Calradian Handbook

Concise reference guide about pretty much everything in the game.

Introduction

This guide has been done in a way to be useful as whole game reference guide to be held on shift-tab during your game. It doesn't cover the gameplay basics that you need to learn only once (e.g. difference between leader and party skills), but it has a lot of details that are otherwise hard to remember or are unknown to some players.

It doesn’t have everything, but it has everything you’ll ever need.

This information is applicable for Native module, as well as semi-vanilla mods I've played so far (e.g. diplomacy, dickplomacy, floris). Other major mods might change some things, but most of info should still be relevant. I've put [mod] disclaimers in front of some mod-related content, read mod descriptions to see if it applies.

Disclaimer: info is applicable in-game, falls under “game rules”, but ignores any historical inaccuracies, attempts at realism etc. Don’t try to follow this guide to the letter if you time travel into medieval period.

Drop a comment with your feedback, suggestions, criticism, unwarranted justified praise, requests.

Favorite to find and use later.

Player character builds

Considering complete playthrough may take around 400 real hours, it might be quite sensible to plan your build before investing all those points.

There is no built-in reroll system, you either start anew or edit strings of text in your savegame (may not work as planned).

You get only 1 (one) attribute point for each level up and you start level 1, so it's 9 points on level 10 (early to mid game) and 29 points on level 30 (mid to late game) and +1 INT book on top.

After level 30 leveling slows down to a crawl so your build should be mostly done before that.

Suggested general PC builds

There are two wide-spread approaches to player character building.

• 1) STR and AGI specialized warrior.

The best fighter in your army, but reliant on companions for party skills and lacks all personal not-combat-oriented skills, notably Leadership and Prison Management. Few skill points, tough time recovering after any defeat in field battle, too. But leveling is much faster since being able to kill stuff helps a lot.

• 2) INT and CHA sickly blue-blood.

Hopeless in any combat situation, but otherwise expert on all subjects. Some STR is still recommended since decent armor requires STR to wear, unless you decide to forego wearing it due to role-play reasons.



There are few additional, less common, builds worth noting.

• 3) 15s

All attributes on 15s.
All useful skills on 5s.

Not great in anything, but not too terrible in anything either.

• 4) 14s

Here's how it works:
If your companion has 10 in any party skill but you have zero, you'll get a 10.
If your own skill in any party skill is 10, you'll get base 10 + 4 as bonus for your high skill.
Resulting in total 14 in party skill!

14 in group skill is way better than 10, most noticeable change happens with Surgery.

Surgery	on 10	on 14
"Wounded" chance	65%	81%
"Killed" chance	35%	19%

Suggested PC builds as applicable to field battles

Listing most viable in my opinion - all tested personally.

• Heavy cavalry

Attributes: STR, AGI
Skills: Power Strike, Weapon Master, Riding (4)
Weapons: two handed weapon of your preference whenever you're mounted. One handed + shield if your horse is down. Lance.
Horse: Charger/Sarranian war horse.
Preferable terrain: anything except forests, mountains.
Tactics: lead the charge with couched lance (preferably from flank). Then switch to two handed weapon and slash away. Stagger opponents with your horse. If your horse is down, switch to 1h+shield if outnumbered or use lance against cavalry, try to get another horse.

• Horse archer

Attributes: STR, AGI
Skills: Power Draw, Weapon Master, Riding (4), Horse Archery (5)
Weapons: war bow, khergit arrows, khergit arrows, backup melee weapon of your choice.
Horse: something fast and maneuverable.
Preferable terrain: anything except forests, mountains.
Tactics: harass the enemies and get their attention. They should break their ranks to try to pursue you or at least turn their shields on you, leaving them vulnerable to your own archers. Against enemy cavalry you can run in front of them and still pepper them with arrows. Put headshots on their horses if they're using shields.

• Heavy infantry (with shield)

Attributes: STR, AGI
Skills: Power Strike, Weapon Master, Shield, Power Throw (optional)
Weapons: One handed weapon + shield, (crossbow + bolts)/(pike + thrown weapon)
Horse: none
Preferable terrain: anything
Tactics: hold the line with your infantry, protect your archers and they'll do the rest. Against cavalry charge order infantry to stand closer to bog them down. Crossbow is free to use, while pike allows to hit enemies from behind your ally, but thrown weapon has skill requirement.

• Heavy infantry (no shield)

Attributes: STR, AGI
Skills: Power Strike, Weapon Master, Ironflesh (optional)
Weapons: Two handed weapon, shield, crossbow + bolts
Horse: none
Preferable terrain: anything
Tactics: Use shield when directly threatened by archers or to close distance. Otherwise try to hide behind your infantry. Shoot some bolts when you can. Two handed weapon is very powerful, you'll make short work of anything. Against cavalry it might be more effective to aim for their horses if they're blocking your attacks.

