Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Early Game Forging Money-Making Build Guide

To claim supremacy over Calradia, a powerful army and abundant funds are essential. However, the early stages of the game are often plagued by financial difficulties. In 'Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord', the most effective way to fundamentally resolve this problem and even obtain the highest-performance self-made equipment is the 'forging money-making build'. This article thoroughly explains the specific steps from character creation to becoming a millionaire, based on the latest v1.2.x environment. Even beginners can establish an economic advantage from the early game by following these steps. (This article is written based on information from the stable v1.2.x series and beta v1.3.x series as of May 28, 2026)

Build Overview and Concept

This build is an economy-specialized build focused on the production skill 'Smithing' rather than combat, aiming to consistently generate enormous funds from the early game. Using the funds gained from selling high-value weapons created through smithing, you can efficiently increase your Clan Tier by hiring high-quality soldiers, recruiting companions, and investing in workshops and caravans. Ultimately, you can create your own legendary weapons, gaining a dominant advantage in combat as well.

Build Concept: From Economic Specialization to All-Rounder

In the early game, you will relentlessly raise your smithing skill and focus on making money. From the mid-game onwards, you will form elite troops with abundant funds and embark on territorial expansion. Your self-made powerful weapons will enable you to fight like a thousand men, making tournament victories easy. The greatest strength of this build is its ability to establish an economic foundation as quickly as possible, from which you can branch out into any playstyle.

Recommended Stats and Skill Allocation

To maximize smithing from character creation, the allocation of stats and focus points is crucial. Especially Endurance directly impacts maximum smithing stamina and skill cap, so prioritize it.

Early Game Strategy (Skill Levels 1-25)

From the very beginning of the game, you can efficiently raise your smithing skill by acting strategically. Your first goal is to acquire the most crucial perk available at skill level 25.

Character Creation and Initial Actions

During character creation, ensure you allocate 5 points to Endurance and 2-3 focus points to Smithing, as mentioned earlier. For culture, 'Battania' is recommended for easily acquiring inexpensive Hardwood, or 'Aserai' for readily available weapons used for part unlocking, which will be discussed later. Once the game begins, use your initial funds to travel through villages in Battania, collecting as much 'Hardwood' as possible at low prices. Villages tend to have lower prices than cities.

Skill Leveling via Charcoal Refinement

Take the collected Hardwood to a smithy in any city. From the 'Refine' tab in the smithy, repeatedly execute the recipe 'refine 2 Hardwood into 1 Charcoal'. This task alone will make your smithing skill increase remarkably, and you should quickly reach skill level 25. Once you reach skill level 25, be sure to acquire the 'Efficient Charcoal Maker' perk from the perk selection screen. This perk dramatically increases charcoal production from '2 Hardwood into 3 Charcoal', making it an essential perk for future smithing work.

Mid-Game Skill Leveling and Money-Making Preparation (Skill Levels 25-100)

Once a stable supply of charcoal is established, the next step is to unlock weapon part blueprints. This will enable you to create higher-value weapons.

Efficient Method for Unlocking Weapon Parts

The most efficient way to unlock new weapon parts is by 'Smelting' weapons. Particularly efficient are 'Pugio', sold in Imperial cities, and 'Tribesman Throwing Daggers', obtainable in Aserai cities. These weapons are inexpensive to purchase, yield many types of materials when smelted, and offer very high experience efficiency for part unlocking. Travel through cities, buy them all up, and smelt them one by one. Through this process, fundamental parts for various weapon types, not just daggers, will be unlocked.

Acquiring Important Perks

To further accelerate part unlocking, aim for skill level 75. At skill level 75, you can acquire 'Curious Smelter' and 'Curious Smith', which have a tremendous effect of increasing part unlocking probability by 100% (effectively doubling it) during smelting and forging, respectively. You will choose one, but 'Curious Smelter' is recommended in the early game as you will frequently use smelting. This will dramatically increase the speed of part unlocking.

Serious Money-Making and Growth Plan

Once you have enough parts and materials, it's time to move into the serious money-making phase by forging high-value weapons. From here, consider utilizing companions and systematizing your workflow.

Build Growth Plan

1. Early Game (Clan Tier 0-1): Establish a mass production system for charcoal and focus on unlocking parts by smelting Pugio and throwing knives. Prioritize reaching smithing skill level 75 and acquiring important perks.
2. Mid-Game (Clan Tier 2-3): Start forging items like 'two-handed swords' using unlocked parts, which consume relatively fewer materials. Sell the crafted weapons to earn funds, then use that money to acquire more materials and weapons for smelting, raising your smithing skill above 100. Acquire perks that allow you to refine 'Steel' and 'Fine Steel' to strengthen your production system.
3. Late Game (Clan Tier 4+): Once high-Tier parts are available, begin mass producing 'Javelin' and 'Polearms' with swing damage, which are among the most expensive weapons in the game. The value of weapons skyrockets by using high-Tier parts and enhancing the damage performance (especially swing damage) of the finished product. By this point, you should be able to mass produce weapons that earn tens of thousands of Denar per item.

Utilizing Companions and Role Assignment

Smithing consumes 'smithing stamina' set for each character, and once stamina is depleted, you can no longer work. Stamina recovers by waiting in a city, but this is not efficient. Therefore, it becomes extremely important to hire companions with epithets like 'the Smith' from taverns. Since they can also perform smithing tasks, you can operate a 24-hour smithing workshop by rotating them with your main character.
Furthermore, efficiency is maximized by assigning roles through perk acquisition.

• Main Character: Acquire perks that increase part unlocking probability like 'Curious Smelter/Smith' and those that make it easier to craft high-quality weapons.
• Companion A: Acquire 'Efficient Charcoal Maker' and have them focus on charcoal production.
• Companion B: Acquire the 'Steel Maker' series to improve the efficiency of refining iron from crude iron, and steel from iron, and assign them to material production.

Summary

The 'forging money-making build' has the power to dramatically change the early game experience in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. By steadily following the steps from character creation attribute allocation, charcoal making, part unlocking, and mass production of high-value weapons, anyone can accumulate immense wealth. Although selling prices have been adjusted in past patches, it remains the most efficient money-making method in the game. With the overwhelming financial power gained from this build, organize the strongest army, build your own kingdom, and aim for the unification of Calradia.