Can Caravans still be upgraded?

[저지]

Hello Guys,

I have my Caravans now for a couple years and they are still 30 units. can I somehow invest more money to improve them, or improve the Units of the Caravan, or anything?

I am a bit worried that as soon as Wars start, I will instantly lose all my Caravans. So I would like to prepare them a bit to defend themselves, however, my google research concluded that Caravan Upgrades were patched out in 2021? Is that true?

[Azunai]

You can buy an upgraded version of the default caravan when they are first created. I don't think there is a way to upgrade them later, but in my opinion that doesn't matter. Caravans stop being useful once you join a kingdom as mercenary or vassal. War is inevitable and even the upgraded caravans die within a few days since they will happily run through enemy territory rather than sticking to trade in the relative safety of your own kingdom otr neutral kingdoms.

[저지]

Originally posted by Azunai:

You can buy an upgraded version of the default caravan when they are first created. I don't think there is a way to upgrade them later, but in my opinion that doesn't matter. Caravans stop being useful once you join a kingdom as mercenary or vassal. War is inevitable and even the upgraded caravans die within a few days since they will happily run through enemy territory rather than sticking to trade in the relative safety of your own kingdom otr neutral kingdoms.

Didnt have an option to build upgraded versions tho, weird. Maybe they unlock later in the game.

But yeah I thought so, so I switched focus to buying all Workshows in a corner of the map, to more easily "protect" that area later on. I wanted to save up a million gold before starting my own Kingdom, because in my last games, I ran out of money quickly at the early days of my Kingdom, since you have to be very careful and cant go farming gold that easily.

[Action Man]

From what I understand, the 'upgraded' caravans start with better troops, but when your caravan leader recruits replacements, they're regular troops. Putting that extra money into upgraded troops is usually a waste, because if your caravan is caught in combat, it's probably going to lose.

Caravans are great when you aren't having to deal with wars. Workshops are better when you have an established base of operations.

[Ardariel]

Originally posted by Action Man:

From what I understand, the 'upgraded' caravans start with better troops, but when your caravan leader recruits replacements, they're regular troops. Putting that extra money into upgraded troops is usually a waste, because if your caravan is caught in combat, it's probably going to lose.

Caravans are great when you aren't having to deal with wars. Workshops are better when you have an established base of operations.

I tried once with my twin kids to start caravan (same stats on both, as you can gather), one with upgraded troops and one without.

Caravan with upgraded troops ended up getting captured noticably less frequent. And only once(!) by looters. So i personally came to conclusion, that those troops wort it.

HOWEVER, i WAS under same impresison as you when i started playing. And i think it came down to the fact, that when i started, i provided most suitable companion AT HAND as caravan lead, and it often came down to who got trade skill at all. Maybe it made a difference, smth like skills for imulation in combat together with better troop form critical mass to suceed in fending off bandits.

As for when war break out... partylead need to providgood speed or it is not worth it to have caravan, that is true.

[저지]

Is there any other way to sustain yourself without owning settlements / cities? Workshops and Caravans are the only thing that keep you from just going bankrupt, dont they?

[Action Man]

Originally posted by Ardariel:

I tried once with my twin kids to start caravan (same stats on both, as you can gather), one with upgraded troops and one without.

Caravan with upgraded troops ended up getting captured noticably less frequent. And only once(!) by looters. So i personally came to conclusion, that those troops wort it.

There are variables to consider. What attacked them? The AI only tends to attack when it thinks it can win. Having upgraded troops may deter some weaker parties, but against a battle ready clan party, the caravan is going to lose.

It can also depend on location. Some areas of the maps are choke points. If enough bandits have gathered there, they will gang up on parties.

I think it's several thousand denars extra for the upgraded troops, which translates into a few dozen in game days of good profit to recoup that cost.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by 저지:

Is there any other way to sustain yourself without owning settlements / cities? Workshops and Caravans are the only thing that keep you from just going bankrupt, dont they?

Mercenary work mostly. There's almost always some war happening. Join a faction and get to fighting. Influence = money, and you can sell any battle loot/prisoners you acquire.