• Non-combatant

Attributes: INT (for skill points), CHA (for massive army).
Skills: Ironflesh (optional, but thanks to a lot of INT you can afford it), Surgery (makes your top tier units to live much longer), Wound treatment (gets your wounded healed faster), Trainer (trains your whole army fast without grinding bandits), Prison Management (get a lot of gold from slaves, spend it on your army), Leadership (bigger but cheaper army).
Weapons: 1h+shield, crossbow+bolts
Horse: none, it'll make you a good target for enemy archers
Preferable terrain: depends on your army composition
Tactics: spend most of the time on minimap, directing your soldiers. You have time to micromanage your cavalry & mounted archers. If threatened in melee range, cover with shield and let your infantry help you. Consider use manhunters/mamlukes as your cavalry since they provide you with a steady in-flow of prisoners. INT also gives you bonus EXP whenever you get EXP (except fixed quest rewards).

Notes on skills

• Trainer

This skill is different from any other, it affects all troops that are lower in level and it stacks. More level difference=more experience, all experience is cumulative from each of the companions. Consider putting at least 1 in this skill for your every companion.

• Looting

Loot villages faster, get more loot. In battle, you’ll be getting loot from your first killed enemy type (more often than not it’s some bare-a♥♥ed recruit), then, if there weren’t much troops of this type, second killed troop type and so on. Better couch-lance the toughest guy first.
Also, you get your loot after your companions and yet after all your soldiers take their share, seems to be proportional to their weekly wages. So leading a smaller and weaker army is also more rewarding.

• Athletics vs Riding

Highest skill affects world map movespeed, you can get an athletics bonus while riding a mount, but can't get Riding bonus without a mount.

• Ironflesh

[mod] Pretty useless in Native, but got buffed in Perisno, adding percentage resistance to any incoming damage as well as bonus HP.

• Riding

[mod] Softcap of 4 in Native, but Perisno and Pendor both have powerful beasts available with higher Riding skill.

• Prisoner Management

[mod] In Perisno changes fixed amount to proportional to amount of soldiers in your army.

Books

• Permanent bonuses

"A Treatise on the Value of Things"	Trade
"De Re Militari"	Tactics
"Essays on Logic"	INT
"Method of Mechanical Theorems"	Engineer
"On the Art of Fighting with Swords"	Weapon master
"Rhetorica ad Herennium"	Persuasion
"The Life of Alixenus the Great"	Leadership

• Kept in inventory bonuses

"Manual of Arms"	Trainer
"The Book of Healing"	Wound treatment
"The Great Book of Surgery"	Surgery

Weapon proficiencies

There is a hidden experience scale that requires “weapon experience” to get another point of weapon proficiency. Obviously you need more of that XP to get +1 on higher weapon proficiency level.

For more weapon experience:

• Higher damage done.
  
• Higher level of killed enemy.
  
• (for ranged weapons) Headshots.
  
• (for ranged weapons) Enemy is far away.

Don’t waste any weapon points on polearms. Just use couched lance a lot.
One Handed/Two Handed weapons have decreased stats when used with a shield but that seems to be softened by higher proficiencies.

Companions

Some of them mildly dislike someone else, it’s tolerable if you upkeep high morale in your party. Some of them strongly dislike someone else, one of them will most likely desert over time.
Some of them will become friends.

To evade any conflicts, pick either of those two sets of groups (choose A or B and C or D):

A) Artimenner, Borcha, Lezalit, Matheld, Rolf
B) Bunduk, Deshavi, Jeremus, Klethi, Ymira
____&
C) Alayen, Baheshtur, Firentis
D) Katrin, Marnid, Nizar

(Independent faction) You can still recruit "undesirables" and elevate them away to Lordship to beef up your kingdom's army.

Troops – factions

• Khergit Khanate

Almost all cavalry, fast, but somewhat weak. Slippery mounted archers.

• Kingdom of Nords

Formidable infantry makes the best shieldwall. Mediocre archers. No cavalry whatsoever.

• Kingdom of Rhodoks

Infantry tend not to have shields, susceptible to enemy archers, but makes good anti-cavalry units with their spears. Crossbowmen instead of archers, good armour penetration. Good choice for siege defense. No cavalry as well.

• Kingdom of Swadia

Best heavy cavalry, lots of couched lances. Good infantry. Mediocre archers.

• Kingdom of Vaegirs

Balanced army, but tends to use two handers foregoing shields, so might fall to concentrated fire. Easier to train, cheaper to employ. Best archers, but run out of arrows quickly.

• Sarranid Sultanate

Great heavy cavalry, around 1/3 of them use blunt weapons (=slaves), powerful even if dismounted. Light infantry, good archers.

• Mercenaries

Expensive to hire and upkeep, but you can get a mercenary army faster than any other.

• Females

Hard to acquire (bandits’ prisoners only). Very vulnerable until experienced enough. Infantry until top tier, then cavalry, which is a weird mix of highly armored rider, sometimes without headgear, on a lightly armored horse. But cheaper than other cavalry.

• Slavers/Manhunters

Nice cavalry, employ blunt weapons, provide a lot of slaves.

