Svana is bae. No one comes close to how powerful she is on the field.

@@sunnyd9321 what about Arwa or Siga?

@@sunnyd9321 Yeah she's one of the best ones!

Arwa and Mela perfect waifu

@@MarksmanGamingPk90 Yeah those are both high up on the list!

Oh man I know that pain! My youngest is 10 months now and he still wakes up 4 - 5 times per night lol I hope you're able to get some sleep still Talon! Thanks for watching and I'm glad my videos are of some use :)

I hope you and your baby are doing well fellow Calradian! Always remember your victories over your enemies, secondarily remember all the moments with your daughter. Life goes by fast.

That's a woman's job! Just kidding, I know the pain too :)

_Raised on Strat Gaming videos, your daughter now has a Destiny. She will ride at the age of 5. She will steal her first horse from an enemy tribe, age 8. She will count coup on her first enemy warrior, age 10. She will unite the tribes at age 13. She will drill them for 3 years, and lead them to her first thundering victory, age 16. Empires will fall before her feet, age 22, where she will hear the two sweetest sounds a warlord can hear - the mix of her warriors cheering her name and lineage, along with the lamentation of the conquered menfolk._

Lol! Same here today😂

Just and fyi, I think they might actually call it emissary instead of ambassador (not sure why I called it that lol). So I did release a guide on the best methods for leveling companions with every skill, not sure if you saw that one yet but it might have some useful stuff in there :) That's one of the few ways you can level charm - I think they get a little when they complete quests and help another noble out with battles but those are very unreliable. Thanks for watching!!

I didn't either, very useful to know. Have them some where so you can get the noble troops easily

@@Strat-Guides What is charm useful for in a companion? You can level up their charm by having them as ambassador, but what does it do? Improve more relations than usual?

After 3.5k hours I don't think i've ever really spoken to the barkeep... that's pretty cool that they have that! I'll try to remember that for next time :)

I wish you had more than 3 likes but I'm glad I found your comment.

I’m glad you’ve found my comment useful. I also since realized that this dialogue option provides for a better RP in game.

So the classic RPG trope of "Hey barkeep, hear any rumors lately?" holds true?!? Thanks TaleWorlds!

what I really want to see is attributes being visible....would be nice to simply go for young characters with a certain attribute so you know they have high potential for a role.

Perfect timing! I covered how to farm XP, how to manage a family and wanderer companions - the next video will be the most important one though IMO - which companions to hire for which roles, which spouse to take based on needs and a TON of builds. I think I made 15 or so? It should be good! I'll have that out this weekend or early next week at the latest :D

Lol really?? I had not noticed that. I'm assuming that's a bug then, but it's pretty cool if they can get some combat XP from the tournaments at least :)

Thank you! I did a lot of the research work before I published the first video, which is why there was a big delay between Amir Timur and 1st episode of this series. I wanted to do everything in a single video, but I decided releasing a 40 - 60 minute video was a bad idea LOL The last episode of this series is going to be the best one! I spent hours and hours figuring out the best builds for many scenarios :)

Yeah that's one of my favorites! I call it the attack dog party :D

Yeah I am guilty of not spending much time on companions myself. The next episode covering all the builds was huge for me though, really eye opening :)

Do you plan on making any guides on caravans

@@Petergriffin3450 I might run a few tests in the future, but I found that Flesson19 ran his pretty much how I would do mine, and I know he spends a good 20 hours or so collecting data so I just refer back to his.

100 percent agree it would be awesome if it meshed.

I recall reading something about the new system working with the captain mode and so they aren't able to offer the option to change? I could be wrong there. My personal opinion is they did this change to make the game more compatible with console controls since they are going to release it before end of the year.

