Overview
Supply and Demand are the tools of the Merchant King. Better understanding these in Bannerlord will help you become the next Musa of Mali.This guide will present an overview of resource flow in Mount and Blade Bannerlord 2 as of early access release. It will discuss types of items, supply and demand, caravans, workshops, and fiefs. It also includes original maps that show where items are produced across Calradia so that you can set up your own trade routes or optimized workshops and fiefs as well as three profitable trade route examples to get you started. Ultimately, it presents a guide and tools for you to use to become a successful trader and merchant in Bannerlord, for those without interest in trade it also offers ways for you to make passive income. This is incredibly important for supporting large armies and strong fighting forces, outside of fief taxes.
Introduction
Hello and welcome to The Silk Road. This is one of my first guides and is an active work in progress. It aims to cover trading, workshops, and general goods.
If you have played Bannerlord some I would recommend skipping to my Supply and Demand Section and then Item Production Maps section as it will have the most value for you. Then skimming anything before it if you have questions about the mechanics of items and trade. Of course, if you haven’t traded much or have some doubts, inquires, or questions regarding trading and goods I encourage you to start from the beginning.
I will begin by breaking down the types of items, this is fairly unimportant but helpful to understand what goods are used for, consumed by, or manufactured into. Next I will discuss generally the resource flow and supply and demand of Calradia. I believe Taleworlds has worked hard to create a lore and game world that accurately reflects natural resources and their demand by different kingdoms and people. Understanding this is the first step. Directly after are my production maps of where items are produced or manufactured. They clearly depict the supply of goods and thus imply where they would be demanded. With a little trial and error in game these production maps will help you create extremely profitable trade routes for your party. Afterwards, I have segments on caravans, workshops, and fiefs. I plan to add to these and improve upon them in the future, currently these instruction are very general. Finally in my conclusion are some other recommended guides that I have seen and help expand on some concepts presented here, as well as, a thank you to all the commenters who have helped fill in information gaps. Hope this guide helps, I always love to hear feedback, and hope your travels in Calradia are equally adventurous and profitable.
This is my first guide, and is by no means extensively tested or perfect. It is based on my observation from trading different goods around Calradia and creating a large horde of wealth early game. I then created a table of all villages and towns and their corresponding production to better understand trade and hope to share these lessons. In future updates I would like to add more details on caravans, workshops, fiefs, and how resources play into the prosperity and success of different regions and factions.
Trade and The Workshop
The game contains 3 categories of items in regards to trading. All items are produced at a village or manufactured in a town, with the exception of weapons, armour, and ammunition which can all only be bought, plundered, or sometimes crafted (at least from the player’s perspective). Each village specializes in one base item, which can sometimes have related items (i.e. villages that raise cows also produce butter and cheese). Each town can manufacture 1-3 goods. The item categories are:
1. Loot/Equipables
2. Livestock
3. Goods
These are items that are often plundered off the battlefield. It consists of all weapons, armour, and ammunition. Mounts and food not included for the purposes of this guide.
These are often best used to upgrade your player and companions and then either sell at the nearest town or in the case of weapons smelt at the smith’s for crafting resources.
2. Livestock (2 Sub-Categories)
Livestock includes all animals and mounts.
- The first subcategory includes traditional livestock animals that are used for food and resources. These are hogs, sheep, and cows. They are all raised in towns around the Calradian countryside. While they appear to produce related goods in villages, like butter, wool, and meat they do not appear to do so in your inventory. They also do not seem to die off but can be eaten by the party if starving.
- The second subcategory includes all mounts. They can be used for food, although this is obviously ill-advised and costly. Their primary purpose is increasing travel speed, increasing carrying capacity, and providing mounts for knights and war.
Livestock is important in that they have a couple different purposes and usually create related goods through their raising.
3. Goods (2 Sub-Categories)
This includes food items, as well as purely trade items that may boost certain town and city stats (need to test).
- Natural Goods: These are items produced in villages and are reaped directly from the natural resources of the land. Examples include: Iron, Flax, and Grains.
- Manufactured Goods: These are items produced in towns and are created by processing Natural Goods into more complex and valuable items. These are also far less abundant than Natural Goods. Examples include: Jewelry, Tools, Linen, and Leather.
Goods are important as they are your primary source of income, and their supply and demand are more impacted by natural abundance than other items.
It is important to understand the goods chain, so as to know where goods will be abundant or scarce. See Chart below. Good chains are somewhat speculative*. Any marked with a question mark may be outputs or not.
