Bannerlord Prisoners: Recruit, Ransom, Prison Break
Short answer: a prisoner can be turned into a soldier, sold at a tavern, or, if a lord, ransomed or broken out of a dungeon. The part most guides miss is the recruitment math: converting costs (Level + 6)² − 10 conformity per prisoner, conformity grows by 10 + Leadership × 0.05 per hour, and your main party applies that growth to only one prisoner type per hour. Regular troops sell for 25% of their recruit cost. Recruiting costs no gold, only morale (−1 per regular, −2 per bandit).
Version covered: v1.4.8 (released August 10, 2026; Steam announcement). On November 5, 2026 the official Steam news feed still showed v1.4.8 as the latest stable build, with v1.5.0 as a beta.
How I sourced this. The formulas come from a third-party archive of the decompiled game assemblies (Sartiye/Bannerlord-Taleworlds-Assembly-Decompiled-Archive), read at the commit titled "v1.4.8" (a948fdf). It is a community archive, not an official TaleWorlds document. I checked that the eight files used here are unchanged in the later (beta) commits. The wiki pages Prisoners and Ransom describe classic Warband rules (5 prisoners per skill point, a 5% lord escape chance), which do not apply to Bannerlord, so I did not use them.
Three uses, for different prisoners
- Recruit (regular troops only): use the prisoner tab in the party screen. It costs no gold. You spend "conformity" (my label for the per-prisoner counter; I did not confirm the in-game wording) and morale. Lords cannot be recruited.
- Sell to a ransom broker in a tavern: low value for regular troops, high for lords. Formulas below.
- Lords: ransom offers or a prison break: the lord's clan may send a ransom courier, and lords held in an enemy fortress can be broken out.
Recruiting: how much conformity, how fast
The conformity needed per prisoner is (Level + 6)² − 10 (DefaultPrisonerRecruitmentCalculationModel). Tier is ceil((Level − 5) ÷ 5) (DefaultCharacterStatsModel), so Levels 11-15 are Tier 2, 16-20 Tier 3, 21-25 Tier 4, 26-30 Tier 5 and 31-35 Tier 6. The AI recruiting check ignores Tier 1 and bandit-culture troops; what the party screen allows is decided separately by the screen logic.
The base growth is 10 + Leadership × 0.05 per hour: 10 at Leadership 0, 15 at 100, 20 at 200. Perks add percentage bonuses on top.
| Troop Level | Needed per prisoner | At 10/hour | At 15/hour (Leadership 100) | At 20/hour (Leadership 200) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 (Tier 2 low) | 279 | 28 h | 19 h | 14 h |
| 15 (Tier 2 high) | 431 | 44 h | 29 h | 22 h |
| 16 (Tier 3 low) | 474 | 48 h | 32 h | 24 h |
| 21 (Tier 4 low) | 719 | 72 h | 48 h | 36 h |
| 26 (Tier 5 low) | 1014 | 102 h | 68 h | 51 h |
| 31 (Tier 6 low) | 1359 | 136 h | 91 h | 68 h |
These hours are rounded up and assume no perks and all growth going to one prisoner. The next point changes how that plays out.
The catch: one prisoner type gets conformity each hour
The main party's hourly routine (RecruitPrisonersCampaignBehavior) starts at a random entry in the prisoner list and adds conformity to the first regular type that still has members who are not yet recruitable, then stops. So no matter how many types you hold, only one hour's worth of growth (10-20 points) is added per hour. Twenty Level 21 prisoners need 20 × 719 = 14,380 conformity; at 15 per hour that is about 959 hours, roughly 40 days. The counter is shared per type, not per head.
What to do about it: carry only the troop types you actually want, rather than every low-tier prisoner you can fit. Mixing types splits the same hourly growth between them. The routine runs while you wait or travel, but not during a map battle.
Perks that affect recruiting
Skill requirements follow the perk tier table in DefaultPerks (25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200…). Perk names are the English ones; I did not confirm the Japanese names. Perks in the same row are mutually exclusive.
| Skill / requirement | Perk | Prisoner-related effect (party leader) |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership 50 | Fervent Attacker | +50% recruitment rate for Tier 1-3 prisoners (the alternative, Stout Defender, gives +50% for Tier 4+) |
| Leadership 100 | Loyalty and Honor | +30% recruitment rate for non-bandit prisoners |
| Leadership 125 | Presence | No morale penalty for recruiting prisoners of your own culture (the text says "your faction"; the code compares the leader's culture) |
| Leadership 150 | Veteran's Respect | Bandit troops can be upgraded into regular troop lines (the perk the upgrade check requires) |
| Leadership 200 | Lead by Example / Trusted Commander | +50% for infantry prisoners / for ranged prisoners |
| Roguery 50 | Two Faced | No morale loss when converting bandit prisoners (the alternative, Deep Pockets, cuts bandit troop wages by 20%) |
| Roguery 100 | Promises | +30% recruitment rate for bandit prisoners; bandit troops eat 50% less |
The morale price: −1 per regular and −2 per bandit recruited (GetPrisonerRecruitmentMoraleEffect). Ten bandits cost −20 morale.