[저지]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by 저지:

Is there any other way to sustain yourself without owning settlements / cities? Workshops and Caravans are the only thing that keep you from just going bankrupt, dont they?

Mercenary work mostly. There's almost always some war happening. Join a faction and get to fighting. Influence = money, and you can sell any battle loot/prisoners you acquire.

I dont want to join a faction. I want to start my own Kingdom and save up until then.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by 저지:

Originally posted by Action Man:

Mercenary work mostly. There's almost always some war happening. Join a faction and get to fighting. Influence = money, and you can sell any battle loot/prisoners you acquire.

I dont want to join a faction. I want to start my own Kingdom and save up until then.

Merc work doesn't mean you 'join' a faction. You aren't beholden to them, and you can leave whenever you want at no penalty. I'd think of it like the quests you get from various settlements. Go beat up some of the faction's enemies for a bit.

If you want to remain completely neutral and not interact with any of the factions, your mid game will probably be tough, because the only things you can fight are bandits. I don't think that will be very sustainable if you're trying to fund a party. You'd probably have to spend a long time doing nothing in the game and letting your passive income - workshops/caravans - build your money.

And I mean a long time. You'll probably want at least several hundred thousand gold before you start a kingdom, AND you will need to acquire a fief. You can either level your Trade to 300 to buy a fief, or you're going to have to attack one. You can wait for a town to rebel, then take it over before the faction takes it back.

You can go the Smithing route. I haven't done it, but you can make a lot of money from that, but it's another boring time sink as far as I can tell.

Once you declare your kingdom, every faction is going to come after you because you will most likely be weaker than them. You'll be easy pickings.

[Ardariel]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by Ardariel:

I tried once with my twin kids to start caravan (same stats on both, as you can gather), one with upgraded troops and one without.

Caravan with upgraded troops ended up getting captured noticably less frequent. And only once(!) by looters. So i personally came to conclusion, that those troops wort it.

There are variables to consider. What attacked them? The AI only tends to attack when it thinks it can win. Having upgraded troops may deter some weaker parties, but against a battle ready clan party, the caravan is going to lose.

It can also depend on location. Some areas of the maps are choke points. If enough bandits have gathered there, they will gang up on parties.

I think it's several thousand denars extra for the upgraded troops, which translates into a few dozen in game days of good profit to recoup that cost.

sure, as i said - i just took 2 twins and set it up like that. Instead of trying to track all variables (which would belimited by my knowledge and imagination anyway), i got down to more "practical" test. And it was not one-off, i kept sending them as caravan leads throughout. SO we can reasonably assume, that outside variables were more or less leveled. But it wont change the fact, that they were different over time either, even though i chose same perks and atts, on with upgraded troops start to level further, and it could made an impact too.

Anyways, i`d suggest others to try the same if they can and decide for themselves, as there also could be perception bias, confirmation bias and so on on my part, even though i tried to negate them, there is no reason to just trust rando from internet. But this extra money for upgraded troops are not that big of a deal to not just try things yourself, IMO.

[저지]

Originally posted by Action Man:

Originally posted by 저지:

I dont want to join a faction. I want to start my own Kingdom and save up until then.

Merc work doesn't mean you 'join' a faction. You aren't beholden to them, and you can leave whenever you want at no penalty. I'd think of it like the quests you get from various settlements. Go beat up some of the faction's enemies for a bit.

If you want to remain completely neutral and not interact with any of the factions, your mid game will probably be tough, because the only things you can fight are bandits. I don't think that will be very sustainable if you're trying to fund a party. You'd probably have to spend a long time doing nothing in the game and letting your passive income - workshops/caravans - build your money.

And I mean a long time. You'll probably want at least several hundred thousand gold before you start a kingdom, AND you will need to acquire a fief. You can either level your Trade to 300 to buy a fief, or you're going to have to attack one. You can wait for a town to rebel, then take it over before the faction takes it back.

You can go the Smithing route. I haven't done it, but you can make a lot of money from that, but it's another boring time sink as far as I can tell.

Once you declare your kingdom, every faction is going to come after you because you will most likely be weaker than them. You'll be easy pickings.

That makes alot of sense. Yes, I already went the "start my own kingdom" route, and it was super tedious because story-wise you get war declared on you. This time I want to make sure to save up more money first.