Charts are all made by myself. Feel free to use as you like, although I always appreciate credit. 🙂
Arbitrage Potential
Supply and Demand:
Each area is abundant in certain goods and scarce in others. By understanding where goods originate from you can understand where they will sell cheap and where they will demand a hefty price, it’s all about arbitrage. Remember too, there are other merchants and caravans, as such, to get the highest price for your goods you have to go far from their destination of origin as many caravans help spread the goods further outward. Another option is to go where they are in exceeding demand, often large prosperous manufacturing sectors looking for inputs or kingdoms at war.
Keep in mind, villages have the lowest prices for Base Goods, especially in provinces with many villages producing the same good. Towns, therefore, also have the cheapest prices for Manufactured goods they produce, especially in provinces that have the Manufactured Good’s Base Good input in large abundance. The vice versa is true for where things will be very expensive.
Prices:
The game will highlight prices* in green that are cheap and highlight prices in red that are expensive. With yellow prices being a range between the two. This is important to note as generally when you buy you want prices to be green, and when you sell you want prices to be red. It can be confusing, as when you go to sell it shows a red price. This means the price is high not that your profit will be negative. While this is very helpful, it is by no means perfect, and does not currently help you understand average price or profit potentials. The yellow range is also quite large, and I have bought many goods for near half the yellow price, and then sold them in the yellow price range for good profit. The best way to learn what to trade is through experience. Eventually, after pursuing trade for some time you will naturally learn what you can roughly buy and sell goods for, and this will help you maximize profits. At the start of your game using the green (low price) and red (high price) indicators is good enough and will help you learn prices and become a true master merchant.
Note: only trade goods are shown green and red prices. This does not include hogs, sheep, cows, and horses.
Go check out Linguistie’s guide Collected Data on Good’s Prices. It contains an interesting list of price samples, and also has the lowest, highest, and average price of all goods which is extremely useful when first learning what is an acceptable price to buy and sell goods. Link provided here, and in the conclusion.
[link]
Trade rumours are also incredibly valuable and you should always look at prices that show up listed under the good. These rumours give you a better idea of average prices and where you can buy low and sell high. They are great for capitalizing on wars and other events that create huge demand and skyrocket prices just outside your normal trade route, these allow you to adjust and make the most profit. You gather these rumours from towns as you visit them, as well as from your caravans or workshops depending on a trade perk. As such, it is very valuable to have caravans or workshops gathering this information for you. Lastly, I believe that the prices fade as the rumours become older, and thus actual prices may vary depending on how long ago you heard the rumour, so if you see sky-high prices for good you have in your inventory try to beat other merchants there before they steal your profits.
Note that in towns the more of a good you buy the higher the price will tick, and vice versa for goods that you sell with the price slowly lowering. Keep an eye on this to prevent erosion of profits. Villages on the other hand will sell and buy all their goods for the stated price, however, they have limited coin purses and cannot purchase much off you. They are the best place to buy Natural Goods form.
You can also trade with other trade caravans. They can sometimes have great deals, and do not seem to change the price no matter how much you sell or buy. Their prices seem to be based of local town prices.
The trader skill tree also has perks that say it will show your average price, and profit and loss. I have yet to find where these are actually displayed, if someone knows and could comment below that would be amazing. It seems that if you hover over the price it will tell you the average, yet to find profit and loss though.
Lore & Faction Preferences
Calradia’s Kingdoms:
The above map shows Calradia’s Kingdoms at the start of the campaign. Each roughly encompasses a different environmental region with different regions having different natural resources.
Red: Vlandians (e.g. Western Europeans/Normans)
Green: Battanians (e.g. Celtic Tribes)
Blue: Sturgians (e.g. Slavs/Norsemen)
Teal: Khuzait Khanate (e.g. Turkic Tribes/Mongols/Balkans)
Yellow: Aserai (e.g. Arabic Tribes/Caliphs)
Red-Purple: Western Empire (e.g. Western Rome/Military Party)
Pink-Purple: Northern Empire (e.g. Rome/Republic Party)
Blue-Purple: Southern Empire (e.g. Eastern Rome/Monarch Party)
Each one shares similar characteristics to their historic influence. As such, they share similar natural resources as their historic counterparts, and similar trade patterns. Their behaviour and differing preferences may also lead to changes in goods supplied and demanded. A perfect example is the lack of quality horses in Vlandia yet a heavy reliance on heavy mounted knights. This creates a large demand for quality horses in their kingdom.
Vlandians:
They have very cheap hogs, however, cattle can be very expensive. They have less manufacturing capabilities and thus their prices are low for most Base Goods and high for most Manufactured Goods. Their wine and oil are often very cheap in some more mediterranean locations. Their military favours heavy mounted knights and thus has a high demand for war horses, particularly desert horses.
