Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord – Economy/City Management Tips

Tips for Economy/City Management

Loyalty

The -3 Debuff (which I imagine you’re struggling with) is really not that bad. Set up your governor, and it’s fine. Same culture gives +1 loyalty. The level 50 Riding Perk gives +.5 loyalty. The level 75 Leadership perk gives +1 loyalty.

Alternate between the Festival to get +3 loyalty (you cannot be building projects for this to work), and building the Fairgrounds. A level 1 Fairgrounds gives +.5 loyalty. With this, you’ve negated the Loyalty penalty. Build the Fairgrounds up to level 3, and you’ve got a net gain of +1 Loyalty. If you have the Parade (I think that’s the name) perk, you give +1 Loyalty when you’re in the fief.

Security

Keep enough of a garrison to keep security from halting production. Higher security will help build things faster. The 75 Roguery perk gives +1 security, and there are other security bonuses in some other perk trees (don’t remember off the top of my head). If you have the Presence perk, you give +5 security while waiting in a town. This can be useful to quickly raise security.

Keep Loyalty and Security managed, and your build projects will progress smoothly. A governor with good engineering will get passive build speed bonus, and the 75 Engineering perk boosts Town or Castle build speed (depending on which you pick).

Policies

This can be rough in the vanilla game because all the AI lords are dead set against the better policies. If you can get Forgiveness of Debts (+2 Loyalty) and Tribunes of the People (+1 Loyalty) passed, you shouldn’t have to worry about Loyalty in the fief again, provided you’re doing 1 and 2 above. The overall growth of your fiefs will far outstrip the reduced taxes you bring in.

There are two Security Policies that will help with Security – Magistrates and Bailiffs. Castle Charters helps with building up castles.

Castles Are Your Friend

You want to snag up castles near your towns for the Trade Bound settlements. Some castle villages produce good stuff for workshops, and if you own them, you control the trade. Build workshops in your fiefs that use what your trade bound villages produce. This can go a long way to boosting prosperity (and tax income) for your fiefs.

Make Friends

Lords that have a high relation with you won’t raid your villages. This means you don’t have to spend as much time protecting them. They may still siege your fiefs, but it’s easier to deal with a siege. A raided village will cause prosperity to plummet. Keep your fiefs better defended than the AI, and your enemies will be more likely to attack other members of your faction.

Chores

The repetitive quests are tedious. Not doing them can be a drag on your town’s loyalty/prosperity/security. Send your companions to do them so you don’t have to waste time. Once your town gets rolling, these aren’t as important.