Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Actually Making Money Guide

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Actually getting to a spot where money isnt an issue, no silly stuff that people think works but doesnt really.

How to Make Money

Note: Credit goes to james7504

Play the game a bit and get yourself an army of atleast 30 – the more the merrier.
Head up to Varcheg the North Western area of the map.
Hunt down sea raiders, fight or autocalc the battles depending on the odds. After each battle take prisoners.
Look at the loot for upgrades and take all the loot.
When you are kinda full of prisoners or weight of loot go to town.
Sell the prisoners, sell any clothing items but dont sell weapons.
Buy hardwood.
Go to the smith and make charcoal – as much as you can until you cant make any more.
You can only do a certain amount at a time, you can have party members also smith if you want.
Rest overnight so you can start smithing again.

Now that you have charcoal you can break down items, break down items with metal in them, the better the metal the higher your profit. Do this until you cant smith anymore, or you run out of items (if you run out of items make some more charcoal until you cant do anymore smithing).

Sell the metal! Worth so much more than if you sold the item and you got some skillups too!
Buy some mules to carry more loot and horses so you move faster – you will find you get some as loot now and then also.

Do it again, hunt sea raiders until you are full. Collect loot and prisoners and use rescued troops to add to your army. eventually you can just autocalc the battles easily and your troops will level up quite quickly. Dont destroy sea raider hideouts, you want then spawning as much as possible.

Break down the weapons, 2h weapons are great as you get lots of materials. Sell the materials and the other junk loot. Big profit each time. Do this for an hour and you will have upgraded gear, more horses and mules, food and have enough cash for caravans and workshops.

Keep doing it each time you want more money for something.

Other Things I Tried

Tournaments

I am top 10 with 25 tourney wins. Sometimes you get a good items for winning that are worth a few thousand, or a good upgrade helmet or something. Most times I ended up with a horse or weapon worth around 500. Note those people saying you bet and win over 2000 per tournament are wrong. You bet 1200 and win 1700-1900. People saying to win 2k from betting are not including the 1200 you spent to bet, you only actually win 600-800 plus the item you get for winning.

Plus your skills dont incease from tournaments, renown goes up 3 per win though.

Trading

Does make money, feel like it takes a while but you do a lap of the outer ring of cities and you end up with 15k plus some trade items still that you cant find a market for. Dont buy desert horses, whoever suggested that must of gotten lucky once, Buy when items are green and sell when red. Keep a list of the lowest and highest price you see for each item so you know where your targets are. Even when something is green doesnt mean it is a great deal and you should buy, same with red – best to keep track of prices you see yourself and base trading on that. IE you know 25 is a good price for hides, you know 40 isnt.

Yes trading works, if you like it do it. Plus you can stop and kill stuff as you go. Have lots of mules/camels and horses for storage and speed. Never sell a mule or camel, I see no downsdie to having 40 of each, but lots of upside.

Caravans

Make great money, need a few days/week to get going but do really well. It means your follower is out working but it is worth it.

Workshops

Don’t make much monet for me, less than 200 a day, but they are dependable and dont need a follower.

I would do caravans when you can, much better reward. Workshops when you want to. Go back to sea raiders when you want a cash boost.

When you have an army of 80+ and the caravans and workshops are giving you a small daily + income you are all set. Join a faction and make money the same way you were from sea raiders expect with much larger battles and larger gains.

Release noble hostages for a charm levelup, you wont need the money.