Trouble with mid-game progression

[DarkSynergy]

So, I finally picked this up during the current steam sale, and wow, it's pretty much exactly what I've been looking for in a game. I've been playing it a lot over the last few days, but I've found progression in the single player campaign significantly more difficult than anticipated, even with the game settings on easy. I tried playing some mods for a change of pace, but ultimately I keep running into the same problem: I get a decently sized warband going, but I can't find a suitable source of money/renown to continue progressing.

As recommended by a lot of beginner guides, I finish the merchant's little questline (it's a pity I haven't found any more like it) and begin hunting bandits for loot and exp, slowly upgrading my personal equipment and my warband. All is well until I reach a point where the size of my party makes bandit hunting no longer profitable (not to mention the difficulty of chasing bandits with a bigger, slower party), but I'm still not strong enough to go wage war. So here's what I've tried so far:

1) I tried doing some quests for NPCs, but the ones I've found weren't particularly rewarding.
2) I worked as a mercenary for a kingdom, which was pretty cool for a while. Although I was too weak to fight lords alone, I was able to find armies fighting each other and join in on the big battles. However, sometimes it was hard to find where battles were happening, and eventually we signed a peace treaty and I was back in the same situation again  .
3) Tournaments. Lots of guides I read recommended them as a good source of money and renown, but I haven't been all that successful at winning them. All it takes is one bad round - either a group of teammates who get slaughtered at the beginning or me getting a weapon that I'm no good with, and there's no reward at all. If my teammates all die, I usually can't take on multiple enemies by myself. They kinda just crowd up to me and I can't find an opportunity to strike since somebody is always swinging or blocking.

I was just wondering what everyone else does at that stage of the game, so maybe I can figure out what I'm doing wrong .

 

[Honved]

Normally, I'm fine with bandit hunting and trading, up until I've got a well-trained party of around 30-50. After that, it gets increasingly harder to pay for the extra hands and higher-tier troops, and it's time to join a faction, not just hire out as a mercenary.  Hopefully, your Renown should be well over 100 (200+ is better), and you should be able to join any faction that suits you, and ideally is doing passably well at storming and taking opposing castles.  You typically get the poorest village that the faction holds, especially if one has been recently looted.

The higher your Renown (above 300-400 minimum) and the more of your faction's lords already own more than one fief, the better the odds of you being granted a recently taken castle.  Bonus if you took it yourself, and request it.  Boosting relations with the king, by taking missions or participating in his campaigns, also helps.  If there are faction lords without a castle or village, they'll usually get first priority on new holdings.  If offered a minor fief such as a second village, you're better off refusing and holding out for a castle.  A third fief usually requires a really high Renown and/or a faction that's occupying almost half the map.

Usually, I'll have 60-80 men, sometimes more, before I even attempt to besiege a castle on my own, particularly right after it's changed hands between two other factions, and is almost unguarded.  At 100+ men, you should be strong enough to conduct assaults on some of the more lightly defended castles.  Towns are generally a lot more heavily guarded, and require a larger party or the faction's Marshall with a group of supporting parties involved.  Once you get a castle, holding it with a strong garrison becomes a priority task.

Once you have a castle, you can garrison troops there for half wages, who don't count against your force limit.  This allows you to train up a much larger army than you can use at one time, holding some of the more expensive high-tier troops in reserve for when you need them as you train up more "newbies".  This can also allow you to "travel light" with a small elite army, with the rest left in garrison, so you can catch smaller bandit parties: Sea Raiders in particular, who have good enough loot to be rewarding at any level.  Having a couple of spare horses in the baggage train speeds up your party significantly (baggage weight is divided up among more horses), and if a sizable proportion of your troops are mounted, you should be able to catch most bandits.  Pare down small enough and the bandits may even attack you, much to their sorrow.  The smaller force also significantly increases the amount of Renown you get for the fight, versus going in with an overwhelming superiority.

Ultimately, there is no clear-cut "ending" to the game, and you don't "win"; you just decide at some point that it's time to retire and start another game.  Unlike the sequel, Warband, you can't become a king or form your own faction, so it's a matter of seeing how many towns and castles you and/or your faction can hold before you get tired of it or your character gets old and starts losing stats.

Currently, I'm running about 50-60 men, have joined a faction, but don't yet have a castle.  The only faction mine is at war with has no remaining castles, and I'm still in no position to besiege a town, so it may be a long time before I've got more than the village I was granted for joining the faction.  Fortunately, I'm running about a 2/3 mounted force, so catching bandits is easy enough, and I have a regular trade run to carry furs, iron, and wool from Vaegir territory, and return with oil, salt, and pottery from Khergit lands.  Any encounters and loot along the way are a bonus.  At this point, money is not at all a problem, although I can easily spend a lot more than I'm making.

 

[Vasily]

I know your problem, i had the exactly same thing. What i did to get my money is by hunting bandits. You maybe thinking; why would i hunt bandits? Glad you asked! It is not because of the loot, it is because of the bandits themselfs. If you have a blunt weapon and your men have blunt weapons you can knock them unconsciousness.