@@Strat-Guides Just another reason I hate consoles. Everything gets ruined and dumbed down just so that it can be played with a controller on a dumbed down system. SMH

​@@Bundy714 Yeah I know what you mean, most games that are ported over are generally less-fun than if they were PC exclusively. The last time I owned a console was back in high school, the original xbox LOL damn I'm getting old :D

I had originally planned to put this out in a single video but then as I was writing the script, I realized it was going to be 40 - 60 minute video LOL so I broke them up but had like 60% of the work done for each section. I'll have the last section done in a couple days too :) I spent a couple hours on the builds so I hope they are useful!

Thanks for always watching and helping with the algorithm!!

Lol mad props if you can actually get your significant other to sit down and watch a guide on Bannerlord :D I can't even get my wife to watch a small clip when I'm making these!

Thanks for watching! I'm glad to hear that :) I've been working on trying to make them easier to watch rather than just stuffing a ton of information into them.

Yeah smithing and athletics are my favorite skills to level up because of the free attributes!

Thanks!! I'll be covering all the builds, best companions and best spouses in the next one :D

And thank you for all the hard work on the caravan guide! You'e the only other Bannerlord creator that I trust enough to recommend. I see a lot of fluff out there that is not accurate or rigorous so I appreciate your help as well.

@@Strat-Guides Same to you

thatd kinda be cool and have them have rng backgrounds and names. it would be like uruks from shadow of war

Or handle it like the serve as soldier mod. Every equipment piece exists twice, one added a simple suffix and set the value to zero. These parts then will be given to companions created that way.

there is a mod on nexus that provides you with an option to promote your soldiers into companions.

100% agreed, I've echoed that same thought a few times - it would make for an amazing story and grow an actual bond rather than generic NPCs with stupid "lore" from the generic taverns lol

Yeah, there goes my sleep tonight. Some things you just cant unsee :)

Hahaha I love how the arm straps clip through the body, like he's intentionally trying to show off some hairy boobs!

Thank you for watching!!

Thanks for the support! Yeah I stopped asking people to sub a long time ago - in reality a sub is more for the person doing the sub than the content creator as the KZfaq algorithm mostly gives recommendations based on your recent views and not subs. It's a strange thing lol I think it used to be different back in the day but now it's pretty much irrelevant. However, watching, leaving a like and commenting REALLY help a lot and I'm very thankful for your support :D

I would be 100% on board with the tutor/trainers in towns! Especially for companions, it would make such a big difference.

Thanks for watching! I'm going to be working on episode 2 as soon as I finish this last video on companion builds :) I have everything done, just need to script and get some recordings and edit it together but all the research is done so shouldn't take me too long.

Thank you for watching! So I generally hold off on starting the second party until I am able to form an army and call them in. The reason being is the AI is pretty scatterbrained. They don't really hunt bandits that well and if you end up at war, they will (100% of the time) get caught and captured, throwing all those soldiers away. The only time I will make another party before being able to call an army is when I want to get that companion leveling up skill ASAP, but it's usually better to wait.

I was planning on this being the final episode, but when I was making the builds to cover, the list ended up being 15 and I need to test all of them too, so it would have ballooned the video length to 30 minutes or so. The next and last episode will be the most useful one out of all of them I think. This one felt more like an entry level to companions guide, which for most experienced players probably didn't take much away from it but I wanted to be thorough since a lot of new players will be coming along soon with the full release. Those are all great question - low level companions are 99% of the time better for the long term since you can get further along on the perk tree. 7 attributes in the desired category is the golden number since that plus 5 focus points gets you above 275 (final perk). There is no way of knowing their level without having them in your party, but you can always savescum or look it up. In general, the more skills you see in the encyclopedia the higher level they will be. Family members are always going to be preferable because you can pick their points early on. The issue is that it can take some time before you get to use them. I will be answering a lot more of these in the next one! I have most of the work done for this already, just need to script and edit it together so maybe 2-3 days at most.

Thank you for watching!

That's exactly how I feel too! It's very efficient to pump up intelligence for the main character. It's so painful to lose a long-term quartermaster or surgeon!

