[Up to Date] New Player Guide - In Progress!

[SGM Mabons]

Currently up to date on the 30/03/2021

Hi, this is aimed to be a comprehensive guide for Bannerlord Online, whether you are a hardened veteran of the Mount and Blade series, or someone who bought Bannerlord simply to play this mod.

BASICS

1 INSTALLING THE MOD

First, go to the homepage and make yourself an account, this will be linked to your character on each server. It is recommended you play on the server of your local region, this is chosen later.

Next, make sure you have an installation of Bannerlord. I recommend starting with a fresh install of Bannerlord, no other mods should interfere or you may have errors as it is unknown exactly what has been done to your bannerlord files with other mods that may effect this mods operation. I also recommend if you have an SSD, INSTALL BANNERLORD THERE.

Now run the launcher, this should download an .exe file. Run this and it will ask you to select a path for installation. The mod is not installed in the modules folder of Bannerlord, it is a completely standalone installation. As before, if you have an SSD, INSTALL THIS MOD THERE. If you get an error at this point, try running the .exe as an administrator, this fixes most issues. If this doesn't work please report any issues in the Bannerlord Online Discord or on this forum.

2 GAMEPLAY

On every start up, you will be greeted with the title screen:

Spoiler

You can use options to lower graphics etc. It is recommended while the mod is still in development to use lowest graphics possible, as it has been reported to cause less crashes and hence less frustration. I also recommend taking a quick peek at the controls page and familiarizing yourself.

Server selection gives you the server list. Every server at the current moment has an individual character linked to your account, the progress is NOT shared. So it is more beneficial to just stick to one server, and so it is better to just pick your local region.

3 LOADING IN

The first screen you will see once clicking on a server[As a new player] will be the culture screen. As of right now, the mod has not developed this properly, as in, none of the bonus traits are working, and your character will default to "Empire" culture once it is created right now. None of these cultures matter right now, but I suggest picking one based on how you would like your character to roleplay or what bonus you prefer, for future proofing.

Next screen is the character customization, this can all be changed later on by pressing V on the main map of Bannerlord Online, but the only thing that is PERMANENT is GENDER, so choose wisely there, not that it has any gameplay repercussions yet. As an FYI for people who are wondering, Height doesn't have a tangible effect on combat so don't worry about that.

4 GAMEPLAY BASICS

Navigating the overworld is done by LMB clicking where you want to go. You can hold LEFT ALT to see further information in both the overworld and in "instances" [Instances refer to battles, cities, villages etc. where you are playing from 1st/3rd person]. TAB will exit the current instance except in battles it will show you the current troop numbers of each side. Every other control is familiar to anyone who has played a fps or RPG, WASD to move, LMB to attack, RMB to block, of course Mount&Blade uses directional combat so you will have to get used to that which is controlled by what direction your camera faces. Any further controls can be seen in the Options in the title screen, but this is enough to get around the tutorial.

Here is a notated guide of the overworld screen:

Spoiler

1: Character screen, accessed by hotkey "C"; This is where you apply attribute points to attributes when you level up, and select perks in the different skills. Will be explained in depth later.
2: Inventory screen, accessed by hotkey "I"; This is your current inventory, how you equip and unequip items, and discard items. Will be explained in depth later.
3: Party screen, accessed by hotkey "P"; This is your current party, where you can upgrade troops, or disband them. Will be explained in depth later.
4: Journal, accessed by hotkey "J"; This keeps track of your quests for you. Will be explained in depth later.
5: World clock, this displays the current ingame time. There is not much to explain but it is important: 1 hour of REAL time is ONE DAY/NIGHT CYCLE in Bannerlord Online. Seasons are like our world, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and they last 30 days long. They each have impacts on the world map which you will observe as you play.
6: Currency, this shows your expenses and income.
7: Influence, not currently used in this mod.
8: Percentage of HP. If you highlight over this you can see exactly how much HP you have, and any healing buffs/debuffs, all you need to know right now is that being injured heavily slows your healing down further with a -18 debuff and being inside a town(Even just sitting at the screen like above) will give you a +30 to healing.
9: Party size, kind of a moot thing to show as you can see it on the map at all times and in the party screen.
10: Food, not currently utilized in the mod.
11: Morale, this works differently to Bannerlord. Normal amount is 100, you can lose morale if your troops are not paid, and they will desert you eventually, or you can gain morale by winning battles. Currently that is all there is to it.
12: The arrow opens up an extended toolbar which has three more icons. The horse one tells you your party speed in detail if you hover over it, I will explain in detail later. The telescope is your view distance which currently cannot be increased, and is decreased at night. The last icon is your daily party wage, this is deducted at the start of every Bannerlord Online day or every HOUR. Wages are not deducted if you are offline, but if you play for more than 9 minutes in the CURRENT DAY/NIGHT CYCLE your wages WILL BE DEDUCTED. (Sorry guys, people abused it!)
13: This is a village, where you can farm to earn some money peacefully and safely.
14: This is a bandit party, it's strength is noted by the numbers of men. If an enemy "bandit" party has more men than you it will run to engage you, if you have more men it will flee. As you can see from the "Forest Bandits" one, because I'm holding LEFT ALT in the screenshot, I can see it has "+1w" which means it has one man wounded, so be careful if passing by a weaker party with wounded troops as they may heal at that moment and start chasing you.
15: Player party, same information as bandit parties, but it will display player names above their party.
16: This is a city. This is Zeonica where you start off in Bannerlord Online. You can see the 4 options on the left of the screen. Town surroundings will take you to the city gate and you can walk around here, I will go into more depth later. Tavern is currently not used except in the starting quest. Arena is where you can fight other players in a randomized game mode, winners earn money, more in depth guide later.

