Other ways to gain income include trading goods by discovering which towns will pay above market rate for certain commodities. Of course, you could raid caravans or farmers, though that will mean that you will be hated by some of the factions. However as you slowly gain more experience and improve your character these battles against bandits become an easy source of income, by taking their goods and selling them to merchants. The early toughness of the game may be off-putting to some players because it will be littered with a lot of failure, either from running into an enemy group when you can’t really afford to fight or picking a fight with the wrong faction. If this happens you are taken prisoner but you will escape after a while to try and build your warband again. Even if you outnumber a group your soldiers may lack experience and fall, leaving you with no recruits. When starting out it is best trying to fight groups of looters and bandits, but some these groups may have skilled fighters or just be a larger group.

Word of advice is don’t get attached to your recruits early on. In villages you’ll get a number of basic recruits depending on your finances, while taverns allow you to hire mercenaries with different skills as well as named characters that can offer specific skills. You can’t do this alone though and will have to recruit people to follow you, and you do this by visiting villages and taverns. Your free to travel through each of these and interact with the different lords and counts that rule various territories, taking on tasks from them to help build your reputation. In Calradia there are six kingdoms all vying for power, with wars between them being almost constant. There’s a short tutorial to get used to the different weapon types and fighting, but after that you’re on your own. Mount & Blade: Warband won’t hold your hand.

Mount and blade warband console