Battanians:
Overall very cheap prices. Abundance in natural resources like grain, sheep, hogs, hardwood, iron ore, and clay. Lacks manufacturing sector and thus Manufactured Goods tend to be more expensive, with Jewelry commanding extremely high prices.
Sturgians:
Furs, Furs, Furs, and some flax and linen. Terrific for cheap furs which are in large demand the more south you go and the harsher the land you find yourself in (looking at you Aserai). Similar conditions as Battanians and Vlandians, with some demand for wine, dates, pottery, and olives.
Khuzait Khanate:
Lots of herding animals in the far eastern regions past the mountains. Very good for hides, cows, sheep, and meat. Some areas demand salt. Other really like olives and wine. Iron ores are fairly abundant and tools appear to be quite cheap in the South Eastern parts. Steppe horses can sometimes command a decent price in lands with few available mounts (Cough* Battanians). Some good sources of linen and pottery. Sometimes demands silver ores and leather. Almost always wants some amount of furs for their stylish coats.
Aserai:
Dates, grains, salt, horses, and fish. That is about all they have, for the trade-off of having it all! Sometimes oil can also be quite cheap. Manufactured goods seem to demand high to medium prices depending on recent caravan activity. Generally most food items are cheap, however, items like hardwood and iron ores can garner profits in a land with no trees. They will also pay mighty prices for livestock. If you ever wanted to be a horse merchant this is the place to gather your stock. Can re-sell to horse hungry Vlandians for easily double the price.
Empire:
The Empire has a lot of goods and similarities in common, with less pronounced difference between the three. They have a mixed bag of Base Goods and Manufactured Goods demand and supply. Often their territories have the most volatility in ownership. As such, you can profit off of short-term demand spikes while passing through to faraway lands. Overall, there is more city by city variance and thus opportunities for arbitrage at shorter ranges but with generally less consistency and magnitude (unless you get lucky and can sell to a city after a siege, war profiteering is very lucrative :)).
I suggest experimenting and finding your preferred trade route. It can be fun to role-play and run with the lore of the game, specializing in certain products or trade niches. However, some diversification is always healthy for profits. This is doubly true if you are trading in food, as it can be slowly eaten at by your soldiers, although it does not seem to go bad. Speaking of soldiers, as of March 2020, it is fairly easy to maintain a personal party of at least 25-35 men. You barely, if at all, need to level them up to keep most hostile parties at bay (actually fighting them is a different matter). Keeping them low level is very advantageous in the beginning as you are often operating on a shoe string budget and don’t have the ability to be footing large monthly expenditures between origin and destination. Your largest risks currently seem to be forest bandits and mounted steppe warriors and clans. They can easily wipe low tier units in a matter of minutes or seconds. With enough mounted troops or horses in your inventory boosting speed you can usually run from forest bandits and put up an equal fight with steppe warriors. A good idea is to recruit steppe warriors in the Khuzait lands and provide them with cheap steppe horses from villages to make an extremely strong, deterring, and fast caravan guard. A final note, it can be worthwhile to buy cheap horses and mules to increase your speed, item turnover, and thus profits. It is also a good idea to become a part time horse merchant, as horses carry your people and items, are often valuable, and walk themselves.
*Item Production Maps
Maps show where each item is produced by province, or which cities manufacture which items. A province being either a town and its bound villages or a castle and its bound villages. Order shown is input Base Goods and then Manufactured Goods where applicable.
*These are a perfect guide to understanding where supply and demand will be. With cheap supply near village producers or town manufacturers and expensive demand being far away where these goods are hard to access. I recommend you draw your own trade routes and try them out using these as a guide. Below each map are simple directions to travel in with goods to make a profit.
*I.e. Hogs go East and South means you should buy Hogs in The North West where there are producers (Vlandia and Battania) and you should sell them far away where the good is in low supply and high demand. In this case based on the map and experience it would be to the East and South, specifically Southern Empire and the Aserai.
All maps have been made by myself, you are free to download and use them as you like, although I always appreciate credit too 🙂 . I have tried to compare relative goods, reflect the flow charts, and ensure visual clarity. I apologize for my poor image editing skills.
If anyone has any interest in my data files listing villages, towns, and their resources I’ve included them at the end of this section along side @Wild Fedorasaur ‘s own data set. Mine is organized by province, while his is organized by village and may be an easier search tool.
The map legend is in the image itself shown in the bottom left corner. Each colour represents a type of good production and thus the map shows where each good is produced and supply will be generally higher.