 

[SGM Mabons]

6 THE TUTORIAL

When you first load in you will be directed to speak to Godric, who will tell you to earn some money [500g to be exact] to start your mercenary party. Once you've finished speaking to him, you can check this quest in the Journal(J remember). There are 2 ways you can make money at the start, Arena or Farming. Arena is faster and if your lucky and get into a team battle, other players can win for you, it will also level up some skills for you, and if you're not familiar with combat of Bannerlord this is a good place to just spend 30 minutes fighting other players. [WARNING: The combat is currently quite buggy in this mod, with desync issues galore, that said it is still worth spending 30minutes getting used to how it functions in Arena with 0 risk]. It will take 5 wins to get enough gold.

Once you have 500g(Check the currency icon) you can now go back to the Tavern and talk to Godric. He will ask you to purchase Tier 3 Armour, Tier 2 Helmet and a weapon. You can do this by selecting "Town Surroundings" on Zeonica. This will take you into the city itself, hold LEFT ALT and find the Trader:

Spoiler

Talking to him gives you 2 dialogue options for now, the first option will open his inventory for you to buy or sell things to(To sell things in a city to a trader you must first purchase a trading license, more on that later... No I don't sell them anymore... it's a joke... you wouldn't understand ). The second option will open his CARGO inventory which again I will explain later. For now select the first option which opens up this screen:

Spoiler

1: First thing to do, is switch from Civilian outfit, to Combat outfit. By default for some reason when a new character is made it's on civilian. This results in some equipment being highlighted blue in the trader screen and inventory to show you cannot use it in civilian outfit. It also means if you equip armour or weapons in civilian outfit it will not be equippable on combat outfit and so you'll go into battle without those. So double check again it's on combat outfit when your equipping items. Talking of equipping, you cannot do this while in trader screen, so unequip stuff you want to sell if it's currently equipped BEFORE opening trader screen.
2: Weight, this needs to be kept an eye on, if you go close to, or over your weight limit, you'll slow right down. If you go 30% over your weight limit, you will not be able to move at all.
3: Currency, unlike the icon in the bottom right this will update depending on what your doing in your current transaction. For example, buy something for 1k and it will automatically show you your currency after the transaction is complete.
4: This is the item panel, I will explain in more depth here:

Spoiler

Most of the tabs are self explanatory, there are 3 small icons at the top below the picture, the first one is weapon type, the second one tells you if it can be used on horseback or not(this bow cannot be) and the third one is whether it can be used with a shield or not(Again, this bow cannot be). The "One Handed" bar can also have other bars next to it like "Two Handed" if the weapon has different options of use, clicking on these bars will show the stats when it is in that particular mode of use. The one part you should pay attention to right now is the one that says TIER. You must find an armour piece of AT LEAST tier 3, and a helmet of AT LEAST tier 2, to satisfy the quest requirements. The weapon can be of any tier but I recommend a Scythe to start with, but you may find something better for cheaper(The economy is player based but certain items are always in stock as part of the Trader inventory, the Scythe is the best of those weapons that are always in stock). As an aside, you click on the arrows next to items to buy ONE of that item, do not drag the items between inventories unless you want to sell/buy ALL of that item in stock.

