Man, I remember those early days in Calradia like it was yesterday. My pockets were emptier than a forgotten tavern on a Tuesday afternoon, my armor was patched together from bandit scraps, and my trusty ol’ horse looked like it’d seen better days – probably before I even bought it. Every trip to a town meant scrounging for enough coin just to feed my growing band of misfits, let alone afford decent gear. I’d stare at those fancy lords riding by, their retinues gleaming, and wonder, “How on earth do these folks manage it? How do you even begin to get rich in Bannerlord?” It felt like an uphill battle, a constant struggle just to stay afloat, let alone build an empire. Sound familiar?
Well, let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way forever. To get rich in Bannerlord, you need a multi-faceted approach, strategically leveraging early-game opportunities like bandit hunting and tournaments, then scaling up to mid-game passive income from workshops and caravans, and eventually dominating the late-game economy through smithing, trade empire building, and the spoils of war as a lord. It’s about smart investments, understanding the market, and knowing when to switch gears from adventurer to entrepreneur, and then to conqueror.
The Grind is Real: Why Money Matters in Calradia
Let’s face it, in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, money isn’t just a number; it’s the lifeblood of your entire operation. Without a steady stream of denars, you’re stuck. You can’t recruit elite troops, you can’t upgrade your gear, you can’t afford to pay your soldiers’ wages, and you certainly can’t butter up the local lords and ladies to improve your standing. Everything, from a simple loaf of bread for your army to the gleaming plate armor of your personal guard, costs cold, hard cash. Mastering the art of wealth generation is arguably just as important as mastering the blade, because one enables the other. My own journey from rags to riches taught me that a well-funded war chest is your most potent weapon.
Early Game Riches: Laying the Foundation for Your Fortune
When you’re first starting out, things are lean. You won’t have workshops or caravans, and you certainly won’t be owning castles. The key here is to be scrappy, take calculated risks, and maximize every small opportunity. Think of it as your hustle phase.
Bandit Hunting and Looting
This is probably the first thing almost every player does, and for good reason. It’s accessible, relatively low-risk if you’re smart, and provides immediate returns.
- Target Weak Foes: Start with Forest Bandits, Sea Raiders, or Looters. They’re usually fewer in number and less heavily armored. Mountain Bandits and Desert Bandits can be tougher in the early game.
- The Art of the Kill: Use a bow or crossbow to pick off enemies from a distance, or ride a horse and couched lance them down. Avoid getting surrounded.
- Loot Everything: After a battle, don’t just grab the fancy sword. Take *all* their gear – weapons, armor, shields, even the rags. These items sell for more than you might think, especially in towns where demand is high or the item is rare.
- Sell Smart: Don’t just dump all your loot at the first town you see. Check prices. Sometimes, a sword will fetch twice as much in one town compared to another. My personal trick was always to head for prosperous towns, they usually have more money to spend.
- Prisoners for Profit: Capture bandits after a fight. If your roguery skill is high enough, you can sell them to ransom brokers in taverns for a decent sum. Even without high roguery, they can still be sold to any town’s tavern district or even recruited if you’re desperate for numbers.
Mastering the Arenas: Tournaments for Glory and Gold
Tournaments are fantastic. They offer a relatively safe way to earn good money, improve your renown, and even net you some sweet gear, all while honing your combat skills. Plus, it just feels awesome to be the champion.
- Check Every Town: Each major town can host tournaments. You’ll see a small helmet icon on the town name in the world map if one is active. Make it a habit to check any town you pass through.
- Bet on Yourself: Before each round, you’ll have the option to bet on yourself. Always do it! If you’re confident in your combat skills, this significantly multiplies your winnings. Even if you lose a round, the bet is usually small, so the risk is minimal.
- Prize Possibilities: The prize for winning a tournament can range from a few thousand denars to high-tier armor, weapons, or even horses. These items can be sold for substantial profit if you don’t need them. I once won a Northern Plate Armor that netted me a pretty penny!
