Woohoo the first episode is here! I hope you're ready for high level companions :) I have a lot of the work done for episode 2 and 3 so I'll be able to get them both out quicker. Also, I'll be posted the database ASAP once it's ready. I'll have it posted on the Discord until the website is up!!
Man I never really thought about how quickly you produce content but from the poll to episode 1 was just a couple days it feels like. With all the research and editing that seems like a real intense rate of production. Good on ya
@@jasoncramer6717 In all fairness, I had been collecting data over the last few months on how to level up companions, so it was a matter of testing the ideas I found through campaigns, etc. :) But the recording, editing, etc. all does take a lot of time and I'm sure my wife wasn't too happy with me putting in this much time haha
I just cant believe, i passed the whole day looking for some guide on companions and found nothing, now just grabbed my phone and fou d this, THANK YOU SIR
to make companion parties more likely to attack others, go to clan, the parties then click on party and look for were their gold icon is. under that its thier stance, neutral, can be changed to be defensive or aggressive. dont know it it was there before when you made the video a year ago :D
What I do for leveling companions in hideout battles is I craft a wooden sword or a blunt spear. Then I smack the enemies with that weapon, which stuns the enemy from a distance away, but doesn't knock out the enemy. This lets my companion score free hits, and I am far enough to not block my companion's swings. I prefer preparing my swing to interrupt the enemy's swing rather than use my shield to block them because my shield will often block my companion's swings too (but sometimes I use my shield anyways if it gets frantic)
Oooh that's a really good idea, I didn't think about a long blunt weapon. A lot of times the shield blocks everyone's hit, including the companion. Thanks for the tip!
Hopefully this one was helpful! The fun guide is a tough one because it's so subjective. I'm sure there are a lot of things I do that are fun for me that others would absolutely hate haha
Every single guide you do, you outdid yourself! I hate companions in this game, they are so generic and uninteresting... I start to use them because I want to manage my own retinue in Serve as a soldier and create a gang of ex soldiers using furberie, so this is a very welcome one.
Thank you!! I know what you mean, I don't usually put a lot of effort into my companions. I learned a lot in the research and testing for this one though. That sounds like a fun playthrough! Are you able to recruit over the limit or do you need another mod for that?
Ooh nice timing! Are you using any mods to increase the number of companions? I'm curious how companion only runs work out. They sound like a lot of fun but I have not tried it yet myself.
@@Strat-Guides Yeah, 25 Companions per clan level. But they all start at level 1 with little to no skills. And I am staying away from the OP horse archer build. (Going for a melee only build with shields and javalins.). Hard at first, but as soon as they can penetrate a shield with a single throw... bloody hell!
This is amazing content man and I haven’t seen such feedback with an audience in many people before. The passion shows and it’s such easy to follow content. Great vids and thanks for the smile brotha! Keep it up!
@@Strat-Guides Very nice! Looking forward to learning more about the mechanics. I'm just getting back into bannerlord thanks to your vids. Trying a pacifist merchant run rn lol
Your guides are phenomenal. Thanks for all the effort, and I'm looking forward to what's coming next. As a side note, I love the little bloopers at the end, they're good fun!
Thank you for the support! I'm working on the family/clan growth guide right now and should have it ready by tomorrow. Oh cool lol I saw the PBS channels start to do that and it's really entertaining to see so I figured I would try it out as well!
Man, your videos are amazing. Thank you. Bannerlord is such a deep game, and every single day my understanding of it grows. And a lot of the information i now know about the game would still be unknown to me if it was not for you! Again, thank you so much! :D
I've got 2 more episodes coming still on this topic! Next one is family, marriage, making babies and managing a clan. The last episode will be wanderer companions, different builds and roles. I should be able to cover just about everything in these 3 guides!
I’ve found that the best way for levelling the three melee skills + athletics is actually just to do tournaments. Once you’re in a duel with the companion you kill off any other enemies so it’s just you two and then you can block their attacks for as long as you want to level them. Remember that blocked attacks still gives xp. Could also work for levelling up player melee skills I suppose? The companion just has to have high skill so they block most hits.
@ Bonus2: A similar method may be used to improve relations with a given companion / clan member as long as they're in our party. Not necessarily sure whether these relations actually matter much (well maybe, just maybe it has some effect on for instance pregnancies?? Would be weird to fool around with a wife who hate your guts). This way or the other - if you wanna be on good terms with your associates - take them to your party and engage in barter (I have a proposal that may benefit me both). All of you share the same inventory, so you can basically just give them everything you like (relations will go up) and after trading the stuff will still be in your pockets waiting for you to do whatever you desire.
So for leveling engineering, there is a much easier way. I dont know if this is because of the official release and you already knew this, but here goes Make a new control group, make the companion you want to lead it like how you assign a captain, reduce the slider to 0, and boom. That group only has your selected companion. Also, if you find that your companion didnt man the equipment. Equip it yourself to get the current guy off it (shoving them aside doesnt seem to remove them). Then get off it and select the control group with your chosen companion, hover over the equipment until the gears icon shows up, left click This can get companions 50 engineering easily. Sieges are also easy to force by conquering a castle or town, leave it with less than 100 garrison and stick around the settlement. An army will usually come to siege it. Wait until they actually start attacking, break in, hope the settlement had time to build some equipment
Thanks for sharing that! I did cover that in an update video I did a few weeks ago, but this guide was done a few months before I figured out that strategy. Now that the game is in full release, I'll need to go back and update some of the guides or at least add info to the description and pinned comments :)
I've added that to my workflow now :) I used to delete and re-record the mistakes but i've found that doing it in a single take and just leaving the mistakes in allows me to speed up the overall time needed. As a result, I get a ton of bloopers like these haha
Right now in 1.8 if companion parties are in your army they are not taking food and will not gain steward. If you release them they will grab food and gain steward so watch for this. ALSO for leveling trade, make a party and join as a merc, then hand items to party leader and leave kingdom so they don't get pulled into an army or defeated i battle and no relation loss, then when they're done selling join as a merc, rinse and repeat
That's a good point, I was having issues getting XP from companion let parties. That's why I was recommending to just put them in the party for a few months to train as a quartermaster. I really hope they fix that soon!
Haha I take a 14 minute video being called long as a compliment :) I cut down many hours of recordings down to this, leaving only the juicy bits for you!