Troops – best units

• Infantry

(shields) Nord Huscarls
(anti-cavalry) Rhodok Sergeants

• Archers

Vaegir Archers (rapid and accurate fire, but fragile)
Rhodok Crossbowmen (low rate of fire with armor penetration, durable in melee)

• Cavalry

Swadian Knights
Sarranid Mamlukes (little lighter, more blunt weapons)
Slavers (exclusively blunt weapons)
Sword Sisters (cheaper, plate armor, crossbows as backup weapons, lightly armored but very fast horses)
Khergit Horse Archers as the only mounted archers (AI is broken, only useful with hand-holding micromanaging)

Troops – your army composition

• Shieldwall + archers

Shieldwall of nord infantry, then line of archers (preferably vaegir or rhodok), no cavalry, then let them come to you. Also useful for sieges.
40-60% infantry
60-40% archers
(more infantry if you expect to face enemy cavalry charges).

• Jack of all trades

Line of infantry, then line of archers. Put your cavalry to the side, then attack their flank when they get close. Let the cavalry distract them and direct their shields away, pepper with arrows.
30-50% infantry
30% cavalry
40-20% archers

[mod] If you have Horse Archers AI fix which makes them an actual threat, combined with Horse archers-heavy armies (like Zann scouts and Elintor armies in Perisno), you need to keep infantry as low as possible because they simply can't catch up on flat terrain.

• Iron fist

Go 100% heavy cavalry and ride them down.
Hard to train, very expensive, useless in sieges, vulnerable in mountains and forests.
But immensely powerful on plains against anything except properly set up rhodok spearmen line (especially with mods for pike-bracing) and, well, another cavalry. Picture says it all:

Battle tactics – countering troop types

• Infantry

Shoot them when they’re distracted by cavalry and directed their shields away.
Otherwise aim for the legs.
Two-hander with no shield = free headshot.

• Archers

Get in melee range covering with shield.
Ride them down with cavalry.
Put a shieldwall and do “archers vs archers” duel (probably a bad idea against Vaegirs).

• Cavalry

Put your army on a hill and wait for them. If no hills, stand among the trees or in water. Or at least with map border right behind you.
Order your infantry to stand closer, they won’t charge “through” your infantry and will be cut down.
Long pointy sticks.
Better cavalry.
Put your mounted companions in different group, before the battle starts, order them to go a little forward, then dismount. Horsewall FTW.

Battle tactics – countering factions

• Khergit Khanate

Heavy infantry standing close to each other and receiving all that cavalry and some archers to pick off those slippery mounted archers.

• Kingdom of Nords

Distract with cavalry, pepper with rapid arrows.

• Kingdom of Rhodoks

Suppress their crossbows, preferably with rapid archers or flanking cavalry. Charge with infantry.

• Kingdom of Swadia

See “Countering cavalry”. As long as your infantry will hold the line against initial cavalry charge, you will be fine.

• Kingdom of Vaegirs

Balanced faction, no special tactics. Just don’t underestimate their archers.

• Sarranid Sultanate

Same as Swadia, basically.

Battle tactics – offensive sieges

1. Any troops. Let everyone charge except archers, put them on hold near the walls. Don’t charge yourself and keep your INT companions safe as well. Good way for spending excessive troops, still better than auto-calc.
   
2. Shieldwall + archers. Use up all your arrows, then charge into a meatgrinder.
   
3. Shieldwall + archers. When defenders run out of arrows, go up and do some free headshots up close. When out of arrows, utilize superior reach of two-handed weapons to cut them from just slightly out of their reach. Watch out for thrown weapons on enemy infantry!
   [mod] Perisno has town blacksmith replenishing quivers for defending army, so they do not run out.
   
4. Shieldwall + archers. Let your troops run out of arrows, retreat, attack again. Rhodok crossbowmen are preferable as they don’t run out of ammunition as fast and are more durable.

• Tips for offensive sieges

Some castles have different auto-resolve results. One can trade 10 of your troops for any 1 of theirs, while other has an “exchange rate” closer to 1:1. Auto-calc is still worse than anything.

[mod] There are "impossible" maps like siege of Forde in Perisno where auto-calc claims 10:1 and manual battle has all attackers go through a maze which is shot-through from numerous directions impossible to shield so it's even worse. So the only choice is to jam a meat grinder with meat: get your Marshal auto-calc again and again while you protect the siege location.

Give preference for nord infantry in your army.

For town sieges a very useful, if cheesy, way of doing things is to put your “Army size” to the lowest value. After few waves you’ll start to fight inside the walls and then in the keep (where player tends to be heavily outnumbered).

Against Vaegirs, don’t try to endure their archers, just charge.

Against Khergits, if you have a small but sturdy infantry army (think adequately equipped companions and Nord Huscarls), Khergits will sally out because of their numbers advantage. But they'll be vulnerable because of no horses and short range, so you have a chance to overwhelm them.

Don’t try to starve anyone out. That’s just too long. Their chances of surrender seem random when they have superior numbers. I honest to Goddess haven't seen anyone actually ever surrendering without a fight even when starved half to death and outnumbered 3:1. Other lords will have time to arrive and attack you. You’ll probably run out of food first. Neutral caravans might arrive and sell them food anyway.