Basic Trading: The Merchant’s Apprentice
This is where the real money-making potential starts to show itself, even in the early game. Trading requires a bit more thought and less fighting, making it a great alternative if you prefer the merchant life.
The core concept is simple: buy low, sell high. But *how* do you know what to buy and where to sell?
- Look at Town Production: When you enter a town, check its economy. Towns that produce a certain good (e.g., clay pots in a town with a pottery workshop, grain in a farming village) will sell that good cheaply.
- Identify Deficits: Look for towns that *don’t* produce certain goods but have a demand for them. For example, furs from colder, northern regions sell well in warmer, southern areas, and vice versa for olives or dates.
- The Trade Skill Helps: Even a few points in the Trade skill can highlight profitable routes when you hover over items in your inventory or a merchant’s.
- Starter Trade Goods:
- Hardwood: Often cheap in forested areas (Sturgia, Battania), sells well in arid regions (Aserai, Southern Empire).
- Grain/Food: Buy cheap in prosperous rural areas, sell to towns under siege or those with low prosperity.
- Clay/Pottery: Clay is cheap near rivers, pottery sells well elsewhere.
- Furs/Leather: Cheap in colder areas, good profit elsewhere.
- Caravans: Your First Passive Income (ish)
Once you’ve got a decent chunk of change (around 15,000 denars), you can establish a caravan. This is your first step into passive income, though it’s not entirely hands-off.
- Cost: About 15,000 denars to establish, plus the cost of a companion to lead it and their wages.
- Benefits: Generates a steady stream of income (typically 500-1500 denars per day, sometimes more, sometimes less). It also trains your companion’s Trade skill.
- Risks: Caravans can be attacked by bandits or enemy lords/parties. A companion with high tactics and a strong escort can mitigate this, but losses are always a possibility. This is why I always try to pick a companion with good combat skills *and* trade if possible.
- Monitoring: Keep an eye on the in-game notifications. If your caravan is attacked, you might need to intervene, though often it resolves on its own.
Mid-Game Monetization: Scaling Up Your Operations
With a bit of a nest egg, you can start making more substantial investments that will truly fuel your rise to power. This is where you transition from a petty adventurer to a budding magnate.
Workshops: The Gold Mine You Don’t Have to Guard
Ah, workshops. These are, in my humble opinion, the single most reliable and potent source of passive income in the mid-game. Once set up, they just keep printing money, day in and day out, with virtually no direct risk to you.
- Cost: 13,000 to 15,000 denars per workshop.
- How They Work: You buy an existing workshop in a town (or convert one). It consumes raw materials from the town and its connected villages, then produces a finished good, which it sells. Your profit comes from the difference.
- Location, Location, Location: This is absolutely CRITICAL. A workshop thrives when it has cheap access to its raw materials and a strong demand for its finished product.
- Optimal Workshop Strategy:
- Identify Resources: Before buying, check the villages connected to a town. What do they produce? (e.g., cotton, sheep, olives, grain, iron ore, clay).
- Match Workshop to Resource:
- Weavery (Loom) / Wool Weavery: Best in towns with villages producing Cotton or Sheep. (e.g., Ortongard, Sanala, Quyaz, Tyal)
- Brewer: Needs Grain. Common and reliable. (e.g., Danustica, Varnovapol)
- Oil Press: Needs Olives. Perfect in Aserai towns. (e.g., Quyaz, Sanala, Hubyar)
- Tannery: Needs Hides. Good in northern regions. (e.g., Marunath, Varnovapol)
- Pottery: Needs Clay. Good near rivers. (e.g., Epicrotea, Ortongard)
- Wood Workshop: Needs Hardwood. Best in forested areas. (e.g., Marunath, Seonon, Lageta)
- Smithy: Needs Iron Ore. Can be profitable but often inconsistent if not paired perfectly with local iron production.