I am currently playing very boring. I just do protect caravan quests, win Arenas and do smithing/selling stuff, hoping to get more points and levels. Unfortunately even on Workshop Cap + 2 Caravans I barely make any money per day, sometimes even lose -100 still. The Passive Income Route of the Game seems very... underdeveloped. I wish there were more investment options.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by 저지:

Originally posted by Action Man:

Merc work doesn't mean you 'join' a faction. You aren't beholden to them, and you can leave whenever you want at no penalty. I'd think of it like the quests you get from various settlements. Go beat up some of the faction's enemies for a bit.

If you want to remain completely neutral and not interact with any of the factions, your mid game will probably be tough, because the only things you can fight are bandits. I don't think that will be very sustainable if you're trying to fund a party. You'd probably have to spend a long time doing nothing in the game and letting your passive income - workshops/caravans - build your money.

And I mean a long time. You'll probably want at least several hundred thousand gold before you start a kingdom, AND you will need to acquire a fief. You can either level your Trade to 300 to buy a fief, or you're going to have to attack one. You can wait for a town to rebel, then take it over before the faction takes it back.

You can go the Smithing route. I haven't done it, but you can make a lot of money from that, but it's another boring time sink as far as I can tell.

Once you declare your kingdom, every faction is going to come after you because you will most likely be weaker than them. You'll be easy pickings.

That makes alot of sense. Yes, I already went the "start my own kingdom" route, and it was super tedious because story-wise you get war declared on you. This time I want to make sure to save up more money first.

I am currently playing very boring. I just do protect caravan quests, win Arenas and do smithing/selling stuff, hoping to get more points and levels. Unfortunately even on Workshop Cap + 2 Caravans I barely make any money per day, sometimes even lose -100 still. The Passive Income Route of the Game seems very... underdeveloped. I wish there were more investment options.

Forget about the balance. You can run, even, a large defecit and still be making truckloads of money. The only thing you should care about is whether or not your purse is growing over time.

[Azunai]

As an independent clan you can still declare wars, you don't have to be in a kingdom.

Other clans and kingdoms can not declare war on you, so you could declare on a kingdom, kill some of their armies for fun and profit, capture a few lords and then at some point sue for peace when they are willing to pay tribute.

As a less ambitious goal, you can declare on the indie merc clans when they are currently not employed by any if the kingdoms and fight their armies for loot.

And you can declare war on revolting cities and conquer them before their former owner gets around to conquering them again, so you can even have cities of your own without being a kingdom.

And of course there's also smithing. Unlocking all the parts for twohanded swords and polearms doesn't take long and you can often find jobs for crafting a twohanded sword or polearm for 80k-120k money for just a few clicks, so it's pretty much a money printing ability.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by 저지:

Originally posted by Action Man:

Merc work doesn't mean you 'join' a faction. You aren't beholden to them, and you can leave whenever you want at no penalty. I'd think of it like the quests you get from various settlements. Go beat up some of the faction's enemies for a bit.

If you want to remain completely neutral and not interact with any of the factions, your mid game will probably be tough, because the only things you can fight are bandits. I don't think that will be very sustainable if you're trying to fund a party. You'd probably have to spend a long time doing nothing in the game and letting your passive income - workshops/caravans - build your money.

And I mean a long time. You'll probably want at least several hundred thousand gold before you start a kingdom, AND you will need to acquire a fief. You can either level your Trade to 300 to buy a fief, or you're going to have to attack one. You can wait for a town to rebel, then take it over before the faction takes it back.

You can go the Smithing route. I haven't done it, but you can make a lot of money from that, but it's another boring time sink as far as I can tell.

Once you declare your kingdom, every faction is going to come after you because you will most likely be weaker than them. You'll be easy pickings.

That makes alot of sense. Yes, I already went the "start my own kingdom" route, and it was super tedious because story-wise you get war declared on you. This time I want to make sure to save up more money first.

I am currently playing very boring. I just do protect caravan quests, win Arenas and do smithing/selling stuff, hoping to get more points and levels. Unfortunately even on Workshop Cap + 2 Caravans I barely make any money per day, sometimes even lose -100 still. The Passive Income Route of the Game seems very... underdeveloped. I wish there were more investment options.