[mod] Starving can be a legit tactic for castles with higher than Native garrisons that outnumber even a large army you can host by yourself and if your army is significantly bigger than any NPC Lord army, they won't dare to attack you 1 on 1 to lift the siege, so it's well worth 2 weeks wait. And I feel like in Perisno they switched food arrival from caravans to peasants whom you can repel to fix the unwanted resupply by neutral party.

Battle tactics – defensive sieges

1. Your standard “come-and-get-it” meatgrinder. Support with missile fire and long reach weapons.
   
2. Weird but viable tactic:
   Put your archers inside on the ground. Place your infantry on the side on the wall in front of the inside stairs to create a bottleneck (so enemies won’t get the high ground on stairs and won’t be able to leak to your archers).
   When enemies get on the wall, they’ll be peppered with missiles almost point-blank range (archers don’t miss that close).
   When they engage your infantry, they’ll be forced to turn their flanks to archers.
   Enemy archers won’t be able to harm you through walls. If they go up, they won’t have a shield to hide behind and will be dealt with swiftly.
   Sadly, doesn't work on some maps with few staircases inside.

At any time you should stock your castles and towns with as much recruits as you can get. They won’t be attacked until attackers have the numbers advantage around 1.5 to 1 regardless whether you have recruits or veterans in there.

Choosing your equipment – melee weapons

Fighting modes

• One handed

Default option because shields are bloody essential for your survival.

• One handed/Two handed

Think "two handed but I can hide against archers behind this shield". Wielding shield will slow it down to inferior version of similar one handed weapon.

• Two handed

Biggest, baddest mf option.

• Polearms

Nerfed two handed version. This needs a) higher reach with option to hold the end of that stick, not the middle; b) better collision physics to be able to support nearby friendlies without your swing getting stuck across a friendly and stopping.
The only usages are on cavalry/against cavalry and even then for spears with poke-only attacks to prevent mis-fires due to poor collision. And niche role of pike bracing[forums.taleworlds.com] against initial cavalry charge.

Item variety

• Daggers

Daggers, knifes, sickles, civilian cleavers.
Useless. Who needs lighting fast attacks when you can't block and your reach is so small you need to facehug?

• Swords

Swords, cleavers, scimitars, khopeshes, falchions, sabres, rapiers, flambergs.
Pretty universal weapons, highest reach and speed, decent cutting damage and no special modifiers. Possibility of available piercing strike with higher armour penetration.

• Axes

Highest cutting damage, decent speed, inferior reach, bonus damage against shields (usefulness depends on AI - whether NPCs tend to turtle behind shields or are more aggressive in melee and only use shields against ranged weapons).

• Maces

Spiked maces, spiked hammers, morgensterns, military picks.
Very high piercing damage that makes them the best damage dealer against heavily armoured targets. Mediocre speed and reach otherwise. Special modifiers allows them to crush through blocks.

• Hammers

Hammers, warhammers, flanged/winged maces, clubs.
Lowest damage which is universal for everyone regardless of armour. Mediocre speed, inferior reach. Possibility to take prisoners. Two handed hammers with overhead power strike on lunge forward can reliably crush through all blocks and shields, so it has a universal role of late game "I'm taking all these guys as prisoners whether they want it or not"-stick.

Choosing your equipment – ranged weapons

• Crossbows

High initial damage, no training needed.
Good armour penetration.
Does not get buffed with skills or STR, only weapon proficiency.
Slow reload, cannot move while reloading.
Most of them cannot be reloaded while on horseback.
Overall good backup weapon for primarily melee characters.

[mod] Perisno has an interesting system of making crossbow a medium range support weapon: bonus damage up close with possibility to shot through weaker shields, but sharpshooting is useless due to damage fall-off at long distance.

• Bows

Frustratingly useless on start.
Needs plenty of points in Power Draw and Weapon proficiency to be viable.
After that – crossbow damage with 2-3x higher rate of fire, on par with bolt-action rifles.
With additional points in Horse Archery (softcap is 5) that is a sight to see.

• Thrown weapons

Very high damage, low effective distance of fire, can be used as an inferior one-handed weapon in a pinch.
Requires investment into Power Throw.
Only few projectiles per bundle. That’s also the reason why it’s hard to get proficiency points.

Choosing your equipment – equipment modifiers

• Weapons

Go for “Masterwork” if you can handle +4 requirement in skill/strength and staggering +1650% to cost. Otherwise it’s “Tempered”, only +670% cost.

• Armour

Go for “Lordly” with +1050% or “Reinforced” (+550%), or Hardened (+290%).

• Shields

Choose “Reinforced”. Try not to let it break completely during combat or it might be permanently damaged.

• Horses

Go for “Champion” or “Spirited” ones, but only if you have enough money. It is not uncommon to get your horse wounded in battle and it might be crippled from that, losing this trait.

Choosing your equipment – list of best equipment

(assuming Native & Native-like modules without additional items)

• Melee weapon

Really varies on your preference. Pick the one that suits you (damage type, speed to reach ratio, hitboxes) and look for a version with good modifier.