- Consider Prosperity & Conflicts: Workshops in prosperous towns generally make more money, as there’s more demand. Also, workshops in towns belonging to factions at war might struggle if trade routes are disrupted, but they often recover quickly.
My go-to strategy usually involves setting up a Wool Weavery in a town with several sheep-producing villages or an Oil Press in Aserai territory. They just seem to churn out the denars reliably.
Workshop Type Primary Input Ideal Town Location Typical Daily Income (Approx.) Wool Weavery Sheep/Cotton Quyaz, Sanala, Ortongard, Tyal 200-500+ Oil Press Olives Quyaz, Sanala, Hubyar, Myzea 250-600+ Brewer Grain Danustica, Varnovapol, Poros, Ostican 150-400+ Pottery Clay Epicrotea, Ortongard, Lageta 150-350+ Tannery Hides Marunath, Varnovapol, Sibir 100-300+ Note: Daily income can fluctuate wildly based on town prosperity, available raw materials, and demand. These are general estimates based on consistent play.
Mercenary Work: Steady Income, Low Commitment
If you’re more inclined to the warrior’s path, becoming a mercenary for a kingdom can provide a solid, consistent income without the full commitment of becoming a vassal.
- Join a Kingdom: Talk to any lord of a kingdom and offer your services. Choose a kingdom that’s currently at war for maximum engagement.
- Wages & Spoils: You’ll receive a daily wage based on your party’s strength, plus a share of any loot from battles you participate in. You can also ransom prisoners.
- Freedom to Leave: The beauty of mercenary work is that you can quit anytime without penalty. This allows you to jump between warring factions for the best income.
- Renown Boost: Fighting for a kingdom also boosts your renown, helping you achieve clan tier requirements faster.
Smithing: The High-Risk, High-Reward Path to Riches
Smithing is probably the single most profitable activity in Bannerlord, capable of generating hundreds of thousands, even millions, of denars per item. However, it requires a significant initial investment of time, resources, and skill points.
- The Grind: To truly profit from smithing, you need to unlock weapon parts. This means crafting and smelting hundreds of weapons. Buy cheap pugios, javelins, and iron two-handers to smelt them down.
- Focus on Two-Handed Swords/Axes: These generally fetch the highest prices once you have good parts unlocked. Later, javelins can also be incredibly profitable.
- Resource Management: You’ll need huge amounts of Iron Ore, Wrought Iron, Fine Steel, and Thamaskene Steel. Buy these from towns with connected iron ore villages or visit cities with high prosperity.
- Charcoal Production: You’ll also need a ton of charcoal, which is made from hardwood. Keep your inventory stocked with hardwood and smithing companions busy making charcoal.
- High Skill, High Profit: As your smithing skill increases, you unlock better parts, allowing you to craft more valuable weapons. Eventually, you can craft legendary weapons worth over 100,000 denars each.
- Companions as Smiths: Recruit companions with high smithing or endurance. They can level up their smithing skill and help you smelt, refine, and forge. Delegate the charcoal making to them!
My advice? Don’t dive into smithing casually. If you commit, *really* commit. It’s a time sink, no doubt, but the financial payoff is unparalleled if you stick with it.
Late Game Dominion: Rulership and Sustained Wealth
Once you’ve built a solid economic foundation, your aspirations likely turn to conquest and ruling. In the late game, the biggest money comes from being a lord, a king, and managing a burgeoning empire.
Warfare and Sieges: The Spoils of Conflict
As a lord, war is not just about expanding your borders; it’s a massive money-making opportunity.
- Looting Towns and Castles: After a successful siege, you’ll get a share of the loot, which can be considerable.
- Ransoming Lords: Capturing enemy lords and selling them for ransom is a huge earner. High-tier lords can fetch tens of thousands of denars. This is where your prison towers come in handy.
- Conquest and Tribute: If you’re a king, successfully ending a war can result in the losing faction paying you tribute, which is a significant daily income stream for your kingdom (and thus, for you).
