Mount & Blade: Warband How to Caravan! (Native)

Synopsis

There are ways to make trading faster and easier starting from your character creation all the way to late game mechanics. In this guide I'll show you how!

Character Creation

At the beginning of the game, we must make a character. This is a good moment where you can further your trading career by choosing the options that give you the most CHA (Charisma) which you will need for trading. I don't want to claim work that is not mine, so I'll insert a link that you can refer to that has all of the character choices and what attribute points they affect.

https://mountandblade.fandom.com/wiki/Character_creation

Using this guide, it stands to reason that you ought to pick a noble father since it adds 2 CHA if you're a male. HOWEVER, if you select merchant, you get 1 point of CHA and 2 skill points of trade. I would suggest going with "Merchant" for this first choice.

For your second choice, again referring to this guide, Shop Assistant will give you 1 point of CHA as well as an additional point in the trade skill.

Picking the last option I can suggest two ways, and both are valid.

1.) You select the Trobadour option. This gives you 2 points of CHA so in the long run it may be more beneficial since you're closer to unlocking the next skill points.

2.) You select the Peddler option. It allows you more inventory space, an additional skill in trade, and 1 point of CHA.

This will bring your total CHA and Trade skill to:

option 1: 9 CHA, 4 Trade

option 2: 10 CHA, 3 Trade

NOTE: I have focused exclusively on merchant-related skills, Check out the guide to see a more comprehensive list of pros/cons for the respective choices.

Troop Management

One of the best things about being a merchant is the CHA attribute because this is the same attribute used for leadership, which greatly reduces weekly wages. You will be able to put points in trade and leadership often, making it easier to maintain your economic empire.

Early game, your character will be fairly weak, so you will need to surround yourself with as many troops as you can muster. It should stand somewhere in the range of 40 men when you are first starting off. To raise the money you can obviously do the usual quests, fighting bandits, etc. 30-40 recruits will be enough to scare almost any bandits away in the early game so keep that in mind.

As the game progresses, the bandits will become more numerous and will gang up on you. You should go for an elite, but relatively small core of units that will protect you and your goods. They can be mercenaries or faction troops, cavalry or infantry, doesn't matter. As long as you can win a fight outnumbered 3:1 against bandits, you're good. In my experience, having 30 swadian knights is more than enough to mop the floor with large bands of sea raiders.

Companions

You'll really only need two, maybe three types of companions for your caravan experience. I'll go through each type below.

Fighters:

Remember, your character is not really that tanky. You should be putting points into trade or leadership. You will need good, tanky companions to absorb damage while you are supporting them or out of the fight entirely, watching from a distance.

Trainers:

What is the point of being able to support an army if all you have are recruits??? A trainer is a great way to level up soldiers without needing to fight and grind for every XP point. Training happens faster and faster as you level up the trainer skill to the point where you can turn dozens of recruits into tier III infantry in a matter of days. This companion can also double as a fighter, which is a total win.

Healer:

I would say this is optional. You don't 100% need this character but it will save you a lot of gold in the long run.

Why you don't NEED him/her:

You'll be swimming in money as a trader. The cost of recruiting and upgrading is not a huge deal to you.

Why you might want him/her:

The name of the game is Moneyband Warband, so you will be taking casualties. It is much cheaper in the long run to pay a healer 15 denars/week than to constantly and forever spending hundreds of denars recuperating your losses. Even if it is convenient and fast with your trainer companion, it is still not cheap.

Battles And Loot

A perk of keeping your unit count low is that bandits might feel encouraged to attack you. You'll be able to slaughter hordes of mountain bandits and claim all that loot for you and your party. Don't ignore valuable loot! Take it to supplement your trading. The extra money won't kill you.

Overall, I would say you should only be fighting to keep your inventory full. When you fight bandits with a full inventory, you could lose out on hundreds of denars worth of material. You're a trader, not a hero, and losing money gets you nowhere and if you lose units, would be highly detrimental to you.

Discerning Trade Routes

With your trade skill, you'll be able to discern in the marketplace which goods will sell for profit. In addition to assessing local prices, you can meet with the guild master and ask what materials the town is lacking. You will notice that you can consistently make a profit by selling some goods to certain towns. I tend to write down popular hubs for certain goods.

For example:

Wercheg salt to Rivacheg

Rivacheg raw silk to Veluca

By the time I return to Wercheg, the salt is replenished and I can start that trade route all over again. I fill in the time trading to other cities and fighting bandits. Some of these trade route are dynamic so you will have to figure them out as you go.

I Want To Start Fighting, What Now?

Hopefully by now you've made an outstanding amount of money. You'll probably get the urge to start conquering territory for yourself, or in the name of your favorite faction. Once you stop trading, raising, keeping, supplying, and replenishing a Calradia-conquering army becomes unsustainable until you have towns and fiefs in your name. Even with lands and titles, you may find yourself losing money.

INVEST YOUR MONEY AS YOU GO

Each town grants you the ability to buy an enterprise. There are essentially two ways of judging which enterprises are worth it. They can be broken down into two equations.

(Denars/Week)

This one is simple; you pick the enterprise with the largest margin of profit. Oftentimes this leads you to buy the most expensive enterprise because it gives the most money back.

For example:

Dyeworks(10000)---600 Denars a week

Ironworks (3500)---350 Denars a week

Out of these two options, I would select the Dyeworks because I get the most money per week.

(x=y/z)

x is your initial investment of money. y is your profit, while z is weeks. In practice this equation boils down to this.

Dyeworks (10000)---600

Ironworks (3500)---350

For the ironworks, x becomes 3500 and y becomes 350. When you work it out, you figure that it takes 10 weeks to make back your money.

In the dyeworks, your x is 10000 and your y becomes 600. When you do the math, you find that it takes 16.6 weeks, which I'll round to 17. In this scenario you would pick the ironworks because it is paid off faster and you start making a profit sooner, although you are making slightly less profit per week.

Before you run off into Calradia's never-ending wars, you should make investments in as many towns as possible. When I play this style, I amass hordes of wealth, and then I burn through it entirely on enterprises. I'll usually only leave myself the one weekly wage's worth of money and the rest of it gets dumped. This usually ends up meaning that by the time I start getting involved with a faction, I operate some type of enterprise in 1/2 or 3/4 of Calradia. After that I just watch the cash flow in to my coffers.

Finale

You've traded, you've supplemented your skills with those of your companions, and now you've made investments all over Calradia. You've basically won the game already. This can all be completed by mid-game. After this point, it is only a matter of time until your forces will be able to conquer Calradia. With the profit from your investments, you should be able to live lavishly even before you start controlling your own fiefs. Once you have fiefs under your belt, you will be able to outlast any kingdom in the game because you can afford to start from scratch over and over again indefinitely.

The game boils down to stamina, and with your smart investments, you can set yourself up for victory by midgame.

Clan Ad (House Brightfyre)

I founded a Game of Thrones themed clan named House Brightfyre. While GoT themed, we'll play whatever mods we want, so we are not at all constricted to any one mod in particular. We do have an official list of mods that members should get so as to to participate as fully as they can with the rest of us. We're a laid back clan and we're focused on having a good time while we wait for Neverlord Bannerlord. We accept anyone regardless of skill/experience. The being said we still do have ranks and structures in place that will help everyone be in a position to succeed. You must have a mic and the Discord app to join. Sound good to you? Add me on Discord at Ecgtheow#0861

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1813106660

How to Caravan! (Native)