I noticed in the last patch several of the big things I pointed out in previous guides were fixed but it could just be a coincidence. Who knows, I'm just happy the game is progressing the right direction :) I would love to chat with the devs from time to time though... It seems like a pretty high-stress job though, is it?
@@kylewesley7533 I'm not sure the percent chance, but it's pretty low. If I had to guess it was in the 1 - 5% range? I'm sure someone looked it up on the code and posted it somewhere :)
Thank you for all the support! I was thinking about doing a "mini playthrough" on this topic. It would be really fun to do a no-battle campaign where join other kingdoms and destroy them from within, take their fiefs, enact terrible policies, starve their nobles in an army and deliver them to the enemy hahaha it would be really fun!
@@meili4790 in one of my Sturgia runs I was a vassal and Raganvad died in some random castle siege. For reasons I'll never understand the clans voted me the new ruler. And that's legend the of Lorik the bear, who ruled all Sturgia with a level 3 clan. Kuzaits rolled us in a couple years...
On the subject of steward xp for companions, i have found that the amount gained is alot higher, like if they are assigned the role in your own party, if you make the companion the leader of their own party, then go up and talk to them, pick "i would like to assign a new role for you" and then steward. This can only be done for one role at a time.
I dont know if my comment above is easy to understand so i will simplify it: Make companion party leader - > Walk up and talk to them on the map - > tell them you want to assign them a new role in the clan - > pick steward - > big (steward xp) profit $$$
Interesting, they should be all roles by default in their own party so I'm wondering why there would be a difference? I'll try to run some tests today to see if there is an XP boost for assigning them directly. Thanks for the tip!
@@Strat-Guides yeah i would think so too but apperently not. If its a boost, another equation or something else, they deffinetly earn more exp like this, im interested in seeing your findings!
@@RandomDeathcone1 I was up late working on the data entry for the companion database, I'll try to sneak it in today but I am currently editing the family episode. I'll keep you posted if I get time!
You can just make a 0 troops infantry groups and add your companions to it with plus in the UI. Then just send them into onager or ballista and they will shoot with it
Great guide! Thanks for testing out the ways to grind companion skills. Smithing is still the fastest way to level them up as it's really challenging to level some of the other crucial skill trees. Side note, With the ability to reset the perk choices in 1.8.0, now there's the option of shuffling the attribute and focus point perks in the Endurance tree once you hit the skill point limit. It's not going to be a huge impact but may be useful to grab a few extra perks when you have no interest to invest more points in those relevant skills.
Thanks for watching! Yeah there is a lot of grind, but hopefully some of these techniques can help speed that up :) Good point, the respecing of perks really opens up a lot of possibilities!
A minor complication of training engineering is enemy armies coming in and attacking you. A good way around this is rebel cities. They wont have any sizable relief force to stop you, and you can siege as long as you like. This can be done even if you havent joined a kingdom yet. In fact, it is even easier if you are independent, as it removes any possibility that an enemy army unrelated to the city you are sieging will come along.
Damnit man. I've probably watched this so much in the last few weeks I could rehurse it. I hate how grindy it is to level up skills in this game. I ain't got hours to kill like this.
Yeah I know what you mean. If you're on PC, I highly recommend a mod called Bannerlord XP Tweaks. You can increase the XP gain for companions only, your character only, all nobles on the map, etc. I've been using it for a recent campaign and it's a HUGE difference - much more enjoyable. I was able to raise some companions up to 275+ in combat skills within 2 - 3 years (which I think is reasonable).
@@Strat-Guides Are all those strats in this video still working as well or has something important changed? ALso super super helpful, thanks for your guides! :D
Hey sorry I would have mentioned it, I did some of the footage using the RBM mod since it's a lot more epic than the base game. I did all of the testing using the base vanilla game though.
Thanks for watching! So the leadership +1 party perk or +1 companion is for clan leaders only, so they won't stack. The final medicine perk is party leader so that won't stack either. I have to double check again but I recall they changed final leadership perk to be party leader so that won't stack. I think TW thought this one through ahead of time :P
Is it just my youtube that acts funny or those time "things" disappeared? Like "chapters" of the video, where one starts, where another starts. And OMG THANK YOU for the tip to level up Engineering in defensive sieges. I unequipped bigbro's bow (he refused to use ballista when had a ranged weapon, took me quite some time to figure it out), set him as a comander of a separate infantry category (with just him in it), placed him next to ballista and in a single fight he levelled up his engineering from 23 to 154!
Hm... I'll double check the chapters but they should still be there. It might be a YT bug? Nice, I'm happy to hear it worked for you as well! It's so hard to manipulate the AI in this game lol we need all the help we can get :)
Yeah they added it to patch 1.8.0! You need to go to the tournament master (go in person and talk to him directly) and there will be an option to retrain perks.
Have you done a video on how you distribute your companions yet? There are way more roles than you get companions after all, and with captains getting buffed with banners, constant skilk and perk rebalances, and the money earners constantly fluctuating, it's hard to keep track of how you should allocate your limited number of companions.
@@Strat-Guides Thank you for making this content and doing the TW math for the rest of us! You can’t imagined how much it improved people’s gaming experience
@@dbuyandelger I'm happy to help! I know how much it sucked to be working 12 hours a day and having very little time to play games, making it hard to enjoy some with steep learning curves.
Great video. I'd love to see a video explaining how companion parties are leveling up their troops. When left alone, even with unlimited budgets, they don't seem to upgrade their troops very quickly. I usually have to do it manually for them by forming an army with just companions, attacking things, pulling their troops, leveling them manually, give them back, etc. If you know of a better way, I'd like to see it. I'm also wondering if it has something to do with their leadership skills?
That's a good question and I'm not certain the answer. I think the right test would be to distribute units normally (half in own party and half in theirs) and see what the upgrades are like. Then do it again with 100% in player party and finally with all units in companion party. Then we could compare to see the spread. The XP awarded should theoretically be the same since it's the same unit kills each time.
What about surgeon in your party to level up medicine? Btw is sending companions on missions to level them up effective? Which companions are better low level or high level ones?
Yeah that would definitely be the easiest way to do it so you don't have to mess with swapping injured troops. I was trying to show how to do it without having to have them in the party - I only did that for steward because there aren't really any other options :( That's a good question about sending them on missions, I'm not really sure as I forgot to test that! Personally I prefer lower level companions and leveling them up myself but they can both be good.
