If you’ve played Mount and Blade: Bannerlord for a while, chances are you’ve managed to snag a fief of some kind be it a Castle or Town. While this is overall a good thing having a fief will require it’s own management. There are many things to consider when managing fiefs and one of these is the Loyalty statistic. This will govern how loyal the citizens of the fief are to your rule. This article will help you learn how to increase town and castle loyalty and show you why it is important.
What is the Loyalty Level in Bannerlord and What Happens When it Gets Low?
Loyalty is pretty self-explanatory. It is the level at which the people of a fief accept you as their ruler. Keeping this stat high is vital to running a successful, profitable fief. There are many factors that will have an impact on a town’s loyalty. Some of the things that can affect the loyalty level are:
- Whether the town has enough food
- The player character’s culture
- Security
These are just a few examples of factors that can influence the loyalty of a town or castle. I won’t focus too much on factors that can negatively influence the town loyalty as it will be pretty evident from the things you can do to positively affect your loyalty score. If your fief has a low Loyalty rating then it will take a longer time for the town to grow.
If the loyalty score gets low your constructions will be halted and will not continue until the loyalty score is raised again. Even worse, of the loyalty rating drops too low you can run the risk of the town revolting completely.
How to Increase Town and Castle Loyalty in Mount and Blade Bannerlord
Now we come to the part you’ve been waiting for. So you have a town with a low loyalty? Luckily for you there are a range of different things you can do in order to raise the town loyalty. The one thing to note is there is no super quick way to get this level right up. Everything you do will slowly have an impact and if you follow this guide and the methods below, the town loyalty will raise slowly every day. The ways that you can increase town and castle loyalty are:
- Assigning a Governor with the Same Culture as the Town
- Having the Same Culture as the Town with your Player Character
- Increasing Town Security
- Ensuring the Town/Castle has Food
- Build and Upgrade the Fairgrounds Construction Project
- Use the Festival and Games Daily Default
If you want any further information on any of these topics click on the links above to jump right to that section of the page.
Assigning Companions as Governors and Player Culture
In Bannerlord the people trust one of their own. They aren’t so happy about some foreigners coming into their land and taking over some of their cities. When you first start your adventure in Bannerlord you are tasked with creating a character. When creating the character you will also choose a culture for the character. These cultures all have different traits which will affect gameplay, but this also comes into play with settlement loyalty as well. If your character has the same culture as the fief, they will get a loyalty bonus each day. On the flip side, there is a negative change associated with towns and castles that are a different culture from the player. After character creation, you can change your culture, but you can pick a Governor that the people will like at least.
From the Manage Town/Castle menu you are actually able to assign a governor to the town by clicking the upper left panel. Here, you can choose one of your companions to stay in the town and govern it. Some of the perks associated with leveling up will also be applied when this character is a governor, so choose your perks wisely if you are planning to have them as a town governor! If the governor you’ve chosen has the same culture as the town the loyalty score will get a +1 stat boost each day. If they are from a different culture there will be a -1 penalty to the score. Always try to have a governor with the same culture.
Raising the Town Security
Another statistic that influences the loyalty level is the Security level. This statistic shows how secure your townsfolk feel in the fief. Some of the things you can do to raise the security level of a fief are:
- Destroy nearby bandit hideouts
- Make sure there are many units in the garrison
- Construct secure building projects
- Using the Train Militia daily task to raise garrison even further
- Raising the Prosperity of the fief
- Being around
Yes being around. Even your presence will make the fief feel even safer. As long as you make sure all of these things are in check and the fief is not attacked so often the security level will rise and this will also have a positive impact on the loyalty level.
Keeping the Food Stocks High
Relatively self-explanatory but worth mentioning how to do anyway. If there is no more food in the fief the people will start to starve and the loyalty will start to dip. You can make sure there is enough food in towns by physically buying food from other places and selling it back into your town. Once you have dropped enough food in there, the next day the food level will change. To stress to much if you don’t see an instant change, just wait until he next day and you should lose the Starving debuff.
To increase the Food level in castles you just have to make sure that the villages are doing well as there is no trade menu in the castle. Keep bandit attacks to a minimum and make sure noone is raiding your villages. The Gardens construction project will also positively impact food production in villages.
Building and Upgrade Fairground to Improve Loyalty
As you can see from the Manage Town/Castle menu there are a range of different things that you can construct in the fief. These will all have very different effects from increasing the garrison capacity to increasing food production. One of these projects will help keep the settlement loyalty high. This is the Fairgrounds.
As you can see in the image above, the fairground will increase your loyalty by 0.5 each day. This can also be upgraded a further two times after being built. Each level will at 0.5 to the loyalty bonus so the maximum you can get each day from the fully upgraded fairgrounds is 1.5. If you want to increase loyalty or have just taken a fief and know it is a different culture, it’s best to start this one off early.
Using the Festival and Games Daily Default
Along with the construction projects there is also a daily bonus which you can choose from the bottom of the Manage menu. Here, you can choose which daily activity you want to get the bonus from. Only one of these can be active at a time though. There are four to choose from and the one that is going to interest us is called Festival and Games.
Out of all of the methods listed to increase town loyalty, this is by far the easiest as all you have to do is select is and let it do all the magic. This doesn’t cost you anything or require any upkeep, just choose this daily job and let your loyalty hopefully rise!
Those were the methods that you can use to increase town loyalty. Do you have any more tips or tricks for town loyalty in Mount and Blade Bannerlord? Write a comment below!