In Warband you dont get any bad relations or less honor if you are a ''slave trader'' I consider it one of the best Money tactics in the game. Later in the game you get towns and castle's maybe your very own kingdom, you can move on from slave trading and focussing on getting castle's to get your money from that.

I hoped i could have helped you with your problem, goodluck.

The respond above mine is probably of better use but yeah, I'm trying to help you with the experience i got. ^^

 

[Honved]

At low level, the bandits are usually worth more than their loot.  Once you advance a few levels and start taking on Sea Raiders and higher level faction forces, the armor drops are worth more than the warm bodies.  Getting 50 Denars for a basic Looter slave beats 1-10 Denars for his battered leather or fur jacket and knife, but doesn't match 100-200 Denars for a chain hauberk, iron helmet, and 2 handed axe from a top-tier Sea Raider.

Then again, I can pick up a pile of Fur in some Vaegir village for 43 Denars, haul it to Khergit or Rhodock territory, and sell it for 200-300, with practically no risk, then carry some salt or pottery back the other way and again double or triple my investment.

Don't build too large of a party, otherwise you can't afford to pay it, you earn less Renown for battles, and the loot is divided up among more men (your companions get a double share, you get a triple share or something like that, and the regular troops get one share).  Strip that down to 10-20 men or less and you can rake in some serious cash for yourself, unless you run afoul of 45 Sea Raiders.

 

[Vasily]

At low level, the bandits are usually worth more than their loot.  Once you advance a few levels and start taking on Sea Raiders and higher level faction forces, the armor drops are worth more than the warm bodies.  Getting 50 Denars for a basic Looter slave beats 1-10 Denars for his battered leather or fur jacket and knife, but doesn't match 100-200 Denars for a chain hauberk, iron helmet, and 2 handed axe from a top-tier Sea Raider.

Then again, I can pick up a pile of Fur in some Vaegir village for 43 Denars, haul it to Khergit or Rhodock territory, and sell it for 200-300, with practically no risk, then carry some salt or pottery back the other way and again double or triple my investment.

Don't build too large of a party, otherwise you can't afford to pay it, you earn less Renown for battles, and the loot is divided up among more men (your companions get a double share, you get a triple share or something like that, and the regular troops get one share).  Strip that down to 10-20 men or less and you can rake in some serious cash for yourself, unless you run afoul of 45 Sea Raiders.

Well, this was actually really helpfull for me too, is there any topics on how to do the best trading in calradia?

 

[Honved]

The exact trades and prices depend on too many factors for trade routes and ideal items to be "set in stone", but there are goods which are more frequently found in some places at a low price, and places where those same goods can usually be sold at a high price.  You may not find that item at a low price in the same town the next time around, if you can find it at all, but if you do find it cheaply, it will tend to be in that same region.

A few examples that I typically trade would be:
Oil - often (not always) found cheaply in Khergit or Rhodok villages, best sold in Nord or Vaegir territory.
Fur and Iron - usually found cheapest in Vaegir villages, best sold in Rhodok land, but Khergits and Swadians will often pay as well.
Salt and Pottery -from Khergit villages, to Vaegir, Nord, and distant Rhodok cities.  Swadians may pay decently, or not.
Tools - central Swadian/Vaegir/Nord border area, sold toward the far corners of the map, often not available cheaply.
Fish -Vaegir/Nord areas, although not always coastal, best sold in Khergit land.
Dried Meat - cheaper in or near the Vaegir coastal regions, more expensive inland.
Beef - cheap in villages, sells in cities, quickly saturates the market if you concentrate on it.
Spices are sometimes found cheaply (but still expensive) in Khergit cities, and go for good money in Nord cities. Decent profit but lower percentage.
Cheese - sometimes found dirt cheap in Rhodok villages, sells well in Nord or Vaegir land.
Wheat and a few other goods from inland villages may bring a high percentage, but the actual Denar amounts are low.
.....and so on.

It takes a couple of game weeks for prices to stabilize (they start at average in most places, so no profit to be made on day 1). The more you sell to a place, the more they have in stock, and the less they'll pay for more, so you can easily oversaturate some markets.  I usually find the coastal to inland routes or diagonal runs more lucrative than the cross-wise routes, but there are exceptions.  Many of the food items (bread, apples, cabbages) have fairly low price differences, so it really doesn't pay to trade them, but you can still save a bit by buying food for your troops when you find it at a good price.

If your faction is at war with both Vaegirs and Khergits, trade options are a lot more limited, because they have most of the best deals.

Someone once posted a set of trade routes and typical profit margins, etc., but I never saw the same economic situation.  Several of his top earners were barely break even items in my games.  My suspicion is that the caravans move a lot of goods, resulting in price changes, with wars and caravan raids affecting those prices differently from one game to the next.  Best advice I've got for a trader is to mark down a list of items; when you see it available at a lower cost, mark that down after the Average; when you see it at a higher price, mark that down behind it.  Eventually you'll have a list with average, best, and worst pricing.  When you see it cheaply, buy.  Depending on your Trade skill (and/or the Trade skill of a Companion), the prices you pay and sell for will vary.

 

[Cpt. Nemo]

This trade guide is specifically for the OG Mount and Blade: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=1711.0

The linked thread also has a post with links to other guides.

