There are a ton of different ways to make money in Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord. One of those ways is by creating your own caravans.
You may have seen some caravans traveling around the map – or even raided a few! Well, you can also have your very own caravans traveling around the map going from city to city earning you a profit.
If you have the gold to put up front for a caravan, you can start one in any city in the game. Here’s a step-by-step guide complete with images on how to start a caravan in Bannerlord.
In order to make a caravan you will need the following:
- 15,000 Gold (Or 10,500 if you picked the Aserai as your culture)
- A companion with no tasks
Step 1. Pick a City to Start Your Caravan
You might think you could just pick any city to build a caravan in, and you’d be right, but there are a few things to consider.
If you’re a lord or mercenary, you may want to only start caravans in cities your kingdom controls. It helps to pick cities that are deep within your kingdom.
If a city is on the front lines of your kingdom and it comes under siege, you won’t make any money from your caravan! Once you’ve picked a town, look at the image below.
In the upper right-hand corner of the screen, there are portraits of important people in the town, including the artisans.
For this guide, we are in Varnovapol and will be talking to Miloch, the Ironmonger. You can use any artisan to form a caravan. You can tell they’re an artisan by the fact that a trade follows their name.
We could’ve also talked to Borytor, the Wool Weaver if we wanted. You can have multiple caravans from the same city so maybe once our first caravan makes enough money we will come back to Borytor!
Step 2. Pay the Artisan to Start a Caravan
So once we have clicked on the artisan’s portrait and hit the “talk” button, we will be brought to their location in the city and immediately start talking to them.
You can also just find them in the city walking around if you want, but this is a quicker way to find them. Once you’re in this dialogue, tell them that you “wish to form a caravan in this town.”
Once you’ve done that, the artisan will tell you that it will cost 15,000 gold to form a caravan. If you have selected the Aserai as your culture at the start of the game it will cost 30% less (10,500 gold).
The Aserai also give a 10% trade bonus, so if you want to be a merchant mogul, the Aserai will be the culture to pick at the start of the game! Note that picking a culture is different from joining a kingdom.
The culture you picked during the character creation screen is what we are talking about here.
Once you’ve agreed to pay the hefty price, the artisan will ask you which companion you want to lead the caravan.
You need a free companion in your party, they cannot be governing a fief or off on a mission. Since Magna the Accursed is the only companion in our party, it is our only option.
You may have more, make sure you choose the one you want as if you make the wrong choice and disband the caravan you will not get your 15,000 gold back!
Once you’ve selected a person to lead the caravan, it will automatically form up and start trading with other cities. You can even come across it on the map!
Step 3. Profit
And that’s how to start a caravan in Bannerlord! Now you sit back and let the gold roll in.
If you hover over your gold while on the map or go into your clan tab and hover over your finances, you will see a list of all your income and expenses.
As you can see, this game we have a ton of different forms of income and expenses. Some are taxes from fiefs, some are party wages, but the main ones we want to focus on our caravan wages.
We already have a few different caravans in this game. We have Magna’s, Dumat’s, and Pol’s caravans. They all take wages every day, but also bring in gold every day.
Let’s break it down below on how much each one costs and makes per day. Note that your caravan will cost and bring in a different amount each day.
In the beginning, it’s usually operating at a loss but will very quickly start to turn a profit. Onto the math!
| Name of Caravans | Wages (-) | Profits (+) | Totals |
| Pol the Fish’s | -309 | +839 | +539 |
| Magna the Accursed’s | -151 | 0 | -151 |
| Dumat the Lucky’s | -230 | +383 | +153 |
So as you can see, Pol’s caravan is making a nice +539 today. Tomorrow it may make more, or it may make less but it is turning a profit.
That caravan has been running for such a long time in that playthrough that it has for sure paid back it’s 15,000 investment. Magna’s just started so it will not start profiting for some time.
Dumat’s caravan is doing okay, it only recently started as well. Over time, all three caravans will do better and better.
You can also interact with your own caravan and trade with them. You can buy or sell things to them!
We hope you enjoyed our guide on how to start a caravan in Bannerlord and we hope it helped you start your own caravan in your own game!
If you’re looking for other Bannerlord guides, be sure to check out the following guides on our site!