taxes, raiding, smithing, tournament bets, and mercenary work will allow you to secure that nest egg while the daily income keeps you from constantly cutting into it.