Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - How to Earn Money

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A step-by-step tutorial on earning a lot of money in Bannerlord.

Character Setup

Note: Credit goes to Ben The Rock Shapiro

When you are creating your character, try to get as many skill points into trade as possible. Only spend points on fighting and the other stuff when you absolutely HAVE to. My reasoning behind this is that after earning 1000’s of Denars, you will be able to just hire troops/mercenaries to fight with you. I recommend playing as the sand and desert people. I forgot what they are called, but they give really good trade buffs.

Earning Money

Load into your game with 1000 Denars.

Spend those Denars on a bit of grain (like 8-10 sacks). After that, spend some money on 8-10 of the lowest-class, cheapest troops you can buy to ward off looters and raiders.

Do NOT engage with any sub-faction or faction.

After purchasing the bit of grain and the cheap troops, head to the city (CITY A)closest to you.

(OPTIONAL) I’m not sure if you eventually learn trade rumors when you’ve visited at least two cities, or if you’ve been waiting in one city for a day or two. Either way, spend a day in the city you are in, and if that does not work, head to another city (CITY B) that is close.

Once you’ve arrived at the CITY B, or if you’ve just been sitting in CITY A, check the marketplace.

Ideally, there are one or two things WORTH selling. Don’t buy the super expensive ♥, and DO NOT BUY CONSUMABLES. Your army may eat them. Purchase things like tools if they reap good rewards.

When you think you’ve made a good profit, BUY CAMELS. They are very helpful in transporting goods.

Generally, try to sell things from CITY A to CITY B if they sell for at LEAST 1.5x the purchasing price. (EXAMPLE: I purchase 7 tools at CITY A for a total of 100 Denars. I then head to CITY B and sell these 7 tools for 150 Denars.

Trade for a while, and build up your army to about 25-30 low level troops, to ensure no combined looter armies can take you down.

Buy workshops if you want. They cost around 14100 Denars, and if done right net you 200 per workshop a day. I would recommend smithing and wood workshops to maximize profit.

After amassing a great fortune from trading (15k +), you can go ahead any buy the best armor and weapons in the game. After purchasing these weapons, head to tournaments, and build up renown until you reach Clan Tier 2. Continue earning some money, and start hunting looters. If you really want to, you can vassal to a faction here, but I would not recommend it. In some cases, after leaving an army, you lose 20 relationship with multiple people in the faction.

Make all the money you can, and trade with lords and nobles for fiefs and stuff. Just wait until TaleWorlds releases more things to do with managing a kingdom and getting fiefs.

Tips

Some tips I have are: don’t purchase any armor/fighting equipment until you are at LEAST at 4000+ Denars. Routinely make saves to prevent accidentally losing money on a trade, and name the saves accordingly (“before buying tools”, or “before making trip”). Once you’ve made a decent profit off the two cities (like 500 Denars or so), visit more cities that aren’t really far away. After visiting more cities, you get more trade rumors.