Hogs, Sheep, and Cows:
- Hogs go East and South.
- Cows go West and South.
Horses:
- Desert Horses go North and West.
- Steppe Horses go West.
Grain, Olives, Grapes, and Dates:
- Olives go East for consumer and South for manufacturer demand.
- Grapes go East for consumer and South for manufacturer demand.
Brewery, Olive Press, and Wine Press
- Oil goes North and to the Centre of the map.
- Wine goes North East.
- Beer is difficulty but can go to the Centre of the map.
Furs, Cotton, and Flax
- Furs go South as far as possible.
- Cotton goes South West.
- Flax goes Central or to Manufacturers.
Velvet Weavery, Wool Weavery, Linen Weavery, and Tannery
- Velvet goes West and South.
- Linen goes West and Central.
- Leather goes roughly South.
Clay, Hardwood, Iron Ore, and Silver Ore
- Clay goes Central, or to areas with Pottery Shop.
- Silver goes to Manufacturers with shortages, or to the South or West.
- Hardwood goes South.
- Iron Ore goes South.
Pottery Shop, Wood Workshop, Smithy, and Silversmith
- Pottery Goes North and Central.
- Tools go to wars, before, after, or during.
- Jewelry goes West.
Fish and Salt
- Salt goes West.
- Fish can go Central, somewhat difficult.
Data Sets:
My data set outlining provinces and their production. I recommend downloading mine so that you can use excel’s filters to sort the date.
Wild Fedorasaur ‘s data set outline production by village.
Caravans, Workshops, and Fiefdoms
Caravans:
Caravans are likely best started at the edge of the map, so that they are more likely to travel to farther lands and experience more extreme changes in environment and resources. Or started in a section of the map you want them to trade in. Haven’t tested, however, it may be the case that the area you start them in is their home turf/specialty area and will more likely be served and traded with. Theoretically, they can be attacked, and either destroyed or plundered. I have yet to see this, however, for the majority of my game I have not been part of a faction but rather a friendly independent. Recently I joined a faction, however, it has still been some time and all my caravans are operating fine despite being at war with half of the map. Overall, it seems to be a low risk of losing them as generally they can outrun large armies, and can defend themselves well enough.
Workshops:
To set up a workshop you need to walk around a town, from their hold alt key to see all points and places of interest. There should be 1-3 workshops in the town. You can then walk to any of them and talk to a worker there, not a named character, but simply someone called a Workshop Worker. Talk to them and it will cost 15k to buy it, you will get a choice to change what type of workshop it is then. And in the future, you can change it for 2k. After purchasing a workshop they can be managed, changed, and sold via the clan tab.
Workshops should be placed in territories where input goods are cheap and available. Greater risk can be achieved by placing in territories that have fewer input goods (but still some) and have a lack of manufacturing for that good monopoly opportunities 🙂 . An example could be manufacturing Jewelry in the Western edge of the continent, however, this is untested and may require you to buy silver and transport it there. It has been suggested that going around and buying then changing workshops in an area to create artificial monopolies may also work, however, this is also untested. Considering their may be caps on workshop profit this may further reduce the gains from taking risks and opening up manufacturing in low-capital areas*. Another thing to consider is competition. Each town has 1-3 workshop slots, you should pay attention to what is being produced there and if it will compete with your workshop or allow you to monopolize. As well, you may be able to set up workshops that benefit your trade routes and allow you to more easily connect certain items from producers, to makers, to consumers. Finally, wars and sieges on towns with workshops shuts them down and turns their profit to zero until over, and if captured by an enemy you lose ownership. Therefore, it may be best to open workshops in stable regions.
*Cap on workshops may have been removed, needs testing. I have a silversmith in Onira that produces about 180-280 profit per day. And comments have posted much larger numbers upwards to 12 000 a day.
Comparison:
Workshops tend to be low volatility and low reward while caravans are the opposite. Both take some time to start up and begin making average profits, with profits slowly improving over their lifetime. As of now, April 2020, Caravans appear to make double the profit of workshops, the removing of the workshop cap may change this.
Fiefs:
I have yet to have much experience with fiefdoms, so I cannot say much. However, where you own fiefdoms it may be advantageous to also own manufacturing. It might also be in your interest to ensure a healthy good supply into your villages and towns to promote development and prosperity. Especially food, keep their stomach full and they will serve and grow.
As a kingdom you make want to focus on conquering provinces with goods that you need, or towns that contains 3 workshops slots and will thus be able to produce more than towns with only one or two. This may heavily influence the success of certain clans and nations, especially in the early game.