 

[Honved]

Interesting guide, but that's very clearly for an early revision of the game.  Prices don't look anything even remotely like those in my version 1.011 game.  Note that I can usually buy Fur in several Vaegir villages for something like 43 Denars, and sell it in Rhodok or Khergit cities for a little over 300, with something like 3-5 points in Trade at levels 4-8.  His guide refers to buying it at over 600 and selling it even higher.

 

[AmateurHetman]

Enterprises are what you need for income (talk to guild masters in towns, and ask about each enterprise, keeping an eye on the profit) Fiefs are usually better, but more difficult to obtain. Tournaments and betting can easily make you over 3000 denars if you bet 100 before each melee and win. Not too difficult to win once you rank up your character through the arena and training fields. Try to rest in towns or castles when you pay troops as it halves. YouTube has plenty of guides to about economics and finance. Increasing leadership is also important, as it decreases wages further. Hire companions, and invest skill points in party skills, this can make your party really powerful eg. Companion with high path-finding with bonus from your own path-finding will make you the fastest party on the map regardless of troop composition.

 

[newcomer]

My strategy is this (note: you must be at war with at least one faction):
1) Pillage enemy villages, collect as many items as you can and sell the most expensive ones (for example beef) in the nearest town.This brings a lot of denars in your pocket and while the damaged faction will hate you severely for it, after the war only the lord whose fief you destroyed will look ill upon you. In my experience the kingdoms are far more pissed off when you loot their caravans. Caravans are not worth the effort as A) you don't know whether you'll get the best stuff, and B) there is resistance, which may lead to unwanted losses.
2) Considering you have a well trained, large force, you absolutely must attack enemy lords. Their armies are sometimes upgraded to the max, which means two things (if victory is achieved): you avoid a very stressful fight in the future, while also weakening the enemy's overall military forces; another positive of this is the loot that a defeated army leaves: heavy weaponry, armor and the best horses are all things that you could not only sell, but also use for your own party's benefit!
3) In my playthrough I got ambushed by thugs everywhere I went. If the case is the same with you, then you'll receive a small sum of denars every time you prevail (600 denars is not something you say no to).
4) Follow your warband carefully. Okay, this is weird but a percentage of my Nord army automatically upgrades to archers that I don't use (as Huscarls with javelins are just as good imo). I always end up disbanding these, which leads to less troops, a.k.a. less money for upkeep.
5) From time to time you find these Deserter guys, who are both significant in numbers and upgraded, which returns me to point 2: they leave good loot and you don't need to fear they will crush you when you are weak. Also, their large forces mean that they won't be as fast as Sea Raiders, Looters etc. and you should be able to get them in some corner even with a big force of troops.
Good luck.

 

[Honved]

Like most other advice, newcomer's tips work well in some situations, and not in others.

1) Pillaging villages will not only incur the wrath of the owners of the fiefs you raided, and plunge relations with those villages through the floor, it may cause dissent within your own party if one or more of your Companions is against raiding.  Generally I prefer to keep relations with the villages as high as possible, driving out bandits and occasionally even doing a mission (some of those missions may cost you a few Denars for cattle or grain, but it's often worth it for the ability to recruit there in the future).  Being able to go back months later and pick up a handful of raw recruits to boost your party size, or help garrison a recently acquired castle, can be VERY handy.  I've had games where I boosted relations with a number of villages, and when my faction declared war on them and took a castle, I found myself being offered one of those village as a fief.  Now it's MY village, and they hail me as a hero.

2) Attacking enemy Lords is generally a faster way to gain Reputation, as well as offering some of the better equipment as loot.  I prefer to focus on one faction, and not every Lord within that faction.  If captured, I'll release the ones I'm already on better terms with, so if/when their entire faction is defeated, the higher Relations will increase the odds of them joining my current faction.

3) If you enter a town or village at night, there is a chance for you to be ambushed by a small group of thugs, which may be a good or bad thing, depending on your character's fighting abilities.  Traveling by day, it'll never happen.

4) Once you have a castle, placing unwanted troop types in garrison counts toward any auto-resolved sieges of that castle, and will lower the likelihood of an opposing Lord deciding to besiege it in the first place, because troop "tier" is more important than actual fighting ability in that case.  Why disband an "unwanted" troop type when they're still useful in another capacity?  Granted, if you don't need them in your party, and don't have anyplace to garrison them, then disbanding is a viable option.

5) Deserters can be a good or bad thing.  20 Vaegir Recruits are no threat to a high-powered player party with 30+ men, and won't drop much in the way of decent equipment; no risk, but no reward, other than selling any survivors to slavers.  20 Nord Veterans will take a bit more work to dispatch, but will typically leave some nice gear behind.  20 Swadian Knights are best avoided, unless you have the right combination of troops to deal with them, otherwise you're likely to suffer some heavy casualties taking them on for the high-end stuff they carry.

There are plenty of options with a short-term payoff, but long-term implications.  I prefer to think more in terms of the "long game", not so much for the quick reward.  Of course, dangle a tender morsel in front of me and I'm not going to refuse it.