Tactics XP is only for the leader - it's similar to how they changed Leadership XP. I don't think seargents can earn tactics xp, although I have not tested it directly.
Could you do an overview on which companions to recruit for what? I tried some methods but a big downside of some of the better companions is that they start the game over their own softcap making it real difficult to level. O.0
Yeah I have a whole section dedicated to just that topic! Next video is going to be specifically family, kids, succession, etc. but the episode after that will cover all companions in the game, different roles for companions to fill and sample builds. I'm making a database to keep all of this data, so it will be much easier to use than watching a video. For example, if you want to find a scout, you can filter the search by scouting companions and it will pop out with all the names that have the scouting skill to start with. Then you can look at the sample builds for scouts and then work from there :)
I gave a bunch of 40k polearms to my brothers party and sent him on his way. 2 in-game seasons have passed and hasnt gotten a single trade point. Any idea?
Not sure if it's just me but when giving melee weapons to companions to grind combat skills, I find swing speed >> reach due to how bad the AI is at keeping distance to maximize weapon damage. On horseback, AI companion struggles a lot esp with melee that I just resort to ranged weapons instead. At some point, I had to smith a 98 reach voulge with 88 swing speed to use for leveling companions' Polearm skill on foot.
Yeah I agree, it seems like they don't make logical decisions on when to attack and when to defend, so better to have the faster attack and stun the opponent out of their attack lol it's sad but that's the AI for you. RBM is totally different actually, it's a really good combat system for companions! Very true about ranged weapons, it's much more reliable.
Been loosely following your 16 years campaign and referencing your guides constantly, and the gameplay has been immensely more enjoyable, kudos and thanks! OP tier content, sir Edit: possible suggestion, guide or campaign only making money through passive sources, towns, caravans, workshops, etc; Smithing and trade feel so exploity, curious to see how hard it would be to manage large armies/wars/town improvements without 1bn denars in the bank.
Thank you for watching! I've got a lot of the next 2 videos researched and recorded out already, just need to script and edit it together so I think they will be ready soon :)
I know they had good intentions with the pre-battle change they made a couple patches ago, but I feel like it's even worse now :( I suspect they made this change because it's console friendly and they are porting it over soon. The problem with that is controls are so minimal for console compared to mouse/keyboard.
i always get frustraded when i take the half map with a kingdom the clans in my kingdom (vlandia and southern empire) leave and all other factions declare war to us. any tips?
So the main reason nobles will leave your kingdom is because they are lacking money. There are a few ways you can boost this - give them more fiefs (sometimes they mismanage so not always reliable), you can give them money directly through barter (Best to give to clan leader) or you can have a huge bank balance yourself. I usually just keep a ton of money in the bank, like 10s of millions of denars :) Once you own half the map, it shouldn't be too hard to do over time. I hope that helps!
@@Drabo7 There does seem to be a bug where clans are leaving the player kingdom more than they should be, but it seems to be in the late game and not early to mid game. Not sure where you are at on the timeline in your campaign?
@@Drabo7 That shouldn't be too far into the game - try to save up as much money in your personal denar bank that you can. That will help a ton I think.
I'm not understanding the leadership XP move. It won't let me donate troops over their cap. Another thought. If I donate ready to convert troops over to my buddy, will that help them increase their leadership skills quickly? My character is old on my first play though, so I'm trying to prepare my heir.
About leveling engineer skill in field battle. Is it possible to assign your companion as a captain to formation that has one man in it and then put them on a ballista? PS: great guide, waiting for more amazing videos
Hm... That's a good idea, I didn't try that one out. I'm not sure if the 1 unit counts the companion or not? I'll try it out today. Sometimes the smallest increase of units you can make to a group is 1% which ends up being 2 - 4 units, so if you have less companions than that you will have normal troops in there :( The whole thing is a mess and I hope they add a better sytem for splitting troops up. Thank you for the support! I appreciate it.
Strat you are a f'ing gem. Thank you so much. A question for fellow players. If I start an A culture kingdom, promote a B culture companion, give them an A culture fief. Does the fief get -3 loyalty hit? Thanks in advance
Thank you for watching! Yeah they do get the -3 loyalty. So the game looks at the owner's culture and the population's culture and nothing else. That means if you're taking wrong culture fiefs, you can just hire the right culture and promote them :)
I might just be a little daft, but telling me the amount of xp gained doesn’t really help me. I don’t know how much xp it takes to advance 1 level in a skill, or if it increases with each level. And there’s the option of leveling like 200+ times for each skill?
In general, if you know how much XP each action gives, you can figure out which method works best for leveling up. If something takes 5 minutes to do and gives 100XP or another takes 1 minute but gives 25XP then you can figure out what's best for you (at least that's what I was going for lol). Skills start at a very low XP amount needed to level up and increase with each level. I have the formula somewhere, but essentially it's a recursive equation that adds a % to the previous level. So level 1 might need 50XP, level 2 needs 55XP and so on all the way up to max level needing 100k's of XP to level up. Getting to the higher levels with a companion is a tough one, I wish there was an easy way to do it, but it's mostly just grinding it out :(
@@Strat-Guides Thanks for the swift response! Certainly made it a little clearer, at least. I'll just put my teeth to the grindstone to get this XP sorted.
Wow!! Over 5k troops!? Do I need to just keep leveling up steward to get that high? I have 80 steward on one guy and over 100 on the other I'm only at 285 max troops. Also I cant figure out how to make a party move on its own
Hm... I don't think so but I need to hear it again. I'm pretty sure I did this guide in 1.8 so maybe they suck l snuck it in in one of the hotfixes? I hope not!
Anyone know why my clan members charm is not increasing? He has 10 points in social and 5 focus points in charm. I have left him in one of my fiefs for a month and his charm skill has not moved from 11.
Did some testing with tactics and the benefit of skill is very mediocre. The only good perk to take for companion is 9th perk increasing our party power by about 300% (sounds broken as hell). However 0 vs 300 tactics came up with about 30-50 troops difference (in 1000 enemy army vs 1000 T1 companion army). You could make a video about tactics on our allied parties.
That small of a difference? Was that 300 tactics without taking any perks? When I did my testing it was not same army vs same army so it's difficult to say exactly how much the levels do. But I did compare at several different intervals, then again with and without perks and it was a pretty big difference once you got past the higher tier perks. I wonder if they changed anything in 1.8.0 for autoresolve then???