Fief Management: Taxation and Prosperity
Owning a town or a castle is not just about prestige; it’s a direct source of tax income. The key is to manage your fiefs well to maximize their prosperity.
- Build Projects: Invest in projects like Granaries, Irrigation, Aqueducts, and Fairgrounds to boost food production, security, and prosperity.
- Governor Selection: Assign a companion with high Stewardship or Engineering to govern your towns for bonuses.
- Keep the Peace: High security prevents banditry and improves trade, which in turn boosts prosperity and tax revenue.
- Manage Garrison Costs: While a strong garrison is vital for defense, a massive one can eat into your profits. Find a balance.
Strategic Investments and Empire Building
By the late game, your personal wealth should be enormous. This allows you to make strategic investments that further solidify your power and influence.
- Funding Your Own Kingdom: If you decide to form your own kingdom, you’ll need serious cash to convince other lords to join you, pay for war, and keep your economy stable.
- Supporting Vassals: Sometimes, providing financial aid to your struggling vassals can keep them loyal and their fiefs prosperous, benefiting your overall kingdom’s strength.
- Investing in Settlements: Beyond your direct fiefs, you can still invest in other towns by buying all their raw materials, thus increasing their production capacity and long-term prosperity, which indirectly helps the overall economy and trade.
Optimizing Your Wealth Generation
No matter what stage of the game you’re in, a few core principles will always help you maximize your denars.
- Skill Focus:
- Trade: Absolutely vital for making profit from buying/selling and for managing caravans. The higher your skill, the better prices you get and the more profitable routes you identify.
- Stewardship: Crucial for maintaining a large army without excessive food consumption and for managing fiefs efficiently.
- Leadership: Reduces party wages and increases morale, indirectly saving you money.
- Smithing: As discussed, this is a direct path to insane profits.
- Companions are Key: Don’t just pick companions for their fighting prowess. Look for those with high Trade, Stewardship, Medicine, or Smithing. They can lead caravans, govern fiefs, heal your troops, and even help you forge weapons, all contributing to your bottom line.
- Understanding the Global Economy: Pay attention to the in-game encyclopedia. What towns are prosperous? What resources are in demand? Where are wars being fought (which often creates demand for food and weapons)? A keen eye on the world map can reveal lucrative opportunities.
- Managing Expenses: Even when you’re rich, unnecessary spending hurts. Don’t overpay for troops, avoid hiring too many high-tier units if you can’t afford their wages, and manage your garrisons. Every denar saved is a denar earned.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid on Your Path to Prosperity
Even the savviest warlord can stumble if they’re not careful. I certainly made my share of mistakes.
- Overspending Early: Don’t blow all your starting cash on fancy armor. Invest in a good horse, a solid weapon, and perhaps a small retinue of companions first. Build your capital before you start treating yourself.
- Ignoring Companion Skills: Those initial companions might seem weak, but their skills are invaluable. Assign them to roles that benefit their strengths, especially in trade or as governors.
- Bad Workshop/Caravan Investments: A poorly placed workshop (e.g., a Weavery in a town with no sheep or cotton villages nearby) will bleed you dry. Research before you buy! Similarly, caravans led by low-skill companions with small escorts are bandit bait.
- Getting Caught by Bandits Repeatedly: Early on, this can devastate your finances. Losing loot, prisoners, and even troops means lost income and recruitment costs. Learn to pick your battles and run when outmatched.
- Not Diversifying Income: Relying solely on one income stream is risky. If that source dries up (e.g., a workshop’s town gets raided, your smithing materials become scarce), you’re in trouble. Diversify with workshops, caravans, and combat income.
Frequently Asked Questions About Getting Rich in Bannerlord
What’s the absolute best way to make money early on in Bannerlord?
