Working up your way to getting your own town in Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord can be quite an arduous process. Unless you’re using the magic of console commands, you’ll have to put in enough work and, once you do have the fate of a settlement and its population in your hands, you’ll have to manage Town Loyalty and Security if you plan to hold onto it for long.
Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord’s Town Loyalty and Security sound like daunting concepts, especially if this is the first settlement you get to control. They don’t work in a vacuum and, while the surrounding world will eventually threaten them, you have a couple of avenues to make sure that the people won’t hate your guts enough to raise arms against you.
Town Loyalty in Bannerlord determines how likely (or unlikely) the population is to rebel, so it’s pretty vital that you do everything you can to keep its drift in check. One important piece of the loyalty puzzle is culture. Gaining control of a town of your culture won’t come with any loyalty penalties but a penalty will come into effect as soon as your newest conquest belongs to a different cultural group.
The same applies to the town’s Governor and, one way to mitigate the loss of Town Loyalty in Bannerlord is to assign each town a Governor that belongs to its culture. Upgrading your Fairgrounds project is another way of increasing Town Loyalty, as is choosing the Festival and Games daily default.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord’s Town Security is then tied into Town Loyalty and has a drift of its own that you’ll need to manage. Naturally, the main factor here is the garrison you leave behind in each town.
The more men and women you have ready to defend your settlements against foreign incursion, the safer your people will feel which, in turn, makes them more loyal. Increasing your garrison capacity through the Fortifications and Garrison Barracks projects also helps.
Your people will also appreciate not starving so, if you’re looking to win their loyalty, ensuring a stable supply of food is certainly another thing worth considering, and the Orchards project is certainly one that you shouldn’t overlook.
Character Perks can also come into play when looking to increase Town Loyalty and Security in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. You can squeeze some extra bonuses by picking the Parade Perk in the Charm tree (which grants settlements you visit +5 loyalty once per day) or the Security Perk in the Leadership tree (which grants +5 security per day while waiting).
Others are spread across various trees, so it’s definitely worth fishing for some if you’re looking to focus your playstyle on stabilizing your settlements.
Of course, events like wars or enemy incursions will affect your Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Town Loyalty and Security but, with these tips, you should hopefully be a tad better equipped to hold onto your hard-earned settlements. For more on the game, here’s a look at an upcoming, ambitious Warhammer Fantasy mod.
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