• Ranged

War bow + Khergit arrows
Siege crossbow + Steel bolts

• Armour

Winged great helmet (picture related)
Gauntlets
Plate Armor
Plate Boots

How to get – denars

• Early game

Tournaments (if you can)
Bandit hunting
Mercenary & Raiding
Trading

• Midgame

Productive enterprises
Getting fiefs as vassal

• Late game

Creating your own kingdom
Taking prisoners - slavery (commoners)
Taking prisoners - ransom (nobility)

How to get – denars (detailed)

• Tournaments

You’ll need some starting gold for that. Simply bet on yourself every round and be a last man standing for all those winnings.

• Bandit hunting

Start with Looters and work your way up the bandit chain until you can take on Sea Raiders, then patrol Wercheg-Rivacheg-Curaw.
Don’t be reckless, or you’ll get your warband slaughtered and will be forced to start over.
Watch out for Deserters, they can be more powerful than bandits if they’re top tier units.

[mod] I'm not sure about Native but in Floris it's so profitable it's broken. With initial warband and some prisoner management skill, hunt down any bandits that have Manhunters as prisoners. Then free and hire those and you'll get medium cheap cavalry with blunt weapons. Repeat until full cavalry army, then just grind bandits to get XP and slaves.

• Mercenary & Raiding

Ask for a task from a lord whose faction is currently in war until someone offers to hire you. Biggest selling point is the ability to freely raid enemy villages for loot, just make sure you won’t be needing to recruit soldiers from that village ever again.
If there's no time for a proper raid, you can steal cattle, drive to closest town and then slaughter it and sell the meat.

• Trading

Simple “buy low, sell high”.
Prices on market are constantly changing, just be on look out for good deals.
There are some trade routes that seem persistent for many players, you should check it out.

Ale: Praven → Nords
Iron: Curaw → Khudan
Pottery: Sarranids → Rhodoks
Salt: Wercheg → Rivacheg
Wine: Veluca → Swadian & Nords

There might be other stable trade routes in your playthrough. Develop a habit of buying cheap goods even if you don’t plan to sell them soon. You’ll get your profit anyway later.

• Productive enterprises

Curaw →  Ironworks
Rivacheg → Dyeworks

Other than that in Native it’s just “spam Dyeworks almost everywhere”.

• Getting fiefs as vassal

Be in good relations with your sovereign and other lords. Make sure your villages are not getting raided. Get you hands on town if you can.

• Creating your own kingdom

Focus on getting a town. Much more profitable than few castles with villages.
Give extra fiefs to vassals to evade tax inefficiency.
Ideally own only few towns, patrol for bandits and be in peace with others for profitable trade.

• Taking prisoners - slavery (commoners)

Have high enough CHA and Prison Management.
Utilize troops with blunts weapons, Slavers and Mamlukes are recommended.

• Taking prisoners - ransom (nobility)

Don’t let evil spirited lords go, imprison them. You won’t need good relationships with them anyway.*
Stuck them in guarded prison tower ASAP to prevent escape and wait to be offered a ransom. Obviously you need to own castle or town for that or they'll most likely escape.
Kings get ~10x bigger ransom.
You can use any type of weapons on a nobility.

*See "How to get – honor" section for different approach.

How to get - experience

There are two superior ways.

1) Personal kills.
Getting your hands bloody really pays off.
Some heroic bullcrap like going solo as horse archer in field battle or scoring dozens of headshots in sieges is the best boost you can have.

2) Farming "Destroy bandits lair" quest.
It gives you fixed 3000 EXP and, if your army is not numerous, you'll get lots of loot as well.
Bandit lairs respawn in fixed places on the map, it's not hard to memorize them.

Also, in early game there is a Sea Raider Lair to the west of Rivacheg, whose lord coincidentally gives out this quest. If you manage to complete it just with few companions, the profits are quite impressive. It's about as hard as usual tournament.

3) Combining both options above, you can leave those lairs be and farm nearby bandits that are getting spawned from them.
Solo horse archer can do it. Retreat from field battle to recharge arrows. Sea raiders don't have much of projectile weapons aside from low range throwing axes.
If things go sour, you can outrun anyone on world map.

That's obviously a bad idea if you're using mod that adds cavalry to bandits.

How to get – honor

(While you can choose Dishonor to get better relations with dishonored lords instead, they’re more trouble than it worth and unreliable vassals.)

Clear villages of bandit infestation, then decline a reward. Check taverns for farmers in need.

Get a quest from a lord on apprehending a fugitive, then decline a reward.

Attack enemy lords if they have other lords as prisoners – you’ll get an honor for a rescue.

Let enemy lords go after battle instead of imprisoning them.

Whenever you pass a neutral castle/town, check for prisoners. If there is a lord in a prison, break him out. Without any penalties for relations! Buy a distraction from a nearby village elder and you’ll only have to take down two guards, one of which will be in your melee range unprepared.

How to get – right to rule

Send companions to spread rumors about you. (+3 R2R)
Other ways are not practical.

