Money is considered by many the most important thing in life. We don’t know if that is true, but in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, money will make your life one million times easier.
There aren’t many passive ways to make an income in Bannerlord besides workshops, and those will never be as easy to handle as these industry titans.
Recommended Read: How to Get a Castle in Bannerlord
However, there are many workshop production possibilities, and one can’t know for sure which one is going to bring the most profit.
Well, we have the answer you’ve been looking for. Here are the best workshops in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord that will bring you the most amount of money with the least effort.
Table of contents
How do Workshops Work in Bannerlord
Every town in Calradia moves around different types of items between each other. Some of them trade the resources of the nearby villages, while some sell the produce they make in the workshops.
By owning a workshop, you take control of one of the resources produced in the town in hopes of making a profit.
To buy a workshop, you just need to enter any town and talk to one of the notable NPCs that already own a shop. The price of the workshop will be solely dependent on the Prosperity of the town.
Prosperity is so important because it directly influences the money a workshop will make. However, depending on the settlement, some workshops will never be profitable.
If a town has less than 1k Prosperity, you will probably see an income of less than 200 per day. However, if the town gets to 5k Prosperity, you can suddenly gain up to 800 coins a day.
The Prosperity will also affect the price of the workshop. A town with less than 1k Prosperity will have workshops that could be bought with 10 to 20k coins. But, a high Prosperity town can get into the hundreds of thousands.
Another important factor is raw resources. If you want to make a Silversmith, you will need Silver Ore from the surrounding villages.
The beautiful thing about the economy of Bannerlord is that you can actually make villages send over resources to your town rather than send them to an enemy lord.
If there is a castle owned by, let’s say Vlandia, between two towns controlled by two different factions, then its surrounding villages will deliver resources to the town owned by Vlandia.
So, if you have a town that needs raw resources, you can just conquer a castle that is close to your town and get its resources delivered to your town instead.
The Best Workshops in Bannerlord
There are three vital factors when it comes to deciding what is the best workshop in Bannerlord:
- Risk Factor
- Effort To Maintain
- Money Output
Since there are so many choices, we have listed all 11 workshop types below, along with a rating from 1 to 5, in all the factors previously mentioned.
High numbers in Money mean you make more money from them (1 = You make spare change, 5 = You make boatloads), and low numbers in Risk and Effort are what you are looking for (1 = No risk and effort, 5 = Bankruptcy looming and a lot of effort to boot):
| Production | Money | Risk | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wool Weavery | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Velvet Weavery | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Silversmith | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Linen Weavery | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| Pottery Shop | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Brewery | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Tannery | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Wine Press | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| Olive Press | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| Smithy | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| Wood Workshop | 2 | 3 | 4 |
High Money, High Risk, and Effort
If you want to make real money, you need to go for either the Wool Weavery, the Velvet Weavery, or the Silversmith.
These are the only three workshops in the game that produce unique items that aren’t automatically made by towns or villages.
For example, towns will always produce beer, wine, oil, and tools, even if there are no workshops in that settlement to make them.
This is why, by making one of the three workshops from above, you can make thousands of denars a day. However, you need to do your research beforehand.
If the workshop you want to create is already in a town close by, you run the risk of losing money. You have to either buy the competition and convert their workshop into something else or choose a different town for your endeavors.
The Wool Weavery is the less risky choice since you need wool for the workshop to work, which is generally less expensive than the raw resources the other two need.
What you have to remember is that these won’t make you end-game money if you don’t eliminate the competition.
Buy all the Silversmiths in Calradia and turn them into Breweries. Then, finally, you can make your own Silversmith in your own town. If you use this strategy, you can finally make thousands a day with a level 1 workshop.
No Risk? No Money
There are two choices in that table that might sound bad to people who want to make all their money from workshops but are great for people who just want a steady stream of income.
The Brewery and the Tannery have almost no chance of failing. They always somehow turn a profit. All towns in the game will have grain and hides for you to use.
This means that you might be making around 100 to 200 money per day, but you don’t ever have to think about them. You also don’t have to check if the town still has the necessary resources or if there is new competition in surrounding settlements.
If you just want to offset those army costs and concentrate on destroying your enemies, get yourself a Brewery or a Tannery. Players can enjoy their deadly pursuits whilst getting a decent amount of money on the side.
Worst Workshops
The Wine Press, Olive Press, Smithy, and Wood Workshop are some of the worst workshops you can get in terms of money and time invested into them.
Depending on the circumstances, these workshops can be extremely useful, especially considering that two of them produce high-quality weapons that you can use.
However, if you actually want to look after them, you have to invest time and money and still be stressed that something can go wrong with them.
For the Wine and Olive Press, don’t even think about it. Towns will naturally produce wine and oil, which makes these two workshops a waste of money.
By building one of those two, you will just end up bringing the price for these resources even lower.
That’s everything you need to know about the best workshops in Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