Once you have those items in your inventory, open it and equip the items in your COMBAT OUTFIT. This will complete the quest and you can return to Godric to hand it in.

His next quest is for you to hire some men, and find him outside the Bandit Camp. First I will show you how to hire the men. These are found dotted around the "Town Surroundings". Look for NPCs while holding LEFT ALT, and look for the ones who DON'T have names above their heads, these are recruitable, here is an example:

Spoiler

Talking to them opens dialogue and the first one will hire them, 80g for all recruits except those in Khuzait cities which will cost you 112g[HINT HINT, that usually means something is worth more]. Hire three of these guys, and leave the city. I can now explain the party screen:

Spoiler

I have selected my Imperial Recruits. Above him I can see his current level, and beside it, his current wage per troop. On the bar on the right I can click the arrow to disband one at a time, or use the plus and minus buttons to do this. Below his name and to the side of the plus/minus buttons, are his upgrade paths. You can right click on these to get the troop tree for that unit. This is different for each faction so explore each recruit you get. Beside the upgrade paths, there is a small bar, this displays the exp gained by that unit. If a unit gets a kill, he adds exp to this pool, which is shared by all the units of the same type in your party. For example, these recruits need 420 exp to level up, if any Imperial Recruit gets a kill it adds to this bar, once it is full you can upgrade a troop. As a tip for the future when levelling bigger parties, it can be beneficial to wait before all are able to upgrade at once, not only do they all share exp when they get kills, they are cheaper on wages, easier to replace and their exp isn't stolen by a higher tier or different troop. Currently, Prisoners are not implemented. Neither is assigning troops to a formation which is what the yellow banner with an "I" is.

Once you have left Zeonica, check your Journal again to see the general direction of the hideout. This location is different for every player, but I have attached screenshots of the locations you should look if you cannot find it. As a general guide, pointing your camera north(If you zoom out and have the BLUE faction, Sturgia, at the top of the screen) will help you orient the correct way.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Talk to Godric, he will enter the hideout shortly after, and then you need to click on it to start a small fight with bandits in the hideout. Don't worry, between your men and his party alone is enough to deal with them as they are spread out. As an aside, do not worry about dying, currently if you die, nothing is lost, you will be taken to the nearest town, and you will have to heal up again. You may loose troops permanently in battle but it's a 50% chance of being wounded or not when they are taken out in battle.

Once you have killed all the looters you will loot some equipment, take it all if you like and rush back to Zeonica and speak to Godric for your reward.

TUTORIAL COMPLETE. You can stop reading here and continue to figure things out for yourself or carry on reading for some tips, tricks and my personal advice on what to do to have a smooth transition into the greater gameplay.

...To be Continued...

 

[SGM Mabons]

WHAT NEXT

1 MONEY

There are few good ways to earn money in Bannerlord Online, and all of them unfortunately involve some tedious grinding. But it cannot be underestimated how important it is to have some money behind you before you do anything else. If you run out of money, you can no longer recruit troops, upgrade them, or pay them, and they may desert if you miss too many payments. You can make money currently by doing: Farming, Arena "farming", Cargo, Killing Bandits.

FARMING: ~10k an hour

If you want to make the maximum possible profit while farming, it is recommended to find a village on the fringes of the map, where no one else will be coming or going to, and doing the entire process yourself. It is 200 possible nodes at once, you must hoe, water, seed, water again and then finally harvest. This can be faster with friends, and while you might think it makes more sense to delegate jobs to each other, certain jobs pay more, so someone will end up worse off. The best way to farm with friends is to finish each stage together, so hoe together(NO NOT THAT TYPE), water and seed together and then harvest together.

Pros
-Safe, you cannot be harmed here
-Reliable, farming's profit does not change

Cons
-Crashing while farming right now can seriously set you back because you lose all progress when this happens
-Personally find it very tedious and boring compared to all other methods

ARENA "FARMING": ~6k an hour

Arena farming is basically just finding an arena with no one else in it, and farming against the bots. It's not actually a surefire way of earning money as even the bots can quickly kill you, and the current arena is full of desync bugs. I include this method as it's usually more engaging than farming and it's what I personally do when I'm low on money as I disconnect frequently, which compromises farming. I personally use Battanian cities as they are usually more forgiving.