@@Strat-Guides I did some number testing and basically 1000 random army (just saved here) vs 1000 recruits. 0 tactics enemy ended up with 808 units left alive(there's rng here, only did 1 test) 300 tactics no perks enemy ended up with 760 units left alive(300 skill for this small difference?) I did some perks testing and Pre-battle manuevers (9th perk) reduced the enemy units left alive by whooping 430. So with this perk and some previous ones it jumped from 741 untis left alive to 295 units left alive. Last perk is pretty hard to test since it requires companions to be an army commander and I don't know how to force them to create an army. So all in all that 1 perk in tactics does all the difference for companions. Also I am not sure it's same as auto-resolve when companions are doing the fighting. My guess it's some cheaper (less demanding) calculations since there's a lot of fights happening on campaing map.
I'm on PS5 and TW just released a new update that changed the wording on the perk that allows heroes to generate shared exp. Now it says +5% exp from battles shared with the troops in your party... Did they remove the heroes generate shared exp ability from the game? Why would they do that? It's not like it breaks the game, just adds more cool features like growing your companions together wtf love the content strat thanks for doing what you do brother
I could be wrong here, but I think it never did add XP sharing among companions and always was XP for troops. I know what you mean, it's horrible trying to level up companions. There is a charm perk that you might want to check out - it gives a bonus to XP gained for all companions. I use that for companion heavy campaigns. I don't recall which one, but it's like 200 or 225??
@@Strat-Guides I Haven't played or brought the game yet, just need more convincing on faster annnd easily money glitches after the patch. Find anything heheheh.....Meow
I do have this one on my list! As for hiring lords and expanding, the next video covering family members will have some tips on expanding a clan. Sir Humpsalot will be showcasing a MASSIVE family lol
Woohoo the first episode is here! I hope you're ready for high level companions :) I have a lot of the work done for episode 2 and 3 so I'll be able to get them both out quicker. Also, I'll be posted the database ASAP once it's ready. I'll have it posted on the Discord until the website is up!!
The mad man is actually doing it!
@@CopeAndSeeth we going hard to the paint on this one! (Figuratively, I was terrible at basketball lol)
Enjoyed the video, need to find time to start again
Man I never really thought about how quickly you produce content but from the poll to episode 1 was just a couple days it feels like. With all the research and editing that seems like a real intense rate of production. Good on ya
@@jasoncramer6717 In all fairness, I had been collecting data over the last few months on how to level up companions, so it was a matter of testing the ideas I found through campaigns, etc. :) But the recording, editing, etc. all does take a lot of time and I'm sure my wife wasn't too happy with me putting in this much time haha
You probably put more thought into this video than TaleWorlds did into their companion growth mechanics. Great job!
Lol my wife just looked at me, wondering why I'm laughing so hard! Good one :) thanks for watching!
@@Strat-Guides bros married?
@@Peep12109 No. His dog's name is Wife.
I just cant believe, i passed the whole day looking for some guide on companions and found nothing, now just grabbed my phone and fou d this, THANK YOU SIR
Lol that's the power of the almighty algorithm gods :D
You be delivering that information so clearly with just the right amount of humour then back to the tips. I love it
I'd like to let you know that I was taking a drink at 0:35 and you very nearly killed me with that edit. Thanks a ton.
Hahaha nice! I mean... Sorry, hopefully it didn't ruin your phone or monitor :P
Man, leveling companion in Bannerlord is almost 1:1 like rising a child ahaha. Best parenting tutorial on TH-cam right here :D
Hahaha that's true, I didn't think of it like that. Lot's of hand holding for sure :)
to make companion parties more likely to attack others, go to clan, the parties then click on party and look for were their gold icon is. under that its thier stance, neutral, can be changed to be defensive or aggressive. dont know it it was there before when you made the video a year ago :D
I really love the passion you put on your videos Strat, you deserve more subs!
Thank you! I do enjoy the process of making videos and Bannerlord is a top notch game so I'm glad to hear that the passion is coming through :)
Hey. Just popped up on my feed, always excited to see new content from you.
Keep up the great work buddy!
Thank you for watching! I had a lot of fun making this one, so many things to test and explore :)
What I do for leveling companions in hideout battles is I craft a wooden sword or a blunt spear. Then I smack the enemies with that weapon, which stuns the enemy from a distance away, but doesn't knock out the enemy. This lets my companion score free hits, and I am far enough to not block my companion's swings. I prefer preparing my swing to interrupt the enemy's swing rather than use my shield to block them because my shield will often block my companion's swings too (but sometimes I use my shield anyways if it gets frantic)
Oooh that's a really good idea, I didn't think about a long blunt weapon. A lot of times the shield blocks everyone's hit, including the companion. Thanks for the tip!
Awesome! Thank you my friend!! Im looking forward to watch the others chapters! :D
I'm working on the next episode right now and should have it ready by tomorrow at the latest :)
I have waited this for so long, you are my inspiration to play Bannerlord. Along with your guide for more fun.
Hopefully this one was helpful! The fun guide is a tough one because it's so subjective. I'm sure there are a lot of things I do that are fun for me that others would absolutely hate haha
@@Strat-Guides Keep going, Bro
i got my siege skill from zero to 134 with 5 focus points and 5 in intelligence. the change is great.
good video
Nice! Yeah engineering is sooo much easier to level now. Thanks for watching!
I was playing bannerlord right now, and this pops in my recommended. Nice!
Perfect timing! Enjoy your weekend :D
Every single guide you do, you outdid yourself! I hate companions in this game, they are so generic and uninteresting... I start to use them because I want to manage my own retinue in Serve as a soldier and create a gang of ex soldiers using furberie, so this is a very welcome one.
Thank you!! I know what you mean, I don't usually put a lot of effort into my companions. I learned a lot in the research and testing for this one though.
That sounds like a fun playthrough! Are you able to recruit over the limit or do you need another mod for that?
This goes perfectly with my companion only run. Thanks!!
Ooh nice timing! Are you using any mods to increase the number of companions? I'm curious how companion only runs work out. They sound like a lot of fun but I have not tried it yet myself.
@@Strat-Guides Yeah, 25 Companions per clan level. But they all start at level 1 with little to no skills. And I am staying away from the OP horse archer build. (Going for a melee only build with shields and javalins.). Hard at first, but as soon as they can penetrate a shield with a single throw... bloody hell!