Hardcap is 99. You need at least 30 to start your own faction.

Some companions object of other companion being sent while they’re in the same party and they won’t spread their rumors after that. There is a loop here, sending any companion from this loop will cause the next person in line to object.

Alayen → Borcha → Lezalit → Katrin→ Artimenner → Rolf → Firentis → Matheld → Marnid → Klethi → Jeremus → Nizar → Bunduk → Deshavi → Ymira → Baheshtur → Alayen (again)

E.g. if you send Klethi, then Jeremus will throw a fuss.

How to get – relationships with nobles

Most effective way is to rescue them from imprisonment, be it an enemy lord who dragged them around or organizing a jailbreak (never pay a ransom as long as the prison is neutral, that’s way too high).

If you’re vassal/mercenary, fight against the faction whose lords you want to make into your friends. After battle let them go free after capturing. Chance of capturing is somewhat low, seems unaffected by your skills.

(Diplomacy mod required)
Send them Caravans with 3 barrels (150 units) of [Ale] / [Wine] as gifts.

For your own vassals: set up appropriate Domestic policy (see below).

How to get – troop morale

Feed and pay them on time and don’t lose your battles.
Get few different types of food. Troops seem to eat the food somewhat simultaneously, so 250 units of food divided in 3 different types of food will last shorter than 250 units of Dried meat.

Removing morale penalty from bigger army size

*\steam\steamapps\common\MountBlade Warband\Modules\(module_name)\Scripts.txt

get_player_party_morale_values -1
 46 1650 2 1224979098644774912 648518346341351424 2133 2 1224979098644774913 0 6 3 1224979098644774914 1 1224979098644774912 1652 3 1224979098644774915 648518346341351424 1224979098644774914 4 0 1507 1 1224979098644774915 2105 2 1224979098644774913 1 5 0 1653 3 1224979098644774916 648518346341351424 1224979098644774914 2105 2 1224979098644774913 1224979098644774916 3 0 3 0 2133 2 144115188075856824 1224979098644774913 2170 3 1224979098644774917 1369094286720630785 360287970189639680 2122 3 144115188075856825 1224979098644774917 10 2133 2 1224979098644774918 144115188075856825 2106 2 1224979098644774918 144115188075856824 2105 2 1224979098644774918 50 2133 2 144115188075856826 0 6 3 1224979098644774919 288230376151711854 288230376151711869 1 3 936748722493063430 1224979098644774919 41 527 3 1224979098644774920 1224979098644774919 1 2107 2 1224979098644774920 2 2105 2 144115188075856826 1224979098644774920 3 0 2105 2 1224979098644774918 144115188075856826 4 0 31 2 144115188075856826 0 2133 2 144115188075856827 30 2106 2 1224979098644774918 144115188075856827 5 0 2133 2 144115188075856827 0 3 0 2133 2 144115188075856828 0 4 0 32 2 144115188075856754 0 1 1 936748722493063387 2133 2 1224979098644774921 72057594037927936 2122 3 144115188075856828 144115188075856754 10 2111 2 1224979098644774921 1 2108 2 144115188075856828 1224979098644774921 2112 3 144115188075856828 1 31 2106 2 1224979098644774918 144115188075856828 3 0 2112 3 1224979098644774918 0 100 2133 2 72057594037927936 1224979098644774918

How to get – renown

Win battles while greatly outnumbered. Hint: few top tier units farming bandits.
Win tournaments (+20).

Making your own faction checklist (“I am independent” version)

Right to Rule > 30
Honor > 100
Renown > 400
Denars > 50000
Large experienced army that can take on army of 200 and live
PC level > 20
PC and his companions are adequately equipped for war
Most of the lords of your targeted faction are your friends
Targeted faction is at war currently
You’re friends (20+) with at least two other faction’s kings

If all points are in, just start conquering. Preemptive strike on the king is recommended, you’ll have to face him sooner or later anyway. Otherwise quickly capture a castle and start stocking it with all the recruits you can get, then prepare to repel besiegers. At the same time convince your noble friends to side with you.

Don’t attack a castle that is owned by faction A, but was owned by faction B at game start: you might go at war with both of them

For your first town consider one of these because of their placement: Bariyye, Rivacheg, Wercheg, Yalen. May the God help you if you choose Dhirim.

Making your own faction checklist (“I am a vassal” version)

Right to Rule > 30
Honor > 100
Renown > 400
Denars > 50000
Large experienced army that can take on army of 200 and live
Backup army is available in the garrison
PC level > 20
PC and his companions are adequately equipped for war
Most of the lords of your targeted faction are your friends
Targeted faction is at war currently
You’re friends (20+) with at least two other faction’s kings

If all points are in, rebel with a cause, like being denied a fief you conquered for a liege. Take your fiefs with you. Try to convince any lords to join your cause.
Prepare to repel besiegers, but don’t meet them in the field, use your castle advantage. As soon as you break the siege, go out and hunt everyone down 1:1 until offered peace.

(optional) For female characters: get a rich husband and convince him to rebel with you.