Without a doubt, the most effective and accessible way to kickstart your wealth in the early game is a combination of bandit hunting and actively participating in tournaments. Bandit hunting, particularly targeting looters and forest bandits, provides immediate, albeit small, cash injections through selling their meager gear and ransoming prisoners. It also helps you level up your combat skills and leadership a bit.
Simultaneously, make it a point to check every town you visit for tournaments. Winning a tournament not only gives you a significant cash prize if you bet on yourself but also often rewards you with high-value gear (like unique swords or heavy armor) that you can either use or sell for thousands of denars. This strategy requires minimal initial investment, relies heavily on your combat prowess, and builds crucial early-game renown, setting you up nicely for future endeavors.
Are caravans or workshops better for passive income?
This is a classic debate among seasoned players, and generally, workshops are considered more reliable and less risky for true passive income, especially in the mid-to-late game. Once a workshop is set up correctly (matched to local resources and demand), it operates without your direct involvement, providing a consistent daily income stream that is not subject to external threats like raids or wars.
Caravans, while potentially offering higher daily profits on occasion, come with significant risk. They require a companion to lead them, can be attacked by bandits or enemy parties, and if destroyed, you lose the initial investment and all their inventory. While they can be profitable, they demand more monitoring and have a higher chance of catastrophic failure. My personal preference leans towards workshops for stability, building up a steady base of denars before considering caravans for slightly higher, but riskier, returns.
How can I make money with smithing without grinding too much?
Making serious money with smithing inevitably involves some degree of “grinding” to unlock the best parts and level the skill. However, you can make this process more efficient and less tedious. The key is to focus on specific weapon types for smelting and crafting, and to utilize companions effectively.
Initially, buy cheap javelins and pugios from any town. Smelt them down to quickly gain skill points and unlock early parts. Once you have enough skill, focus on crafting simple two-handed swords or axes using the highest-tier parts you have unlocked. Even basic fine steel or steel weapons can sell for a few thousand denars if the parts are good. Delegate charcoal production to companions with high endurance. As you progress, target unlocking advanced two-handed sword/axe blades and handles, as these combinations often yield weapons worth tens of thousands. Don’t try to unlock *every* part; concentrate on the most profitable ones for two-handers and later, javelins.
Is it worth joining a kingdom for money?
Absolutely, joining a kingdom, initially as a mercenary and later as a vassal, can be a fantastic way to generate wealth. As a mercenary, you receive a daily wage based on your party’s strength, and you get a share of battle loot and prisoner ransoms without the long-term commitments of vassalage. This is a great way to accumulate wealth while getting involved in large-scale combat.
Once you become a vassal and start owning fiefs (towns and castles), your income potential skyrockets. You’ll receive tax revenue from your settlements, and you’ll benefit immensely from the spoils of war – looting enemy fiefs, ransoming captured lords, and even receiving tribute if your kingdom wins a war. The initial daily wages from mercenary work transition into the much larger income streams from fiefs and war dividends as a lord, making it a very lucrative progression path.
How do I manage my finances in the late game when I own multiple towns and armies?
Late-game finance management becomes less about scrambling for denars and more about optimization and massive scale. Your primary income will come from your fiefs (towns and castles) and the spoils of war. Ensure your fiefs are prosperous by investing in construction projects (granaries, aqueducts, fairgrounds, garrisons) and assigning governors with high Stewardship. Keep security high to prevent banditry, which impacts trade and prosperity.
On the expense side, your largest outgoing will be army wages and garrison costs. Be strategic with your garrisons – maintain enough troops to deter enemy raids but avoid overstaffing, which eats into profits. Utilize companions with high Stewardship to manage your clans and reduce food consumption for your massive armies. Keep an eye on the kingdom’s treasury if you’re a ruler; a healthy kingdom treasury means you can afford to pay for wars and recruit new vassals. At this stage, you’re likely sitting on millions, so the focus shifts to ensuring your empire’s economic engine runs smoothly rather than finding small profits.