Pros
-More engaging
-Levels up skills
-You'll learn how to cheese the AI quickly

Cons
-Probably the slowest way to make money right now
-It can be hard to find an empty arena at peak times
-Have to be competent in the combat

CARGO: ~20k an hour

This is by far the fastest way to earn gold right now, but it takes some work setting it up. You first need to get the trade skill up to 40, by doing small cargo runs between towns, and then purchase 3 "Mules" to boost your carrying capacity by 150. This will allow you to carry either more small cargo or the big massive profit 150 weight cargoes. Not only this, but you'll need enough men in your party to protect your cargo from bandits, or you'll find yourself constantly sidelined instead of delivering cargo.

Cargo tutorial: First thing you need to know, is that Cargo has 2 numbers e.g. 500/200. The first value is your deposit, the second value is your profit from selling the cargo. You pay 500, deliver the cargo, and receive 700, hence a 200 profit You must also pay attention to the weight of the cargo as well, if you buy too heavy a cargo you will not be able to move and will waste your money as you'll have to drop it. Cargo also has an expiry of "2d" but it is closer to 3 ingame days that it will expire, so about 2 and a half hours of real time. Yes, this expires offline too.

The best thing to do once you have completed the tutorial in fact,(currently) is to move to Aserai lands, which is devoid of trees(which is where bandits currently spawn from) and use a short route like Iyakis to Qasira(There are a few different runs you can do in Aserai), to run back and forth with small weight cargo until you have enough trade skill and money to grab yourself 3 mules and then you can start buying more cargo per run. You can either continue doing this sort of run or look to upgrade your troop capacity to allow you to go through more dangerous areas with cargo e.g. Rhotae forest, Amprela forest etc.

Pros
-The most profitable way to make money once everything is set up
-Can be done totally AFK, allowing you to catch up on your favourite netflix show on the side!

Cons
-A lot of investment and work must be done first

BANDIT KILLING: Variable Profit

In the recent patch trading license was finally added, and actually the gold for killing bandits was increased to a good level to sustain your troops. This makes killing bandits for profit a very real way to make money now. It's quite simple, you need troops, and lots of them, and some decent equipment of your own to kill large bandit parties, who will give you a lot of money and exp by themselves, and possibly will drop good loot which you can sell at towns to other players.

Looters: All looters contain only one type of unit: Looter. This is an unarmoured, poorly equipped unit that quite frankly is stronger than it looks. Stones can interrupt your block in the middle of combat which gets you caught by surprise. Pitchforked Looters can easily dismount you or even one shot you if you ride at them. Even your tier 5 units can sometimes be randomly killed by these guys. The best use of Looters is actually to level up recruits but they still give some decent gold and a ton of loot that although worthless, can be sold to junk dealer for some cash. There is no need to use special tactics with looters, but if you come across a particularly big group, it might be worthwhile for you to go ahead of your troops and take some aggro then run off so it splits the group.

Sea Raiders: You are looking for stacks with Sea Raiders Chiefs in them, those drop the most profitable loot. Sea Raiders will spawn in forested areas near large rivers or coast. The biggest dangers with attacking Sea Raiders is the massive Javelin volley at the start, which will quickly kill any troops without their shield up, or any shield at all. This is why the first thing you should do is have your men hold fire, and put them into shield wall formation(Unfortunately this also bugs them and tries to have them to a position behind you with their backs turned, so you must also manually make them hold position in front of you again), this forces the "special" AI to put their shields up, otherwise they will just stand and take javelins to their faces. Once their javelins are expended(they carry about 5) they will start to charge forward, as some of the AI will throw slower this causes Sea Raiders to charge forward in sporadic groups, which you can then quickly mop up with superior numbers.

Forest Bandits: You are looking for stacks with the actual "Forest Bandit" troop in them, these drop the most profitable loot. Forest Bandits spawn ANYWHERE there is Forests, which is why they are so numerous. These are fortunately, not as strong as Sea Raiders can be, and the same tactic can be applied versus them as you did with Sea Raiders. Even so, if you don't have shielded troops, these guys can 100% ruin your day with how much damage they can put out in a short time, so do not underestimate.