@@OsiriumWrites That sounds so majestic hahaha
This is amazing content man and I haven’t seen such feedback with an audience in many people before. The passion shows and it’s such easy to follow content. Great vids and thanks for the smile brotha! Keep it up!
Thank you! I'm glad you think so :D
Sir Humpsalot has declared the creation of a new realm, The ZERO PULLOUT GAME. Dude I'm dying over here!!!!!
Lol you best believe he took the charm perk Virile! :D
Strat, you've done it again! Bravo
Thank you for watching! I'll start work on the next episode today :)
@@Strat-Guides Very nice! Looking forward to learning more about the mechanics.
I'm just getting back into bannerlord thanks to your vids. Trying a pacifist merchant run rn lol
Your guides are phenomenal. Thanks for all the effort, and I'm looking forward to what's coming next. As a side note, I love the little bloopers at the end, they're good fun!
Thank you for the support! I'm working on the family/clan growth guide right now and should have it ready by tomorrow. Oh cool lol I saw the PBS channels start to do that and it's really entertaining to see so I figured I would try it out as well!
@@Strat-Guides Solid! Looking forward to the serious and the silly!
@@onokei7900 Lol I got some good clips for next video :D
Always like your videos before watching so your channel can grow faster, your videos really good quality.
Thank you so much for the support!!
i'm impress by all your videos. really good job. thanks man !
Just stuff i needed 2 months ago in my wc :D. Nice video.
Oh no lol It's always a day late and a dollar short, my bad :D Thanks for watching!
3:48 didnt know that you can change companion to do the smithing, thanks, that changed all the perks
And I have 200 hours in game lol.
It doesn't help that they don't tell you anywhere lol just gotta click everything to explore. Gotta love the TW Maths :)
Good vid man I’m excited for the next vid on family
Si Humpsalot is excited to show you his "talents" LOL Might have start an onlyfans for him...
Man, your videos are amazing. Thank you. Bannerlord is such a deep game, and every single day my understanding of it grows. And a lot of the information i now know about the game would still be unknown to me if it was not for you!
Again, thank you so much! :D
Thank you for the support! I'm glad to hear the guides are helping :) Feel free to reach out if you still have questions
Damn i was about to ask about a companion guide, but hey, this works.
I've got 2 more episodes coming still on this topic! Next one is family, marriage, making babies and managing a clan. The last episode will be wanderer companions, different builds and roles. I should be able to cover just about everything in these 3 guides!
love your videos really! High quality stuff!
Thank you for watching! I appreciate the support :)
I’ve found that the best way for levelling the three melee skills + athletics is actually just to do tournaments.
Once you’re in a duel with the companion you kill off any other enemies so it’s just you two and then you can block their attacks for as long as you want to level them. Remember that blocked attacks still gives xp.
Could also work for levelling up player melee skills I suppose? The companion just has to have high skill so they block most hits.
@ Bonus2: A similar method may be used to improve relations with a given companion / clan member as long as they're in our party.
Not necessarily sure whether these relations actually matter much (well maybe, just maybe it has some effect on for instance pregnancies?? Would be weird to fool around with a wife who hate your guts). This way or the other - if you wanna be on good terms with your associates - take them to your party and engage in barter (I have a proposal that may benefit me both). All of you share the same inventory, so you can basically just give them everything you like (relations will go up) and after trading the stuff will still be in your pockets waiting for you to do whatever you desire.
So for leveling engineering, there is a much easier way. I dont know if this is because of the official release and you already knew this, but here goes
Make a new control group, make the companion you want to lead it like how you assign a captain, reduce the slider to 0, and boom. That group only has your selected companion.
Also, if you find that your companion didnt man the equipment. Equip it yourself to get the current guy off it (shoving them aside doesnt seem to remove them). Then get off it and select the control group with your chosen companion, hover over the equipment until the gears icon shows up, left click
This can get companions 50 engineering easily. Sieges are also easy to force by conquering a castle or town, leave it with less than 100 garrison and stick around the settlement. An army will usually come to siege it. Wait until they actually start attacking, break in, hope the settlement had time to build some equipment
Thanks for sharing that! I did cover that in an update video I did a few weeks ago, but this guide was done a few months before I figured out that strategy. Now that the game is in full release, I'll need to go back and update some of the guides or at least add info to the description and pinned comments :)
10/10 keep the bloopers at the end for future vids if you have them :)
I've added that to my workflow now :) I used to delete and re-record the mistakes but i've found that doing it in a single take and just leaving the mistakes in allows me to speed up the overall time needed. As a result, I get a ton of bloopers like these haha
@@Strat-Guides Nice, win-win then! And yeah was just going through some of your other videos and see you have it in a few more of them as well haha
Right now in 1.8 if companion parties are in your army they are not taking food and will not gain steward. If you release them they will grab food and gain steward so watch for this. ALSO for leveling trade, make a party and join as a merc, then hand items to party leader and leave kingdom so they don't get pulled into an army or defeated i battle and no relation loss, then when they're done selling join as a merc, rinse and repeat
That's a good point, I was having issues getting XP from companion let parties. That's why I was recommending to just put them in the party for a few months to train as a quartermaster. I really hope they fix that soon!
I’m late! But I am sure I will end up watching these multiple times like the others. Bannerlords must be knowledgeable.
I just posted it a couple hours ago, you're right on time! :D Thanks for watching and I hope there is something useful here for you!
Big daddy left us a long video
Haha I take a 14 minute video being called long as a compliment :) I cut down many hours of recordings down to this, leaving only the juicy bits for you!
In the most recent patch, all NPCs now ransom prisoners for coin. So leveling rogue is easy peezy
Damn, I hope TW watches your stuff. If I was a dev, this would invaluable info!
I noticed in the last patch several of the big things I pointed out in previous guides were fixed but it could just be a coincidence. Who knows, I'm just happy the game is progressing the right direction :) I would love to chat with the devs from time to time though...
It seems like a pretty high-stress job though, is it?
Dude! WHAT A GUIDE!!
Thanks for watching! This was a tough one to make lol companions are a difficult topic to cover everything.
Best Bannerlord guides
Thank you! I'm glad they are helpful :)
Still loving your vids man. Keep up the good work👍
Thank you! I just released episode 2 of this short series covering families, making babies and all that goodness lol Hopefully you like it as well!