Lol there was an exploit where you gave noble prisoners to your companion parties (they have to be in your army) and you go to an ally dungeon that is at capacity. If you go in and out, it will give you a ton of influence each time you enter. You were right, not a dream :D

Thanks for the support!!

I think they removed that in 1.8 :( I used to do it from the menu as well and it was SO much faster, now you have to go in through the chat! I dunno why they did that?

Hahaha caught them unawares on the bench :P I was hoping to get them all in a single swipe, but I must have hit some thick skulls :P

I'm working with a couple people to get Portuguese and Russian subtitles added, not sure if that will help. I can try to help here as well if you want to let me know which part got cut off? Thanks for watching!

I think they changed it because the new system is more console-friendly. I'm not positive, but I can't imagine why they would have gone with this new system compared to the old?

It was much more tactical. I loved to be able to have all shock troops away from my shield wall, able to seperate light cav from heavy cav so they could do seperate things, and of course, put my scout, medic, and engineer in a retreat group.

@@Empdizz I mean you can sort of still do that, but it's a really laborious process and for certain unit mixed you can't really filter things properly. Just feels like a big step backwards.

​@@Empdizz yeah

Lol burp beep durp :)

Hahaha That would make for an epic play through - a cross dressing medieval knight!

Yeah same! I felt like that piture meme was a perfect representation lol

Yeah medicine is such a joke. I've only gotten close to it once, I think I was in the 260s or so?

Thanks for watching! I'm covering all of the companions in the next video, but for a clan leader to promote I think following the same build for a clan party leader would make sense - so having high steward for more troops and medicine to keep them alive after battle. Scouting is good if there are left over points. I have a pretty big section on the partly leader build that I'll be going over. I'll try to get that video done tomorrow!

Hahaha I almost forgot I made that gremlin! He could be the next big star for an upcoming campaign...

@@Strat-Guides just curious. You seems to be doing a lot of test runs and data mining stuffs, why not having a little stream while you're at it?

@@minhqun I suppose I could, although I'm not sure how interesting that would be to watch lol plus when I'm collecting data I usually stay quite focused and would be ignoring chat most of the time to make sure I don't make any mistakes. I used to make a lot of simple mistakes when I was in school - misplacing a negative sign or decimal in the wrong place lol

Medicine does function by turning deaths into injuries at higher medicine levels. However most perks do not work - the increased HP perk 275 does NOT work in autoresolve.

Ah man that's brutal, I hate not having internet/PC working! Thanks for watching (on your mobile I presume?)!

@@Strat-Guides yessir

Hahaha I forgot about that lil guy, thanks for reminding me :D

I prefer the old way more. I think they made the change to be more console friendly, although I'm not 100% sure that's the reason why.

In patch 1.7.2 they changed it :( lol everyone hates the new system

Yeah I think so. That's always the tricky part with character builds.

It's funny you mention that because I thought you have to meet them previously to start their tracking so I think that was the case prior to 1.8.0. This testing was done in 1.8.0 and you spawn in with everyone unknown, but touching a single town reveals all of them. Good catch, thanks for bringing that up!

@@Strat-Guides I see, thank you. I think it's a good change because I can only assume that they keep running away from me, which makes it very difficult to find them haha. Also, sorry for being curious, but why is it good that I brought it up? Or like why the thanks? Again, just curious. You don't have to respond if you don't want to and/or if you don't have the time.

@@zed9207 When I was running the tests for this video, I remember getting to that part and having a strange feeling that something was different when I got to that part, but I didn't look into it further and forgot about it. When you mentioned this, it popped back into my head and made sense why it seemed off. I'm pretty sure this was changed in 1.8.0

@@Strat-Guides I see. Yeah they must've changed it then. I'm currently playing on the 300+ day save and I have still never seen roughly half of all the companions. And thank you for all of the answers! It's always a pleasant surprise seeing something from you, both videos and comments alike. Keep up the good work.