Vassals personalities

Go for Upstanding, Martial, Good-Natured personalities.
Disregard others, they make unreliable vassals.

Alternative approach.

Hear me out. Let every enemy lord go free regardless of personality. This will raise a ludicrous amounts of honour. You can raid, pillage, hunt caravans, be a failure in real life like me and still be honourable.
"But dishonourable vassals are bad...". Just give them a single village. It's basically a free patrol that is not allied with your enemies. And even when they defect, they won't take the village away so there is no risk.


Almost all lord personalities differ every new game, make a list with names of desirable lords and work with them.

On military campaigns: martial personality makes an aggressive marshal. Good-natured do not participate that much, unless the marshal is honorable and friends with them. Martial just hop in onto action. Upstanding is like a mix between.
If you’re marshal, make sure you have a good relations with lords or they won’t follow you.

	Upstanding	Martial	Good-Natured
Denying a private chat (low relationship)	“I would prefer to conduct our affairs out in the open.”	“Forgive me, but I'm not one for going off in corners to plot.”	“Surely we can discuss whatever you want to discuss out here in the open, can't we?”
Accepting a private chat and telling their philosophy (high relationship)	“Kingship and lordship have been instituted to keep the peace and prevent the war of all against all, yet that must not blind us to the possibility of injustice.”	“My sword is at the disposal of my rightful liege, so long as he upholds his duty to me.”	“Well, you should keep faith with your promises, and not do injustice to others. Sometimes it's hard to balance those. Stick with people you trust, I think, and it's hard to go far wrong.”
Capturing after battle	“I yield! Grant me the honours of war, and do yourself credit!”	“Stop! I yield!”	“I yield! Congratulations on your victory, (sir/madam)!”

P.S. [mod] In one of those "I can't believe it's not a part of vanilla" moments, some mods just plain state lord's personality on his dossier page once you speak with them for the first time:

Making your companions into vassals

Not really worth it. But if you insist...
Worth it to utilise incompatible companions who would have conflicts with your preferred companions otherwise. Plus it's additional lords on your side.

Alayen, Baheshtur, Firentis, Lezalit, Matheld, and Rolf are nobles and all are honorable (except Lezalit, who's pitiless).

All other companions are commoners and you will upset other people by giving them titles. Meaning almost every lord will lost 4 relationship with you once when you next speak with them.

You need to train them in a specialized way from the beginning to be effective lords.

Focus Trainer (for better troops), Path-finding (for faster move speed) and Leadership (for bigger army).
Combat skills can be ignored since it doesn't affect auto-resolve.

Convincing outside vassals to pay homage to you

Raise enough relationship to open up a private chat.

If they say “Long may he live!” about their liege, they are too loyal yet and they’ll need to be defeated in wars (not necessarily by you) multiple times to stop respecting their liege.

When you try to convince them to pledge allegiance to you, they’ll consider 4 things. You can directly affect only 1 of those 4 things, so make sure they reply favorably to your choice. Be consistent in your promises, don’t promise to support nobles to everyone and then mention how you will protect commoners to the next guy.

“Ancient law and custom”	high R2R
“Rights of commoners”	high Honor
“Rights of nobles”	high Honor
“Unify Calradia”	lots of conquered lands
“Reward with lands”	unassigned fiefs (vassal will expect you to deliver!)

Managing fiefs & vassals

• Fief types

	Good	Not so good
Villages	Recruits and gold	Vulnerable to raiding
Castles	Safe haven for troops, bonus to army size per castle	Tax inefficiency, no gold
Towns	Gold from rent and trading, safe haven for troops	Need protection for both caravan trade routes and local villages

• Fief assignment

For yourself: keep few major towns. Give other fiefs away.
For trustworthy vassals: 2 walled fiefs near each other + local villages.
For untrustworthy vassals: villages only so they won’t be able to take away fiefs when switching liege

• Vassal management

In-game menus are way complicated. It is better to have an excel on Alt-Tab, see example.

Domestic policy

• Centralization vs Decentralization

...+1...+2...+3 Centralized

-5%...-10%...-15% Monarch Tax Inefficiency
+5%...+10%...+15% Vassals' Tax Inefficiency
-1...-2...-3 Monthly Vassal Relations
+10%...+20%...+30% Monarch Army Size
-3%...-6%...-9% Vassals' Army Size

...0... Neutral Centralization
No effects

...-1...-2...-3 Decentralized

+5%...+10%...+15% Monarch Tax Inefficiency
+1...+2...+3 Monthly Vassal Relations
-10%...-20%...-30% Monarch Army Size
+3%...+6%...+9% Vassals' Army Size

• Aristocracy vs Plutocracy

+1...+2...+3 Aristocracy

-5%...-10%...-15% Trade
+1...+2...+3 Monthly Vassal Relations
+3%...+6%...+9% Vassals' Army Size

...0... Neutral Ratio
No effects

-1...-2...-3 Plutocracy

+10%...+15%...+20% Trade
-1...-2...-3 Monthly Vassal Relations
-3%...-6%...-9% Vassals' Army Size

