Whilst your main goal in Mount and Blade: Bannerlord is to conquer the entire through conquest (or trading if you’re savvy enough), this isn’t the whole game. In it’s roots Bannerlord is a sandbox RPG game with a large focus on role-playing. Part of this means that when you’re not at war or executing lords on the map, there are a large range of other activities for you to participate in. One of these is the ability to join (and hopefully win) tournaments.
This guide will show you how you can find where tournaments are happening in towns across Mount and Blade: Bannerlord’s map and how you can join in the tournaments and compete for yourself! It can be pretty lucrative if you win…
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How to Find Tournaments to Join in Bannerlord
Before you can join in any of the tournaments happening around the map you are going to have to find them first. Luckily Taleworlds have made it relatively easy to find out when tournaments are happening in towns near you! Yes, towns. The one thing to keep in mind when searching for glory from that tournament win is that tournaments only take place within towns across the world of Calradia. There’s no use checking every second castle to see if there are any festivities going on. Towns, are the larger cities you can see across the map and are recognized by the larger text and the fact you can still see the names when you scroll the world map out pretty far.
If you want to find out exactly when a tournament is happening in a town, keep an eye out for the symbols that appear next to the title of the town. When there is a tournament currently happening in the town, there will be a little yellow Helmet symbol next to the name of the town. You can see the image below for an example of what I mean.
This identifier was added to the game to help players recognize when a tournament is happening without having to enter every town and check. This symbol will only appear when your party is relatively close to the town however, so you will still have to travel nearby. That being said, this little symbol can save you travelling from town to town checking the Arena area.
Now that we know how to find tournaments in Bannerlord, we can move on to how to actually get into the action!
How to Join Tournaments in Mount and Blade: Bannerlord
Finding tournaments has become pretty easy. Now all we need to do is know how to get into a tournament. First, you will need to travel into the town where the tournament is taking place. As aforementioned, look for the Yellow helmet symbol. Now that you’re in a town where a tournament is currently taking place, follow these steps:
- Select the option: Go to the Arena
- Select the option Join the Tournament
- Place your bets and either watch the fights you aren’t apart of or skip them through the menu buttons.
Now that you’ve figured out how to join a tournament, you will have have to go through the rounds and hopefully win. The tournament will be played in groups and the weapons you are given vary from town to town. Some factions like to use horses in their tournaments and some don’t. For example, the Sturgians like to use a lot of hand-to-hand combat on foot.
Tournament Rewards and Betting
One of the best things about winning tournaments in Mount and Blade: Bannerlord is the prizes of course! Not only will you gain a good little chunk of renown for your clan, there are also great prizes on offer from weapons to horses. The reward for winning the current tournament will be displayed in the tournament window. As you can see in the bottom right of this screen there is a small box with the Tournament Prize inside. You can hover your mouse over this prize to see the stats.
The prizes will vary depending on what town you go to. Sturgian tournaments will generally come with prizes from that culture such as heavy armors. You may find a nice Bow if you spend a lot of time fighting tournaments in Battanian arenas. There is also a possibility that a weapon the player has crafted and sold to the town will become a tournament prize.
Betting in Tournaments
You aren’t just limited to winning prizes and renown in tournaments. You also have the ability to place a bet on yourself to win. By selecting the Bet button you can add a small amount of denars to bet with. If you win, you will get the amount of denars listed beside Expected. Your odds depend on your character’s strength and previous arena records. The odds also depend on how far your character is in the tournaments. (You will have less odds in the first round compared to the last as it becomes 50/50).
There is a perk in Bannerlord which allows you to bet with higher amounts of denars and thus increase your earnings. The Deep Pockets perk allows you to bet double the normal amount of denars in a tournament. This allows you to make twice the amount of money when participating in tournaments. Not a bad perk to get at all.
You can take the Deep Pockets perk at level 50 in the Roguery skill.
How to Find the Tournament Leaderboard
Another feature added with tournaments is the leaderboard. This will display not only how many tournament wins the player has, but how many wins each lord has across the kingdom. This is because all NPCs in the game can also participate in tournaments. Even if they are just crime leaders or possible companion NPCs.
To view this tournament leaderboard, head to any town and access the arena. Here, you will see the option Leaderboard in the menu on the left. If you manage to get to the top of the leaderboard your clan will gain 1 renown for every day that you gold the top title. So, it’s always best to try to climb to the top of this early in your play-through for a big passive renown boost!