​@@zed9207 Thank you! I was hoping to get the last video for this series out today but that's not going to happen lol I spent all day updating the database for companions and spouses since I forgot to include attribute points and main character level (which is extremely important for determining max skill level). It's all updated now so maybe tomorrow I'll have it ready :P

That's a tough one... I think you can barter with them when they are leading a party for you, give them stuff for free and get some relations. You can also let them roam free and if they get attacked and you help them out (or let them get captured and free them after battle) then you should get some relations that way. There might be others, I need to think about it

@@Strat-Guides Does playing table games w/them help...when u meet them in the KEEP or Tavern?

Good question! From what I recall, the captain perks are assigned to the units within the formation and it's dynamic so it can change mid-fight. I remember them saying if the captain goes down in battle, a new captain will take over (if available) and their bonuses will apply. That makes me thing moving units around will probably give the bonuses too, but I'm not 100% sure without testing.

@@Strat-Guides that sounds broken, because you can have all unit types in the game in the same formation. I like it.

They must have changed the name for some reason lol Lieutenant = captain role

I agree with that for the most part, but some of the level 275 perks are extremely powerful and you need 7 attributes minimum to hit 275 :( And some of the perks scale to be huge the closer to 330 you are so sometimes it does make sense to get 10 attribute from the main character. Often times I will take the 3 intelligence skills and then let a companion handle scouting, since I can get 3 skills to 330 for the price of one attribute. Great feedback, you make solid points!

@@Strat-Guides It certainly feels good to go in with the theoretical truth that you get full value out of an attribute if you max all 3 connected skills. On second though however my personal evaluation of engineering is that it doesn't matter at all. You can "win" the siege "mini-game" either way, it's just a matter of speed. Medicine is tricky, because minister of health is completely bonker - but whether you have medicine 80 or 274 doesn't feel all that impactful. And given the time it takes to get full use out of MoH, it doesn't feel worth it. As for stewardship: I usually start by grabbing either a suitable wanderer or my spouse to stick in there and let my younger (not youngest) sibling take over once she's ready. The biggest issue I have with the 3 INT skills is that they level very slowly. So even if I put in early attribute points, it takes forever for them to pay off. Compare that to trading or charm where you can boost XP gain a lot faster - which leads to quicker levels, which leads to maxing your second attribute a lot faster. Compare that to maxing INT and looking at engineering still sitting at 1 after all those hours of game time.

@@DrZaius3141 Agreed, Engineering needs a complete overhaul - the skill sucks and most of the perks are useless. I have faith that it's on their list to do before full release since they have been going down the line and fixed most of the others! True, I usually focus on endurance skills first to get the free attribute points and focus steward/medicine next once clan tier increases, making those two increase much faster. It's hard to level quickly with 20 troop limit lol

You can only assign 1 captain per formation at a time, so they won't stack :( You can put more than one companion in any given formation, but only 1 as the captain

Lol yup, you had ambassadors doing their lord's work :)

Yeah they do pop up. I have not spent time figuring out what the formula is for it, but my hunch says they try to maintain a range (so like 20 - 25).

I don't recall the exact name but it's one of the "scale" armors.

The title denotes what the wanderer will be most suited for, easiest example is the "Surgeon" title, which denotes a high medicine level. Worst part is that the titles aren't all named as straightforward as that one.

- and some companions are weird in that they fill multiple roles well. Golden and Falcon are two of my favorite caravan leader suffixes because they have 100 Tactics (makes them more likely to win fights when their caravans are raided). However, later on in the game, because of their high innate Leadership, they can start with the Heroic Leader perk, which gives +1 loyalty, making them excellent Aserai governors (because they always spawn as Aserai). Your best bet is to familiarize yourself with their stats with the information he posted on his first video in this series, cross-reference it with perks, and find companions that either innately get useful things at base... like "of the Wastes" having enough Bow ranks to both be an excellent archer commander... or to start with Discipline to be yet another great Aserai governor. Yeah, almost every good governor companion that gives +2 loyalty in cities of their culture at base with no investment is Aserai for whatever reason. >_>

That's the main focus of the next and final video :D I'll have all of that covered and have a ton of builds to use (I think I have like 15 of them ready to go!). I'm happy to help! I appreciate the support.