Pros
-Levels up skills and troops
-Loot that you can use or sell
-The most fun way to earn gold right now

Cons
-You can be screwed over by thinking your only attacking a small party of 15 and then a 60 party joins the fight after
-Other players can join your fight and steal exp and gold
-It is completely reliant on actually finding said bandits and getting good loot from them, which is all completely RNG

 

[SGM Mabons]

2 TROOPS

This section will talk about what troops are best value for money or highlight what troops have poor AI and you should avoid etc.

Generally, the troop types from best to worst are:

Horse Archers
Infantry
Archers
Cavalry

Horse Archers are the best because they generally STAY ALIVE the longest, which generally(despite their higher upkeep and initial costs) leads to saving money because you no longer have to pay for a whole new recruit to be upgraded to the top tier again. As troops only gain exp if they PERSONALLY get a kill, it becomes a massive pain to actually train recruits again. Horse Archers avoid this problem by pretty much being impossible for the current bandit parties to kill. There is planned changes to make this harder to obtain but right now the best bang for your buck is horse archers. The AI does tend to be a bit stupid, so sometimes it might be better to manually have the troops follow you and then stop and let them shoot, once the enemy gets close enough, move away again and find another spot to shoot from. Rinse and repeat. Obvious recommendation is to go for Khuzait troops, but Aserai and Empire also have some top tier Horse Archers but those require some more investment to get.

Infantry are 2nd best simply because of the current map spawns making it very easy for them to get into range, plus their throwing weapons are also in perfect range. These also have lower wages at top tiers, making them economical. The downside to infantry is that they are constantly in danger of being killed as they are in melee, and so you bleed top tier troops quite heavily. This is fine if you are for example, training Sturgian infantry, as you can quite easily replace them if you are farming bandits up in the sturgian forests. Once they have shields they are usually able to weather any of the forest bandits and sea raiders missiles, and should beat them in melee. Current recommendation is to get Sturgian infantry, their Heavy Axemen are unmatched right now for sheer armor, strong and numerous throwing weapons, and a decent 1 handed that compliments the AIs tendency to get too close to the enemy for their weapon to be effective. Imperial Legionaries and Battanian Wildlings also work as they have some of the above features too. It is not recommended to use 2 handed infantry without shields, they will just be wiped out against the opening volleys of sea raiders/forest bandits.

Archers would be above Infantry, and possibly even Horse Archers, if only the spawn location was further back. Because you spawn so close, there is no chance for the archers to soften the enemy lines before they get close, and Sea Raiders especially will mulch archers up with their javelins killing them while their shields block the majority of return fire. Some people have found success with Vlandian Crossbowmen at Tier 4 and 5, who have massive pavise shields, they can start the fight with their shields out, absorb some of the punishment, and then release deadly volleys. For now I would not recommend any archers, unless you combine with infantry to take aggro of the enemy, but even then the distance is so short to work with it's quite a bit much more effort than any other method.

Cavalry unfortunately, are gimped by the absolutely worst AI of any troop. Asking them to charge has them trot over to the enemy, attempt to hit them once, and then run past them to start another charge on the other side of the map. Against small troop numbers, this can work, but against the 60 stacks of enemies, all that usually ends up happening is the horses getting stuck in the mass of enemies and your cavalry getting brutally murdered. Absolutely avoid mass cavalry like the plague. There IS however some merit in having a combined approach of say, 5 cavalry and either the rest infantry or archers. The cavalry will take all the aggro as they run through the enemy which allows either your infantry to close the gap without being fired upon, or your archers to sufficiently weaken the enemy without return fire.

 

[NikolaTheScamr]

Mabons why is there a Game Guide thread if you gonna post this in general ??????

 

[SGM Mabons]

Mabons why is there a Game Guide thread if you gonna post this in general ??????

Try posting something there sir.

 

[Drewsko]

Mabons why is there a Game Guide thread if you gonna post this in general ??????

that section is locked for some reason.

 

[Drewsko]

(your) Death is not the enemy in this game, its money (when ur men die u gotta start over from scratch and pay for thier upgrades all over). Do not

spend money on silly stuff because it will hurt your progression. Avoid the Zeo bazaar, search the world for bargains. Find a trade route that has good

paying trade routes and most importantly, mobs u can lvl up (more donkeys to make money and more men to kill bigger mobs) on in between trips! Do

not buy an extra donkey until you lvl up the extra donkey perk first! else u throwing money away! Do not become over burdened else u will be easy to

be captured by ai mobs. Never get a trade mission unless you complete it first! All trade missions EXPIRE in about 2 real life hours!!!

 

[Karahan]

güzel