Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Episode 4

It all comes back to the horse-trading

Last week was a ton of early game trading and our first real taste of the Forge mechanic. This week, we pick up our first Companion and continue our Clan progression toward becoming a force within our kingdom.

We begin today with a bit of horse-trading. Saddle Horses at Charas are going for 168 Denars per, which is pretty good for price at this point of the game.

We can afford about 25 of them, which nearly drains our coin-purse but this isn't something that concerns us, since it's going to turn a tidy profit a couple of cities over... so we head off to Galend, to score a quick sale.

Our original 5,719 denars becomes 7,267 in a blink. 1,500 denars in a single stop is a pretty good way to start our session. Big trades like these also make for some pretty decent Trade Skill advancements early on, which in turn ends up resulting in better prices down the road.

With our coin-purse overflowing with the profit of horse-trading, we stop by the local tavern and spot Hespedia the Exile. Naturally, we strike up a conversation and learn that she had a Riches-To-Rags backstory, watches her father get murdered, nearly gets sexually assaulted herself, and ends up killing a motherfucker. Good on ya Hespedia!

After learning about her backstory we find out she's available to sign on with us for a modest sum. And like, after the bad-assery she displays in her backstory... of course I'm going to hire her! Killing shitheads in a riot? Fuck yeah, I back that. Course, it never hurts to take a quick look at our hopeful Companion's skill set, which is promising.

She's coming to us with Stewardship, One-Handed, Trade, and Crossbow skills all above 80, which is fantastic. Eventually, it'd be nice to set Hespedia up with a caravan route of her own, so having these skills higher by default is a huge step in the right direction. Stewardship will let her have more troops, trade is going to get her better prices, and the weapon skills are going to help keep her alive.

Easiest 422 denar choice ever. Now we just need to outfit her with some gear. And, of course... there's really only two free ways to do that.

Way 1: We compete in tournaments, replacing our main character's gear when applicable and handing down the old stuff, or giving her any duplicates we win. Tournaments are always a good way to get some free training for our weapon skills, so I take advantage of a tournament in town immediately to upgrade my helmet and provide her with my second-hand gear.

After that... well... time for the second free way to improve a Companion's kit. Killing folks and looting the corpses!

This also gives me a chance to showcase adding commanding officers to troop formations. If we hold ALT over her picture, we get a quick view of how the skills she has would apply to each potential unit type.

Her Infantry influence isn't as good as mine, but her Ranged influence is pretty decent... so we set her as the commander for this group to give them a bit of a boost.

With that done, it's time to run down some looters.



They really didn't stand a chance. Poor buggers. Post battle, we get to upgrade a few troops, some of which I'm not familiar with so we pop into the Encyclopedia to see what the upgrade path for these units is. Since each starting faction has a different troop upgrade path, this can be really handy to help you figure out how to build your army composition. These folks for example, only have crossbowmen - whereas on my other game, I can upgrade to either archers OR crossbowmen, depending on what I want to focus on.

With our troops selected, I also notice that we have a skill upgrade available, so we take a quick look at the perk option that has unlocked. I almost never put my troops into a shield wall, so the selection for this one was super obvious - Deflect for sure!

As we are leaving the city, we're approached by a man from our past - Radogos - the bastard bandit who killed our parents and sold our siblings into slavery. Apparently, he was double-crossed, and now wants to side with us to get his revenge.

We need to rescue our family members so an alliance of convenience is necessary here, despite the fact that we SHOULD stab him right in the face.

Finally, we end the session with a bit of horse-trading now that we've got a quest to reunite our family. All in all, the Hive Clan is doing well - halfway through Tier 1, a companion onboard, and a path forward to the next big objective.

Check out the video! The link is below.

Until next time friends, happy gaming!

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