Smithing has always been the goto for fast money. They nerfed it a few times but it's still pretty easy to make money with it. I never played warband so I can't really talk to that point, but I don't think it's hard to make money in Bannerlord, but most methods are for later in the game.

Usually that means they don't have the XP or cash. Are they fighting constantly and not upgrading? That might mean most of them are dying off before they can upgrade so you might need to give the party leader more medicine skill.

@@Strat-Guides Yea I must give that a go and see, thanks man

Thank you for watching!! That sounds really odd... I don't use them often, but I don't ever remember my shield being useless when using throwing axes. Are you using any mods by chance? I can't think of any other reason why

@@Strat-Guides nope. just vanilla 1.8 beta patch. and its only against melee attacks. its just weird. he looks like he gets shoved or something.

@@nilexinator5901 I think I know what you're talking about - does it only happen when the enemy unit runs into your unit?

@@Strat-Guides something like that. and if they swing i get shoved. but sometimes i walk backwards while it happens

@@nilexinator5901 It happened to me again, but on stream this time. I had a throwing weapon equipped, so now I'm wondering if it has to do with ranged vs melee weapons?

I know it still works when your main character is the medic and goes down, but not sure for the companion. The only thing that I'm aware of that cuts off with going down in battle is captain bonuses. It's on my list to test! :)

@@Strat-Guides I ask because I used to put the softie companions in a separate group and retreat them at the start of the battle but that was before the deployment screen update

@@mortache Oh gotcha, yeah I think it should still work in that case as well.

That one is from the RBM mod and I think it was called the Knight's lance or something? It was meant for couch lancing but I guess you can 1H it as well lol

So it's specific to the RBM overhaul mod, I don't recall the name and I'm on my laptop right now trying to feed the kids but I can log in later and try to find it. It's the most expensive one you can get with the console cheats enabled. It's reeaaaly long and can brace, couch, etc. Pretty brutal weapon!

The max companion limit is 11 for non-family members. If you include family, the number is unlimited - the it's just a matter of how fast you can make babies lol Anyone assigned to run a caravan will still take up a companion slot, so if you have no family members, they most caravans possible with all the perks and clan tier 6 is 11. If you add in family members, you can literally have 100 caravans up and running lol Pretty wild!

@@Strat-Guides Thx for fast replay. I am new ...can I use family members to run caravans ? and from what i understand i can have a max numbers of caravans. and what about governors ? Do they also take slots ?

@@terrificlife1576 no problem, I'm happy to help! You can use family members for any role, there is no limit. You can use any companion in any role as well. The limit is with hiring companions, not how you use them. And same with family members, no limit, it only depends on how many kids you can pump out!

@@Strat-Guides thx a lot :)

@@Strat-Guides One more question :) Do childrens get stats based on their parents stats ? Or dont matter who you marry ? I create a reddit post but no one have give me a clear answer ?

Only party leaders will get tactics and leadership XP - they gain when troops in their party get kills. If they are captains from inside your own party, they will not get anything from the troops they lead as the XP goes to your main. Hope that helps!

@@Strat-Guides Ahh gotcha, so leveling companions exp can only be done through puting them in charge of party's and caravans?

@@RprinceV Yeah pretty much! Caravans will probably not net much XP there, but leading a party should be much better.

🙌

Kick them from your army before you go inside the fief, then invite them back into the army once you've done the business.

@@Strat-Guides much appreciated for the answer! I will do that

I don't recall if this was prior to that option being added - it's a fairly new feature and this guide is several months old now. I have to update a few of my guides now that full release is here!

@@Strat-Guides Thanks. Your guides are amazing. I think I looked into it and they don't allow relocation of stats or focus points but what you put in. You can reset everyone and it costs a lot. So basically you have to get lucky or min-max for stuff still, but at least you can now do strategies within the "stat trees" themselves, like unlocking recipies in blacksmithing then respecing into being a more efficient smelter once you have most unlocked.