I also recommend Diliskar’s guide: Money Making / Passive Income. It has some really good information on perks, maximizing wealth, and other ways to make money. He also has a more technical analysis. A link can be found in the conclusion.
Profitable Trade Route Examples
Western Route:
Some routes I have found useful have been to trade between western Calradia (Vlandians, Battanians, and Western Empire) and the Aserai. You can sell Aserai horses/desert horses for great bank, and western Calradia has many low-value goods that Aserai cannot produce like grapes, hardwood, wine, olives, furs, and hogs.
Eastern Route
Another is travelling between Eastern Aserai, The Khanate lands, the Empire, and the Sturgian north. You can buys furs in the north and sell them in the south for double or triple profit. You can then buy horses, oil, linen, tools, pottery, etc. along many stops and trade with Empire, the Khanate, and sometime head more west to sell off livestock like cows form the Steppes and other products you pick up for cheap along the way.
Full Rotation:
The last map is my current rotation. It is a combination of both, and allows me to see wars that are going on and tap into profits after sieges the most. However, most importantly it takes you along the edge of the map where there are more variation in good supply and you get access to some goods that other areas completely lack along your route. I make easily over 50k per rotation and it takes me probably an hour in real-time, depending on how many off-shoot routes I take to capitalize on trade rumours.
Beginner Route:
A beginner route is to trade around Poros and Zeonica when you first begin the game. This is a fairly safe area where you can build up some gold to recruit 20-30 troops to keep bandits off your back while you trade in distant lands. The best way to do this is to buy cheap goods from villages and sell them to cities. Pay attention to trade rumours and travel between the local cities lots to keep a sharp eye on prices as arbitrage potential is lower when the cities are so close. I would suggest the next step of trading furs from near Tyal and cattle from Baltakhand down to Husn Fulq and Razih. From there you can move into the full Western or Eastern trade route, and progress to full rotations if you like.
Western Route:
Eastern Route:
Full/Current Rotation:
Conclusion & Thank You
Hope this helps some of you out there.
I encourage you to experiment yourself and have some fun with the lore and the type of trader your character will be. It can be very fun to explore lands and discover promising opportunities yourself, just understand the way the good chain works and that the environment dictates where certain things can be produced. Keep in mind too, time is a factor and you are competing with other cutthroat merchants out there.
Always appreciate feedback, especially as this is my first guide and one I look forward to improving.
Best of luck growing your merchant Empire and surpassing even the mighty Musa I of Mali.
Big thank you to Psychedelic Adventurer, he is actively working on making this guide polished, good looking, and professional. Very excited to see where it will go and how the design will come along.
Complimentary Guides and Resources:
Diliskar’s guide: Money Making / Passive Income
[link]
- Great source for maximizing profits of caravans, workshops, and other money making means.
Linguistie’s guide: Collected Data on Good’s Prices [link]
- Price data, including lowest, highest, and average prices for all goods.
Thank You to Commentors and Contributors
Thank you to everyone who has helped in the comments, you’ve helped shaped this guide and filled in a lot of missing information, questions, and improved clarity. I really appreciate it, and hope this has been helpful overall. I look forward to actively improving this guide and working with you in making it better.
On a side note. Recently I’ve noticed that some websites have been copying this guide in entirety without my permission or contacting me. The two I’ve noticed so far are gameplay.tips and gamesgds. While both have included me as author they also seem to claim it is there work without mentioning where this guide is from and appear to be making ad revenue. This saddens me and I find it very disrespectful. I want people to use this guide to better enjoy the game and encourage the use of my maps for those that want to build trade routes etc., however, having it stolen in entirely and used to generate revenue for those that have contributed or added nothing is very disappointing. I wanted to bring this up so that it is made aware of, and hope that people will steer others away from sites like this and towards this guide and those that add value and contribute to the community and making this game better for others.
– Change Log + Future Plans
Change Log
–01/04/20 – Guide Published.
–03/04/20 – Created a heat map of starting production goods in all villages and towns + Started an early game merchant focused wealth building walk-through..
–06/04/20 – Fixed some paragraphs: General readability..
–06/04/20 – New Artwork project is now underway. New Designs, banners inserted.
–09/04/20- New Index cards made for aesthetics, plus room for new sections + Updates Heatmaps for extra clarity.
Future Plans
— Compare Camel vs Horse Caravans. Have yet to find camels*
— Find way to maximize workshop and caravan profits. Actively working on this, changes are being made by tale world too
— Create some optimized trade routes. Some examples are provided, although they are not perfectly optimized
— Restructure and edit current guide. Ensure it comes across as clean, concise, and at least marginally entertaining. Active work in progress
— Add a TLDR Section