So, you have finished your starting quest and are now free to start your journey in Calradia of Bannerlord Online. What should you do next?
Note that this is basically an MMORPG, so the short answer would be - you can do whatever you want and are free to choose your path as you please. That being said, there's an optimal way of developing your character that makes your journey easier, and this is what I will show you in this guide. Also, even though your character stats play an important role, your personal skill will still be crucial, so if you're an experienced Bannerlord player and know how to fight, it will definitely help.
Gear
First you will need to earn a bit of money, around 10-12k denars. Good options are fighting on the arena or cutting wood in the nearby village of Alsasos. Although generally it's not a good idea to invest in your gear early on, there are a few things you would still want to buy:
- Menavlion (1h/2h polearm) - by far the best weapon you can get in the early game and it's still good long after, can't say enough good things about it - usable with or without shield, great damage, speed and length. And it's also not expensive, usually below 10000 denars. A voulge is a great alternative if you want more damage for guaranteed kills.
- Old work horse - being mounted is always an advantage, even if it's just an old horse. Don't worry about not having a saddle for now.
- Some cheap shield - you don't want stones and arrows hitting you too much. If you don't find a shield cheaper than 2000, I'd just skip it for a time.
Scouting
Alright, so you got your starting kit. If you're good at fighting, a great option is doing the echo of war quest. You can get this by talking to the barman in the tavern, he will ask you to find and destroy a hideout, which will spawn either north of Zeocorys or north of Alsasos. Don't forget to bring at least 4 troops so you don't fight alone. You will get some scouting exp and a money reward, and also you might get a Mabons' diary which can be sold to other players for a quick buck.
Army
First thing you'll need to know is that ranged units are far superior to melee infantry in the beginning, because they can shoot enemies from afar and avoid casualties for the most part, which is really nice for saving time and money. So you want to get some recruits from the streets of Zeonica and hunt down some looters near the city. Aim for the parties that you're outnumbering to make it easier. When all your recruits have enough experience, upgrade them into archers and store them in Zeonica by choosing settlement services in the city menu, they will be useful later. Then get some more recruits and repeat the process. Upgrading units all at once is called batch-training, and it's very useful because units in Bannerlord don't have individual exp, instead a unit stack has its shared exp pool that all the units in that stack help to fill, and so they are trained faster and more efficiently. So usually you want to only upgrade your units only when the whole stack is ready for it.
Now you probably have a decent party of 6-10 archers as your leadership goes up, and about 5-6 archers in your storage. This is when you can venture a bit further north of Zeonica, to Jalmarys, where you will generally meet parties of 10-20 looters. In a battle you can ride forward and distract some enemies to follow you, giving your archers more time to shoot them, so normally you should not have any wounded or dead units. And as your leadership improves and your party increases, you can take more archers from your storage and keep on going. The money and the loot you get from looters should generally cover the expenses of eventually training your archers further to tier 3, which will make them even more effective.
What's next
At this point you're pretty much grinding looters to improve your leadership. The goal is to have 25-30 party size with tier 3-4 archers, because then you're able to clear the largest looter parties of 45 men that roam anywhere far enough from Zeonica. Try to avoid forest bandits and sea raiders for now, because these fights would be too difficult at this stage. When your archer number grows, you will need to put them in a loose formation at the start of the battle to make sure they can all shoot freely without obstructing each other's view.
The end goal of your starting phase is to get enough leadership to command 50-60 units, preferably tier 5 archers or crossbowmen at which point you will be able to reliably farm forest bandits and sea raiders, which brings real income so you can finally afford to spend money on the gear you want and what not. Then you are fully set to continue your adventure and explore the world in whatever way you prefer.
Note that this is basically an MMORPG, so the short answer would be - you can do whatever you want and are free to choose your path as you please. That being said, there's an optimal way of developing your character that makes your journey easier, and this is what I will show you in this guide. Also, even though your character stats play an important role, your personal skill will still be crucial, so if you're an experienced Bannerlord player and know how to fight, it will definitely help.
Gear
First you will need to earn a bit of money, around 10-12k denars. Good options are fighting on the arena or cutting wood in the nearby village of Alsasos. Although generally it's not a good idea to invest in your gear early on, there are a few things you would still want to buy:
- Menavlion (1h/2h polearm) - by far the best weapon you can get in the early game and it's still good long after, can't say enough good things about it - usable with or without shield, great damage, speed and length. And it's also not expensive, usually below 10000 denars. A voulge is a great alternative if you want more damage for guaranteed kills.
- Old work horse - being mounted is always an advantage, even if it's just an old horse. Don't worry about not having a saddle for now.
- Some cheap shield - you don't want stones and arrows hitting you too much. If you don't find a shield cheaper than 2000, I'd just skip it for a time.
Scouting
Alright, so you got your starting kit. If you're good at fighting, a great option is doing the echo of war quest. You can get this by talking to the barman in the tavern, he will ask you to find and destroy a hideout, which will spawn either north of Zeocorys or north of Alsasos. Don't forget to bring at least 4 troops so you don't fight alone. You will get some scouting exp and a money reward, and also you might get a Mabons' diary which can be sold to other players for a quick buck.
Army
First thing you'll need to know is that ranged units are far superior to melee infantry in the beginning, because they can shoot enemies from afar and avoid casualties for the most part, which is really nice for saving time and money. So you want to get some recruits from the streets of Zeonica and hunt down some looters near the city. Aim for the parties that you're outnumbering to make it easier. When all your recruits have enough experience, upgrade them into archers and store them in Zeonica by choosing settlement services in the city menu, they will be useful later. Then get some more recruits and repeat the process. Upgrading units all at once is called batch-training, and it's very useful because units in Bannerlord don't have individual exp, instead a unit stack has its shared exp pool that all the units in that stack help to fill, and so they are trained faster and more efficiently. So usually you want to only upgrade your units only when the whole stack is ready for it.
Now you probably have a decent party of 6-10 archers as your leadership goes up, and about 5-6 archers in your storage. This is when you can venture a bit further north of Zeonica, to Jalmarys, where you will generally meet parties of 10-20 looters. In a battle you can ride forward and distract some enemies to follow you, giving your archers more time to shoot them, so normally you should not have any wounded or dead units. And as your leadership improves and your party increases, you can take more archers from your storage and keep on going. The money and the loot you get from looters should generally cover the expenses of eventually training your archers further to tier 3, which will make them even more effective.
What's next
At this point you're pretty much grinding looters to improve your leadership. The goal is to have 25-30 party size with tier 3-4 archers, because then you're able to clear the largest looter parties of 45 men that roam anywhere far enough from Zeonica. Try to avoid forest bandits and sea raiders for now, because these fights would be too difficult at this stage. When your archer number grows, you will need to put them in a loose formation at the start of the battle to make sure they can all shoot freely without obstructing each other's view.
The end goal of your starting phase is to get enough leadership to command 50-60 units, preferably tier 5 archers or crossbowmen at which point you will be able to reliably farm forest bandits and sea raiders, which brings real income so you can finally afford to spend money on the gear you want and what not. Then you are fully set to continue your adventure and explore the world in whatever way you prefer.
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