Like its first foray into medieval warfare, Mount and Blade, making denar–the game’s currency–is paramount to your success as a fledgling warlord turned king or queen in its sequel, Bannerlord. Because the game doesn’t hold your hand, it can be difficult to figure out how to make money in Bannerlord in the early stages. This guide should get you well on your way to becoming a feudal millionaire in no time.
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Making Money in Bannerlord Through Combat
The Early Access version of Bannerlord is really about combat until the developers finish adding their roleplaying touches. This is how you’ll earn those first few denars that keep you afloat until the big picture takes shape. The classic RPG tactic of beating up on bandits and selling their gear is at play here. But, you’ll need to balance this against any troops you pick up. They don’t work for free, after all, and they’ll demand more money the stronger they get.
Ideally, you’ll offset those increasing wages by taking on bigger parties with more spoils. Picking up a mission from a town or a village just adds a few hundred denar onto whatever loot you take from enemies during the mission. Eventually, you’ll gain enough fighting prowess to branch out into other areas:
- Tournaments aren’t necessarily a viable source of income. The base prize money is usually worth less than what you’d make routing bandits. However, the tournament lets you make money in two other ways; by placing bets on your own success that can get you thousands of denars instead of hundreds; by selling the tournament prize, which is usually icing on the betting prizes. Both of these require that you win the tournament, which is often easier in theory.
- Once you reach Tier 1, you can enlist your Warband as a mercenary troop for a kingdom of your choice, so long as they are at war. Acting as a mercenary pays a meager daily fee just for riding around wearing their colors. It should help you break even on your soldiering fees. The real money from mercenary work happens after you’ve won some fights. Beyond the income you get from looting real enemies–lords as opposed to bandits–you will also see the daily mercenary fee continue to rise as long as you keep winning. And since you get bigger daily rewards for truly heroic feats like winning against difficult odds, this can lead to a large daily profit that adds up over time.
Making Money Through Trade in Bannerlord
Of course, trading goods between cities makes up the largest part of Bannerlords economy. Trading in this game works the same as it does in real life: buy low and sell high. Figuring out how to accomplish this is a fundamental challenge. And, it will be made apparent as you travel from city to city.
The idea is simply to find an item that is plentiful in one city. Say, horses that sell for 35d in a city near the open steppes where horses are raised. And, then to find another city where there are few horses and sell them for 200d. This is just one example; but the perks included in the trade skill tree will make it easier to identify opportunities as you advance. And you don’t necessarily need to focus on trading to keep your coffers full; you can simply buy and sell goods as you travel for other purposes like selling plundered goods, doubling your income.
While direct trading is the best way to control how much money you make, there are two other risk/reward methods to keep your residuals high: caravans and workshops. Caravans depend on the skill of the companion you send, ‘Scouting’ mostly, and good ones bring in 300-500d per day. Keep in mind that caravans must travel across the map to make money. So, any number of factors like wars, famines, and bandit interference can raise or lower their daily intake.
Workshops depend on the supply and demand of the town where they’re set up. For example, it’s a good idea to open a smithing workshop in a town that has a nearby mining village; or you might consider switching that workshop to a wine press if the region is known for its grapes. The idea with workshops is to add a low-risk, low reward component to the moderate risk, moderate-reward caravan operations.
Making Denars from Land Ownership in Bannerlord
Despite what you may think, owning keeps and towns is not a surefire way to sit back and live off the people. In fact, the price of maintaining a garrison in the early stages of land ownership is costly before you’ve built all the improvements. Even then, the tax income of your towns depends on prosperity. In addition, it depends on loyalty, which takes a long time to build. In other words, towns are a long-term investment. Once you have built all the improvements related to prosperity, earned enough favor with the surrounding villages, and installed a governor with high Trade, Charm, and Steward skills, the profits will come.
The Bannerlord Smithing Exploit
The word ‘exploit’ is used loosely here, but it’s worth noting. Smithing in Bannerlord is the best way of making money, and there are many players who think it shouldn’t be. Initially, smithing is like any crafting mechanic in the countless role-playing games before it. The exploit happens when you unlock ‘Artisan Smith’ in Smithin, which reduces the trade penalty for smithed weapons by half. Combining this perk with perks from the Trade skill, which reduce penalties for equipment at the first level, and the perks stack. That means a crafted weapon made of the highest-grade materials that would have sold for 14,000d will sell 40,000, and as high as 80,000 in the late game.
Once you’ve sold one of these high-priced weapons, you’ll have enough denars continue to buying materials and smelting weapons to mass-produce more. It is conceivable at that point to go from a warlord who has barely managed to scrape up a few thousand denars to a multi-millionaire in a year if you live at the forge. Keep in mind, though, that this takes most of the fun out of earning money the hard way.
Now you’ve learned how to make money in Bannerlord, either through combat, trade, taxation, or smithing. And now that fielding huge armies is no longer out of reach financially, you can use those millions to pull lords and ladies to your cause. Plus, you can greet them wearing the most expensive armor money can buy.