This question and the answers you received are good. Sadly, The answer is only a minute amount of "what you need to know" to try to play the game in a non-traditional manner (merc... vassal...inherit kingdom.... Etc).

Basically, you can Win this game (yes WIN... don't believe the "sandbox" theory.. and no ending. There is an ending, it just is tedius and not that fun. YOU CAN conquer the world.. if you know what you're doing)

To win the game, you need to avoid the trolls and cheat moders on This forums.. They loved to yell nonsense "Don't smith, You dont need troops, Fians can conquer the map. 100 fians, beat 1400 man armys" etc.
They are full of it.
The game is pretty well balanced for what the devs want. Simple as that. They want passive income to be a supplement. NOT to fun your empire.
They want you to fight.
They want you to own fiefs
They want you to deal with relations/loyalty drama etc.

So.... You don't want to "be a vassal". No problem.
Get trade to 300. Which will take about 100 real world hours. IF you don't cheat or use some exploit (most have been patched out). Now you have a garbage character you've spend 100+ hours on. Who has max social, and max trade. The game is probably in year 40 or so. Your kids are all in their 40s and you're getting close to dying of old age. Better "buy a town" quick. They should cost about 8,000,000 denars around then. Have fun.

You can Wait for a town to "rebel". Sadly, you cant make an army, and any "second party" or third etc.. Won't automatically help you in the siege. So you need to Fight and capture the three rebels FIRST. Then attack the town, wait for the defenders to starve, THEN attack the militia. Congrats you have a town. And the absolute most boring play through you can imagine coming your way. You can't put in KINGDOM Policies, You can't declare war, you cant be attacked, no one can declare on you. No one will recruit from your fiefs. You can't make armys etc. But hey, you can relax in your town, save money and attack THE NEXT rebellion... hopefully it isn't a 9 day walk across the map. Do this for the next 200 game years. And you win.

You can't "just fight" as a lone wolf, since there is NO ONE to fight. Fighting bands of 50 looters is garbage. Fighting 30 mountain bandits is garbage etc... They are for starting out, to get some gear and xp.. that's it. By year 5 of campaign, if you are fighting them, you are doing something very very wrong, or doing a "Role play" play through.

Best ways to be a kingdom (which has been said before... isn't as fun as it sounds. End game is a Repeating loot of war/peace take over fief, defend fief. Ad nauseum.

1- Join as a vassal of a Culture NEAR where you want to be. I.e. you are battanian, you want a couple battanian towns. Join as vassal to Western or Vlandia. They will attack battania eventually, They will take towns. HUZZAH you will be awarded 1 or more. since you have NO fief yet, and are that culture. Now wait for the leader to die.. Be richer than everyone in your faction, you are now the NEW ruler of Vlandia etc... And own 3 battanian towns and a castle. Huzzah. Take over world (easiest way)

2- Smith. Smith smith. Get 10 million denars. Start buying (if you cheated trade to 300) towns. Or just fund MASSIVE army's/parties and take over world. Money will never be an obstacle for you, Keep smithing, keep buying the biggest baddest troops you can. Stock your fiefs with tier 5-6 troops for defense. Money is no object. (this is probably the second easiest way)

3- Do the campaign. When "World war" is declared, make sure you were jacked first. Full garrisons, lots of spare troops to replace lost ones, since you won't be able to recruit for a long time, as the next 20 years will be constant war. PAY PEOPLE OFF. LOTS, CONSTANTLY pay off enemies. Money is no object. If they OWE YOU MONEY, they attack. If you PAY THEM, they have lower chance. Especially if your owned fiefs are strong etc.


Those are your three best bets.

Have fun.

EDIT: or just ignore OWNING a kingdom, and play as a lone wolf, or bandit, or whatever. Lots of people do this. To me it is missing lots of the mechanics that makes bannerlord great. But they have fun. So who am I to judge? Regardless, Without making a kingdom as I said, or a couple of other ways, that are harder or impossible... Don't focus on Being a king. Just play/fight/trade/raid etc.. have fun.