@@Strat-Guides watched that one as well! I didn't even know you could have twins... may need to save scum some🤔
@@kylewesley7533 I'm not sure the percent chance, but it's pretty low. If I had to guess it was in the 1 - 5% range? I'm sure someone looked it up on the code and posted it somewhere :)
That's incredible. Thank you!!!
Thank you for watching! I'm glad you liked it :)
Great work man! After you finish revisiting your guide series, I'd love to see a video on how to take over a kingdom from the inside!
Thank you for all the support! I was thinking about doing a "mini playthrough" on this topic. It would be really fun to do a no-battle campaign where join other kingdoms and destroy them from within, take their fiefs, enact terrible policies, starve their nobles in an army and deliver them to the enemy hahaha it would be really fun!
@@Strat-Guides Oooh! Yeah that sounds even more exciting than what I had envisioned! I look forward to it :D
@@meili4790 in one of my Sturgia runs I was a vassal and Raganvad died in some random castle siege. For reasons I'll never understand the clans voted me the new ruler. And that's legend the of Lorik the bear, who ruled all Sturgia with a level 3 clan. Kuzaits rolled us in a couple years...
@@jasoncramer6717 that sounds really cool but also oof! I wish I could be so lucky LOL
On the subject of steward xp for companions, i have found that the amount gained is alot higher, like if they are assigned the role in your own party, if you make the companion the leader of their own party, then go up and talk to them, pick "i would like to assign a new role for you" and then steward. This can only be done for one role at a time.
I dont know if my comment above is easy to understand so i will simplify it:
Make companion party leader - > Walk up and talk to them on the map - > tell them you want to assign them a new role in the clan - > pick steward - > big (steward xp) profit $$$
Interesting, they should be all roles by default in their own party so I'm wondering why there would be a difference? I'll try to run some tests today to see if there is an XP boost for assigning them directly. Thanks for the tip!
@@Strat-Guides yeah i would think so too but apperently not. If its a boost, another equation or something else, they deffinetly earn more exp like this, im interested in seeing your findings!
@@RandomDeathcone1 I was up late working on the data entry for the companion database, I'll try to sneak it in today but I am currently editing the family episode. I'll keep you posted if I get time!
You can just make a 0 troops infantry groups and add your companions to it with plus in the UI. Then just send them into onager or ballista and they will shoot with it
Great video as always! thank u.
Thanks for watching!
great video!! hope the mechanics havent changed till now
I've learnt today it would be easier for me not to understand how it works.
Lol wait until we get to episode 2! It's going to get a bit more complicated, BUT it should useful still :)
You do amazing videos bro!
Great guide! Thanks for testing out the ways to grind companion skills. Smithing is still the fastest way to level them up as it's really challenging to level some of the other crucial skill trees.
Side note, With the ability to reset the perk choices in 1.8.0, now there's the option of shuffling the attribute and focus point perks in the Endurance tree once you hit the skill point limit. It's not going to be a huge impact but may be useful to grab a few extra perks when you have no interest to invest more points in those relevant skills.
Thanks for watching! Yeah there is a lot of grind, but hopefully some of these techniques can help speed that up :)
Good point, the respecing of perks really opens up a lot of possibilities!
will u do any full campain soon ?
Thanks for watching! Harald Hardrada campaign playing as Varangian guard is going on through live stream starting today :)
A minor complication of training engineering is enemy armies coming in and attacking you. A good way around this is rebel cities. They wont have any sizable relief force to stop you, and you can siege as long as you like. This can be done even if you havent joined a kingdom yet. In fact, it is even easier if you are independent, as it removes any possibility that an enemy army unrelated to the city you are sieging will come along.
Learned so much! Thank you!!!!
I'm happy to hear that! Hopefully we can see some Chad companions soon :)
There really needs to be NPC companion "skill trainers" that you can pay for tutoring.
You can it's the arena master in every arena...
@@AyoMousy that respecs perks in a tree
This Chad deserves some kind of PhD in Bannerlord 2 ;)
Lol I would proudly display it on my wall :)
Damnit man. I've probably watched this so much in the last few weeks I could rehurse it. I hate how grindy it is to level up skills in this game. I ain't got hours to kill like this.
Yeah I know what you mean. If you're on PC, I highly recommend a mod called Bannerlord XP Tweaks. You can increase the XP gain for companions only, your character only, all nobles on the map, etc. I've been using it for a recent campaign and it's a HUGE difference - much more enjoyable. I was able to raise some companions up to 275+ in combat skills within 2 - 3 years (which I think is reasonable).
@@Strat-Guides Are all those strats in this video still working as well or has something important changed? ALso super super helpful, thanks for your guides! :D
Hey @stratgaming, quick question why do the aserai troops in your playthrough/campaign look different ?( 10:57 )
I checked i am on beta patch 1.8.0
Hey sorry I would have mentioned it, I did some of the footage using the RBM mod since it's a lot more epic than the base game. I did all of the testing using the base vanilla game though.
@@Strat-Guides thanks for the info!
RBM mod is a blessing on this game.
Hi, do you know if the +1 party perk, +1 companion perk, the final perk from medicine and leadership stacks?
Thanks for watching!
So the leadership +1 party perk or +1 companion is for clan leaders only, so they won't stack. The final medicine perk is party leader so that won't stack either. I have to double check again but I recall they changed final leadership perk to be party leader so that won't stack. I think TW thought this one through ahead of time :P
1:00 Remember you can blacksmith craft a really bad weapon that does minimal damage so you can use more than shieldbash/kick.
That's a good point, those dumpy weapons can stagger them as well. Thanks for the tip!
Is it just my youtube that acts funny or those time "things" disappeared? Like "chapters" of the video, where one starts, where another starts.
And OMG THANK YOU for the tip to level up Engineering in defensive sieges.
I unequipped bigbro's bow (he refused to use ballista when had a ranged weapon, took me quite some time to figure it out), set him as a comander of a separate infantry category (with just him in it), placed him next to ballista and in a single fight he levelled up his engineering from 23 to 154!
Hm... I'll double check the chapters but they should still be there. It might be a YT bug?
Nice, I'm happy to hear it worked for you as well! It's so hard to manipulate the AI in this game lol we need all the help we can get :)
Nice one!
Thanks for watching!!
