Being a Merchant in Bannerlord (Patreon)

You probably noticed that there isn't much to do in Bannerlord aside from fighting with lords as a power hungry lord or being a merchant and doing merchant playthrough. However, I always felt like the Merchant system in Bannerlord falls short. I'm not saying that it's bad or anything, but it could be spiced up a little. Bannerlord already reflects different cultures in Calradia with different troop trees, architecture and such, but it's not providing anything for more immersive trading gameplay. But this wasn't the case in the real world. There is a reason why trade routes like "Silkroad" were important for factions. It was granting access to unique items that they can sell for high prices. 

And for that purpose, I decided to create something. I wanted to reflect these cultures and this style in the Merchandise system. 

I decided to add culture specific new items. These items gets produced by the villages of that culture only and joins the circulation of the marketplace through your exchange or with villages selling it to their towns. I added 25 different items, both with their 2D Icons and 3D Objects. I won't show the 3D objects one by one but here how it looks on the list (and gemstones) 

And here is the full list of items' 2D icons in a row.

From left to right: Amber, Tin, Tea, Sugar, Sausages, Papyrus, Marble, Lead, Incense, Honey, Gold Ingot, Tobacco, Gold Ore, Gemstones, Dyes, Cosmetics, Copper Ingot, Copper Ore, Coffee, Citrus, Carpets, Bronze Ingot, Brass Ingot, Glassware, Tusk

And here is a list about the cultural distribution of these items:

Sturgia - Amber, Honey, Tusk, Tin, Lead

Vlandia - Copper Ingot, Brass Ingot, Gold Ingot, Papyrus

Battania - Sausages, Copper, gold, Bronze Ingot

Empire - Marble, Citrus, Cosmetics, Glassware

Khuzait - Tobacco, Sugar, Gemstones, Tea

Aserai - Dyes, Coffee, Carpet, Incense

And you can see the production of the villages next to game's native productions (I don't change anything on existing productions, but these are merely an extra unique production items)

Details of Trading

- Not all items have the same amount/rarity. Meaning that gemstones are extremely rare and gemstone-producing villages might not produce that item for days, even months whereas you can find citrus more commonly (since it's less rare)

- Your price depends on the distance of the item to that trader. Meaning that, if you just got some citrus from nearby Imperial town and trying to sell Battanians, they are likely to pay less. But if you can bring Tusk from far-distant lands of Sturgia to Aserain merchants, they will value this more and pay more. 

- Supply-demand curve is still in the game. Meaning that if you sell 100 citrus to a town, it's likely that they won't value it much because you just introduced abundant amount of citrus to circulation.

- Because villagers and caravans carry these items, it's likely that you loot some of these items after your battles as well - which, I believe, brings some more immersion.

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I actually created that before 1.7.4 but then I didn't have time to work on that fully. Last weekend I revamped the whole codebase and did But now I feel like it can be very a good part of the gameplay for the players who enjoy trading playthrough. It's technically finished but I want to make sure that some rough edges to be polished before releasing anything. Yes, as Patrons you will have early access to mod soon 🥳

Let me know what you think