• Serfdom vs Free Subjects

+1...+2...+3 Serfdom

-3%...-6%...-9% Monarch Tax Inefficiency
-3%...-6%...-9% Vassals' Tax Inefficiency
-2%...-4%...-6% Faction strength in AI battles
+1%...+2%...+3% Monarch Army Size
+1%...+2%...+3% Vassals' Army Size

...0... Neutral Ratio
No effects

-1...-2...-3 Freemans

+3%...+6%...+9% Monarch Tax Inefficiency
+3%...+6%...+9% Vassals' Tax Inefficiency
+2%...+4%...+6% Faction strength in AI battles
-1%...-2%...-3% Monarch Army Size
-1%...-2%...-3% Vassals' Army Size

• Quality vs Quantity

+1...+2...+3 Quality

+4%...+8%...+12% Faction strength in AI battles
-4%...-8%...-12% Vassals' Army Size

...0... Neutral Ratio
No effects

-1...-2...-3 Quantity

-4%...-8%...-12% Faction strength in AI battles
+4%...+8%...+12% Vassals' Army Size

• Mercantilism vs Free Trade

Mercantilism

More profit from domestic trade (between your own towns, BUT YOU NEED TO HAVE THOSE TOWNS)
Your caravans tend to stay inside your kingdom, less risk for bandit ambushes
Less profit from international trade (with other kingdoms)
Less foreign caravans visiting

Mixed policies
No effects

Laissez-faire (liberal economics)

Less profit from domestic trade (good for small kingdoms with few towns)
Your caravans tend to travel far away, more risk for bandit ambushes
More profit from international trade (with other kingdoms)
More foreign caravans visiting

Changelog

28 Dec 2019 – concept appeared and started to being considered
3 Jan 2020 – initial English version
8 Jan 2020 – minor edits
7 Mar 2020 – "Domestic policy" section added, "Vassal management" subsection added, few pictures added, minor overall changes
7 Mar 2020 – initial Steam release
9 Mar 2020 - domestic policy moved to a separate section, few contributions in other sections
17 Mar 2020 - expanded section about player character building
18 Mar 2020 - minor edits, spellchecking
14 Jul 2020 - expanded "How to get - experience" section to suggest farming bandits as solo horse archer
12 Jan 2024 - Guide reached 1000 favourites! Thank you. I've also came back to Warband and played 900 days campaign in Perisno. As a result, the following changes: added "Choosing your equipment – melee weapons section", expanded "Making your companions into vassals" section to suggest utilising otherwise undesirable companions, expanded "Vassal personalities" to include sub-section "Alternative approach", added some [mod]-tagged comments to add information that might not be related to Native, expanded "Credits&Thanks" section to include Perisno page and brushed up on minor typos here and there.

Credits & Thanks

Eleison†
Floris wiki [floris.fandom.com]
Hidemichi
Hit Point Inn Gaming
Jarl Austysson†
M&B wiki [mountandblade.fandom.com]
Phoenix VII
qqqs [qqqs.livejournal.com]
Russian Anonymous (you know who you are)
Taleworlds forum [forums.taleworlds.com]
TheDickSnatcher[imgur.com]
Perisno Development Team[www.nexusmods.com]

[М'аiq thе Lаzу]

Спасибо на добром слове. :3

[Enlightened]

Это самый лучший и самый полный гайд по игре, которым я время от времени пользуюсь уже несколько лет. Настолько хорошо написанных, информативных и полезных руководств есть у очень мало каких игр. Отличная работа!

[Recyclematters]

Good
stuff

[decoin]

A useful guide

[Jonh Martons]

is Bofa a good companion

[rock.golem | trade.tf]

Oh also Bahushtar. Usually he'll be in too.

[rock.golem | trade.tf]

You can get away with up to 11 companions. You certainly shouldn't settle for just 5. Personally I'd recommend Nizar, Metheld, Alayen, Ymira, Deshavi, Klethi, Jeremus, Firentis, Bunduk, and...you can get Katrin too I think. Simply side with Nizar and Metheld at least once and keep a diverse list of food and no-one will desert. You can also level up persuasion if you're having trouble keeping them. I find elite immortal soldiers to be well worth the trouble. Sometimes I'll even add Rolf,

[М'аiq thе Lаzу]

A little earlier I commented on that.
Initially when I googled party morale problem, I found few variations of what to replace. I tried them one after one after another until I found the one string of text working for me on clean unmodified steam version.
So I pasted it in the guide and discarded others.

I'm sorry, but for now I don't play M&B and I don't want to sieve through google results to suggest versions that might not work. I encourage you to look them up and try them if guide's version doesn't work for you. Let me know if you find a working version.
P.S. If you replaced it and it didn't crash the game but simply had no effect, you're on a right track.

[Mksiege]

Could you please explain in a "For Dummies" way to me how to remove the party size morale thing? Tried removing the line, and it made the game unable to load. Replaced the existing lines with yours, and nothing seems to have happened.
Thanks for the guide. Helped out as a player returning after years of not playing.

[М'аiq thе Lаzу]

Thank you :3