The amount of gamey methods one has to use in this game staggering.
Having risk of death for companions, when you want them to level up is just insane. :D
Good job you did great on it
Thank you!! I tried my best to keep it short and entertaining :) this could have easily been an hour long video lol
@@Strat-Guides Definitely would of watched it still, but I can't wait for the others
@@williamharding8493 I did a lot of the work for the other 2 already so I should be able to get them out faster!
@@Strat-Guides I'll be watching for those notifications
Is it true that you can reset perks in taverns now for main chars and companions? I havent found how to do it if its possible
Yeah they added it to patch 1.8.0! You need to go to the tournament master (go in person and talk to him directly) and there will be an option to retrain perks.
Have you done a video on how you distribute your companions yet? There are way more roles than you get companions after all, and with captains getting buffed with banners, constant skilk and perk rebalances, and the money earners constantly fluctuating, it's hard to keep track of how you should allocate your limited number of companions.
Good show, old boy!
Thanks for always being there! I greatly appreciate the support :) You've been with the channel from the humble beginnings!
@@Strat-Guides Thank you for making this content and doing the TW math for the rest of us! You can’t imagined how much it improved people’s gaming experience
@@dbuyandelger I'm happy to help! I know how much it sucked to be working 12 hours a day and having very little time to play games, making it hard to enjoy some with steep learning curves.
Great video. I'd love to see a video explaining how companion parties are leveling up their troops. When left alone, even with unlimited budgets, they don't seem to upgrade their troops very quickly. I usually have to do it manually for them by forming an army with just companions, attacking things, pulling their troops, leveling them manually, give them back, etc. If you know of a better way, I'd like to see it. I'm also wondering if it has something to do with their leadership skills?
That's a good question and I'm not certain the answer. I think the right test would be to distribute units normally (half in own party and half in theirs) and see what the upgrades are like. Then do it again with 100% in player party and finally with all units in companion party. Then we could compare to see the spread. The XP awarded should theoretically be the same since it's the same unit kills each time.
@@Strat-Guides Good idea.
Why do you not do the boss fight fight? Wouldn’t that give even more exp?
He explains why literally right after he said to lose.
What about surgeon in your party to level up medicine? Btw is sending companions on missions to level them up effective? Which companions are better low level or high level ones?
Yeah that would definitely be the easiest way to do it so you don't have to mess with swapping injured troops. I was trying to show how to do it without having to have them in the party - I only did that for steward because there aren't really any other options :( That's a good question about sending them on missions, I'm not really sure as I forgot to test that! Personally I prefer lower level companions and leveling them up myself but they can both be good.
Strat, are you from Kazahstan originaly? Your Kazahstanian is very nice!
Haha I'll have to thank Borat for that one :D
Can you test (or just confirm/deny) if they get Tactics XP when you set them as sergeant and call for sergeants in charge?
Tactics XP is only for the leader - it's similar to how they changed Leadership XP. I don't think seargents can earn tactics xp, although I have not tested it directly.
@@Strat-Guides thanks heaps, and for your prompt reply ❤
Is there a way to level up companions on horseback but without all 200 of my other troops .. bandit camps help for everything else tho lol
In the current patch, you can create a group just for them and drag/drop companions into it!
Could you do an overview on which companions to recruit for what? I tried some methods but a big downside of some of the better companions is that they start the game over their own softcap making it real difficult to level. O.0
Yeah I have a whole section dedicated to just that topic! Next video is going to be specifically family, kids, succession, etc. but the episode after that will cover all companions in the game, different roles for companions to fill and sample builds. I'm making a database to keep all of this data, so it will be much easier to use than watching a video. For example, if you want to find a scout, you can filter the search by scouting companions and it will pop out with all the names that have the scouting skill to start with. Then you can look at the sample builds for scouts and then work from there :)
what if we use rts camera and controll them for more kills :)
That's a good point!
I gave a bunch of 40k polearms to my brothers party and sent him on his way. 2 in-game seasons have passed and hasnt gotten a single trade point. Any idea?
You can now assign heroes to a unit without making them a commander
Not sure if it's just me but when giving melee weapons to companions to grind combat skills, I find swing speed >> reach due to how bad the AI is at keeping distance to maximize weapon damage. On horseback, AI companion struggles a lot esp with melee that I just resort to ranged weapons instead. At some point, I had to smith a 98 reach voulge with 88 swing speed to use for leveling companions' Polearm skill on foot.
Yeah I agree, it seems like they don't make logical decisions on when to attack and when to defend, so better to have the faster attack and stun the opponent out of their attack lol it's sad but that's the AI for you. RBM is totally different actually, it's a really good combat system for companions!
Very true about ranged weapons, it's much more reliable.
Been loosely following your 16 years campaign and referencing your guides constantly, and the gameplay has been immensely more enjoyable, kudos and thanks!
OP tier content, sir
Edit: possible suggestion, guide or campaign only making money through passive sources, towns, caravans, workshops, etc; Smithing and trade feel so exploity, curious to see how hard it would be to manage large armies/wars/town improvements without 1bn denars in the bank.
Thank you for watching! I've got a lot of the next 2 videos researched and recorded out already, just need to script and edit it together so I think they will be ready soon :)
after all the feedback its crazy that they still dont improve the pre battle deployment
I know they had good intentions with the pre-battle change they made a couple patches ago, but I feel like it's even worse now :( I suspect they made this change because it's console friendly and they are porting it over soon. The problem with that is controls are so minimal for console compared to mouse/keyboard.
9:34 cracks me up every time :D
i always get frustraded when i take the half map with a kingdom the clans in my kingdom (vlandia and southern empire) leave and all other factions declare war to us. any tips?
So the main reason nobles will leave your kingdom is because they are lacking money. There are a few ways you can boost this - give them more fiefs (sometimes they mismanage so not always reliable), you can give them money directly through barter (Best to give to clan leader) or you can have a huge bank balance yourself. I usually just keep a ton of money in the bank, like 10s of millions of denars :) Once you own half the map, it shouldn't be too hard to do over time. I hope that helps!
@@Strat-Guides thank you for the extended answer! i will try it :)
@@Drabo7 There does seem to be a bug where clans are leaving the player kingdom more than they should be, but it seems to be in the late game and not early to mid game. Not sure where you are at on the timeline in your campaign?
@@Strat-Guides im at day 400+!