You can hit multiple people with axe's, no mod required. But if you want it to work with every weapon check out Xorberax Legacy.

It's actually in the base game for a couple weapons! So 2H axes and 2H maces will both pass through. The most I've gotten was 3 kills in a single hit, from a full speed swing while mounted :)

First, depends on party size, there is safety in numbers; second, equipment, better gear reduce fatality; third how front is your companion? I always give my companion bow so they aren't at the frontline. Even they have melee, I give them the longest and shield.

@@chengkuoklee5734 Most of those companions had their own parties. I did a stupid mistake giving my party smith a two handed axe only though (he was my first companion to die). My scout and quartermaster with bows are still doing fine.

Ouch, that's really bad luck! The death chance by default is around 2% but it can go lower if you have better armor on. I would definitely avoid sending companions to combat without armor unless you don't care if they die or not. Thanks for the support btw, I really appreciate that! :D

So far in my latest playthrough I haven't lose my shield maiden. I didn't do reload for her at all. Here's how I did, she has middle-high tier armour (due to financial constrain); equipped with bow & arrow, big shield & one handed spear. She always in shield wall formation. I only order infantry to charge, in shield wall formation too, with enemy number reduced at least half. On top of that I also order my melee calvary to charge so they can breakup enemy formation scattering them all around, distract their attention further reducing the chance my shield maiden being targeted by multiple enemy.

@@Strat-Guides No problem 😉. I actually had some luck with death RNG. I took my wife I already had 3 children with to my party and she died on her very first battle xD.

Lol It's all good, TW doesn't explain a lot of things so it's understandable. Don't worry, I'll do my best to help out! Thanks for watching :D

Yeah that was one of the big changes in 1.7.2 a few months back and it's been a real headache to deal with since. It's still possible to get companions moved around but separating specific troop types can often times be impossible :(

So I need to go back and double check this because I didn't write any notes about it, but I believe they still get the XP for it. If I recall, it won't show levels gained for the end battle tally, but when you look at the actual level of the character it increases. I'll double check this today but I'm pretty certain that's how it works.

@@Strat-Guides Ah, cool. Thank you for your dedication

@@shadowblade5656 One more thing I forgot to add - For the main character it works this way. I can kill of my main character at the start of battle and still gain a ton of levels post battle, but it won't show on the end-battle review (the up arrows that tell you what skills leveled up).

Thank you, kind sir!

Lol look no further, the legend himself - Phil Johnson, father of many sons with Maid Marian! You sly dog you... ;)

I know! It's crazy how bad they are in melee now. At least they aren't totally useless with a bow or crossbow.

@@Strat-Guides True

Hahaha that one came from nowhere! I was going to delete it but figured it would be a nice look at what REALLY goes on behind the scenes :)

Yeah this one was definitely not for experienced players as most of the info was pretty basic. The next and final video is going to be the big one! I have 16 companions builds to cover, all 65 different types of companions to hire and covering which spouses are the best to marry.

Sorry i'm not sure which you are referring to. I'll be happy to help explain further, is it regarding the player taking the party roles?

@@Strat-Guides I was kidding cause of your outtake. Anyway, I appreciate your videos and testing

@@DrummahMike oh hahaha got it! I'm a little out of it today, the kids were up all night

I'm using the RBM mod for the B-roll in these recent guides, so the spear thrust damage is quite a bit stronger against unarmored targets. It's still not great against late-game armor.

@@Strat-Guides they should have make like late-game daggers, spears, maces which would resemble late medieval anti-armour weapons of this period :)

@@piotrnogas8448 Yeah it seems the armor made the leap forward and the weapons didn't hehe

the -3 is only if the culture of the fief doesn't match the owner - the governor is +1 for matching culture and -1 for not matching. Sorry, I'm not sure if I understood the comment or not!