What can be better than being a king in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord? Having vassals to serve and conquer for you.
Making a kingdom was hard enough already, but fighting all the factions by yourself will be a million times worse.
Recommended Read: How to Open the Console in Bannerlord
Luckily, you can recruit limitless numbers of clans, nobles, and wanderers alike, to help you conquer all of Calradia in one fell swoop.
There are two simple ways to get vassals in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, and we will present both to you right now!
Table of contents
Getting Vassals in Bannerlord
There are 2 types of heroes you can turn into vassals in Bannerlord:
- Nobles
- Wanderers
Nobles are harder to deal with but are already established and can make a difference instantly when you get them.
Wanderers require a bit of work before they are ready to face the world. However, you can mold them in the direction you want while they are your companions.
Recruiting Noble Vassals
There is no way to individually recruit noble characters besides marriage, but they won’t join in as a vassal clan. They will just join yours.
When you go about recruiting nobles into your kingdom, you will always have to talk to a clan leader and convince them to join you along with all their clan members.
This can get a bit tricky and expensive, especially in the early game, which is why you shouldn’t start a kingdom if you haven’t made a lot of money first.
Here are the main factors that will decide if a clan leader would be interested in joining your faction:
- The number of fiefs they own. (More = Lower chance, 0 = Higher chance)
- Power of their current faction. (Stronger than your faction = Lower chance, Weaker than your faction = Higher chance)
- Relationship with their faction ruler. (Good relations with the ruler = Lower chance, Bad relations with the ruler = Higher chance)
- Relationship with you.
The chance for a noble clan leader to join your faction is actually just a sign of how much the price for their loyalty will be.
If you find a clan leader with no fiefs that is part of a weak kingdom with horrible relations with their ruler and great relations with you, you will probably recruit this clan for free.
However, if you try to recruit a very powerful lord, they might say something along the lines of “I am happy with my current liege”.
You won’t see this because they wouldn’t join you. You will see it because there is not enough money in your treasury that could convince them to join you.
Some of the high-tier clans with a fief or two can cost something around 1 million or more. If you want affordable noble vassals, make sure to look for the ones without any fiefs first.
Now that you know all that, let’s see exactly how to recruit clan leader vassals in Bannerlord:
- Find a suitable clan by using the Encyclopedia (press N on the world map).
- Save the game.
- Approach the clan’s leader and tell them that “There is something I’d like to discuss”.
- Choose the “What do you think of your liege?” option.
- If you have enough money, a charm mini-game will now begin where you have to choose the options that have the highest chance of working. Load the earlier save file if you fail the recruitment checks.
- Give them either money or goods worth the same amount to convince them to join you as a vassal.
Depending on their wealth level, they will ask for different amounts of money. Here is how much a clan leader with no fiefs can ask for based on their wealth:
- Very Poor = 0 to 15k
- Poor = 15k to 50k
- Average = 50k to 125k
- Rich & Very Rich = +125k (can get to millions)
Because of these high costs and effort, you can understand why many players prefer to promote wanderers/companions to become vassals.
Turn Wanderers into Vassals
If you are a ruler of a faction, you can create clans from zero, using your companions as the newly appointed clan leaders.
Here is what you need to turn a wanderer companion into a vassal in Bannerlord:
- 500 influence
- An extra settlement
- 20k money
To make your companion into a vassal lord, you just need to speak to them through the Party screen and choose the “I wish to reward you for your services” option.
Go through all the dialog options and make the wanderer into a vassal. You will also get to choose the name of the newly formed clan.
The new clan will start at Tier 2 and will spawn another 2 nobles to join your companion. This new clan will now start to behave like any clan in Bannerlord.
This is by far the better way of getting vassals in the game. However, the time it takes to make a companion good can be a bit of a chore.
There can also be another problem that can come from a newly-formed wanderer clan, and that is that the vassal and his new family might never get married.
You can fix this by maybe marrying your own daughters to the vassals, since, otherwise, the clan might just die off at some point with no heirs.
What can make recruited nobles better is also their higher tier since that number will represent how many troops the clan members will have.
However, high-tier noble clans are usually relatively rich, which also increases their chance of deserting and betraying you (Yes, that can happen).
So, if you need to get quick vassals, go pay a few nobles. But, if you want vassals you can trust, train some wanderers and get them to rule their own clan.
If you want to take a different path and become a vassal yourself, check out our guide on how to become a vassal in Bannerlord!
That’s everything you need to know about how to get noble and wanderer vassals in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