@@Drabo7 That shouldn't be too far into the game - try to save up as much money in your personal denar bank that you can. That will help a ton I think.
I'm not understanding the leadership XP move. It won't let me donate troops over their cap.
Another thought. If I donate ready to convert troops over to my buddy, will that help them increase their leadership skills quickly? My character is old on my first play though, so I'm trying to prepare my heir.
About leveling engineer skill in field battle.
Is it possible to assign your companion as a captain to formation that has one man in it and then put them on a ballista?
PS: great guide, waiting for more amazing videos
Hm... That's a good idea, I didn't try that one out. I'm not sure if the 1 unit counts the companion or not? I'll try it out today. Sometimes the smallest increase of units you can make to a group is 1% which ends up being 2 - 4 units, so if you have less companions than that you will have normal troops in there :( The whole thing is a mess and I hope they add a better sytem for splitting troops up.
Thank you for the support! I appreciate it.
Strat you are a f'ing gem. Thank you so much.
A question for fellow players. If I start an A culture kingdom, promote a B culture companion, give them an A culture fief. Does the fief get -3 loyalty hit? Thanks in advance
Thank you for watching! Yeah they do get the -3 loyalty. So the game looks at the owner's culture and the population's culture and nothing else. That means if you're taking wrong culture fiefs, you can just hire the right culture and promote them :)
I still wonder why the high rank imperial infantry never throws theit pilum.
I think they used to back in the day? But not for a long time now :(
I might just be a little daft, but telling me the amount of xp gained doesn’t really help me. I don’t know how much xp it takes to advance 1 level in a skill, or if it increases with each level. And there’s the option of leveling like 200+ times for each skill?
In general, if you know how much XP each action gives, you can figure out which method works best for leveling up. If something takes 5 minutes to do and gives 100XP or another takes 1 minute but gives 25XP then you can figure out what's best for you (at least that's what I was going for lol). Skills start at a very low XP amount needed to level up and increase with each level. I have the formula somewhere, but essentially it's a recursive equation that adds a % to the previous level. So level 1 might need 50XP, level 2 needs 55XP and so on all the way up to max level needing 100k's of XP to level up.
Getting to the higher levels with a companion is a tough one, I wish there was an easy way to do it, but it's mostly just grinding it out :(
@@Strat-Guides Thanks for the swift response! Certainly made it a little clearer, at least. I'll just put my teeth to the grindstone to get this XP sorted.
6:59 leadership exploit does not work anymore it won’t let you donate troops above the limit
Wow!! Over 5k troops!? Do I need to just keep leveling up steward to get that high? I have 80 steward on one guy and over 100 on the other I'm only at 285 max troops. Also I cant figure out how to make a party move on its own
I need to redo my skill and perk guides soon so I'll be sure to cover this in great detail!
@@Strat-Guides ill be looking forward to that!
Low medicine is a great way to "lose prisoner nobles" without the execution penalty.
Love u. Also love Srat gaming math
skill trees need to be reworked to have governor and captain perks in the front so players dont have to suffer as much training their companions
Does that roguary method still work??
the trade family barrter trick has been patcheD?
Hm... I don't think so but I need to hear it again. I'm pretty sure I did this guide in 1.8 so maybe they suck l snuck it in in one of the hotfixes? I hope not!
@@Strat-Guides i just tried to do it. Either im stupid or they patched it hahah
@@johnaaisa5179 I'll test It again this weekend to see. They have been patching everything from my videos lately so I wouldn't be too surprised lol
Anyone know why my clan members charm is not increasing? He has 10 points in social and 5 focus points in charm. I have left him in one of my fiefs for a month and his charm skill has not moved from 11.
Yeee🔥🔥🔥
Thanks for watching!! :D
Did some testing with tactics and the benefit of skill is very mediocre. The only good perk to take for companion is 9th perk increasing our party power by about 300% (sounds broken as hell). However 0 vs 300 tactics came up with about 30-50 troops difference (in 1000 enemy army vs 1000 T1 companion army). You could make a video about tactics on our allied parties.
That small of a difference? Was that 300 tactics without taking any perks? When I did my testing it was not same army vs same army so it's difficult to say exactly how much the levels do. But I did compare at several different intervals, then again with and without perks and it was a pretty big difference once you got past the higher tier perks. I wonder if they changed anything in 1.8.0 for autoresolve then???
@@Strat-Guides I did some number testing and basically 1000 random army (just saved here) vs 1000 recruits.
0 tactics enemy ended up with 808 units left alive(there's rng here, only did 1 test)
300 tactics no perks enemy ended up with 760 units left alive(300 skill for this small difference?)
I did some perks testing and Pre-battle manuevers (9th perk) reduced the enemy units left alive by whooping 430. So with this perk and some previous ones it jumped from 741 untis left alive to 295 units left alive.
Last perk is pretty hard to test since it requires companions to be an army commander and I don't know how to force them to create an army.
So all in all that 1 perk in tactics does all the difference for companions.
Also I am not sure it's same as auto-resolve when companions are doing the fighting. My guess it's some cheaper (less demanding) calculations since there's a lot of fights happening on campaing map.
@@Helerek Yeah I did notice something similar from my previous testing as well, that one perk seems to be the best one in the skill tree.
I'm on PS5 and TW just released a new update that changed the wording on the perk that allows heroes to generate shared exp. Now it says +5% exp from battles shared with the troops in your party... Did they remove the heroes generate shared exp ability from the game? Why would they do that? It's not like it breaks the game, just adds more cool features like growing your companions together wtf love the content strat thanks for doing what you do brother
I could be wrong here, but I think it never did add XP sharing among companions and always was XP for troops. I know what you mean, it's horrible trying to level up companions. There is a charm perk that you might want to check out - it gives a bonus to XP gained for all companions. I use that for companion heavy campaigns. I don't recall which one, but it's like 200 or 225??
@@Strat-Guides I Haven't played or brought the game yet, just need more convincing on faster annnd easily money glitches after the patch. Find anything heheheh.....Meow
please make guide how to start your own kingdom and hire lords and expand. (upvote so he could see this plis)
I do have this one on my list! As for hiring lords and expanding, the next video covering family members will have some tips on expanding a clan. Sir Humpsalot will be showcasing a MASSIVE family lol
Oh my god what the hell is that roguery thing in villages really working?
I think they patched it a few weeks ago :(