How bonuses stack: they are factor-style bonuses, which I read as adding together on the base value (ExplainedNumber AddFactor). At Leadership 200 (base 20), an infantry Tier 3 regular with Fervent Attacker (+50%), Loyalty and Honor (+30%) and Lead by Example (+50%) would get +130%, about 46 per hour (20 × 2.3; rounding unconfirmed). At Leadership 100 you cannot take Lead by Example (requirement 200), so the same prisoner gets +80% from the other two: 15 × 1.8 = 27. I did not verify that stacking in-game. Check the breakdown on your own screen.
Selling: regular troops fetch 25% of recruit cost
A regular troop sells for its recruit cost × 0.25 (DefaultRansomValueCalculationModel). Roguery's Manhunter (requirement 100) adds 20%. The recruit-cost figures themselves come from another model I did not check, so read actual prices off the tavern screen.
A lord's value is recruit cost + (clan tier + 2) × 200 × (2.5 for a clan leader, 6 for a kingdom ruler) + √gold × 6, multiplied by a kingdom factor: 0.5 for a clan outside any kingdom, (fiefs + 1) ÷ 9 under 8 fiefs, and 1 + √(fiefs − 8) × 0.1 from 8 up. The fixed part by clan tier is 600, 800, 1,000, 1,200, 1,400, 1,600 (Tiers 1-6). I did not confirm the recruit-cost term, so there is no total example. Ransom Broker (requirement 200) adds 25% when the party leader sells a lord.
Ransom offers for lords you hold
For a lord you hold, a courier from his clan arrives with a 20% chance per day (12% after you decline). According to RansomOfferCampaignBehavior the amount is 1.1 times the barter value and the offer lapses after 2 days. If the payer cannot cover it (gold + 1,000 below the amount), no offer appears. Accepting frees the lord.
The old Warband wiki says refusing costs honor and relations. The v1.4.8 decline handler contains no relation or renown loss. I did not search every other system, and the effect on renown is unconfirmed.
Prison breaks: cost, guards, rewards
(DefaultPrisonBreakModel) You can stage a break when the target is a town or castle, does not belong to your faction, and holds at least one lord prisoner.
- Start cost = 1,000 + (ceil(ransom value ÷ 2000 × security × 40 − Roguery × 10), rounded down to hundreds, 0 if under 100).
- Example: ransom value 3,000 and security 50 gives 4,000 at Roguery 0, 3,000 at Roguery 100, 2,000 at Roguery 200.
- Guards = ceil(2 + security ÷ 30) + (wall level − 1). Security 60 with walls 2 gives 5; security 30 with walls 1 gives 3.
- Relation reward: +15 with the freed lord.
- Roguery reward value: a random 2,000-4,500 on success and 500-1,000 on failure.
The wiki's Skills (Bannerlord) page also says prison breaks give the best Roguery experience. I did not trace whether the reward value is experience itself.
One mismatch: the community wiki's Towns (Bannerlord) page gives Two Faced as "Roguery 75", while the v1.4.8 code requires 50. I cannot tell whether the wiki is outdated or wrong.
Prisoner limits and escapes
- Party prisoner limit = 10 + healthy members ÷ 2 (rounded down) + perks. Manhunter (Roguery 100) +10, Terror (Two-handed 175) +10, Vantage Point (Scouting 225) +10, Stamina (Athletics 75) +5, which also gives −10% escape chance (DefaultPartySizeLimitModel).
- Town or castle limit = 60 + wall level × 40 + building effects. I did not check the building amounts.
- Escape reduction: Sweet Talker (Roguery 25) cuts prisoner escape by 20% when you govern that settlement; Ransom Broker (Roguery 200) cuts lord escape by 30%.
The actual escape-chance formula was not in the code I read. Only the perks' reductions are listed.
What this article could not confirm
- Recruit-cost amounts (real selling prices for regulars) and a total for a lord's value.
- Japanese perk names and the in-game wording for conformity.
- Whether the bonuses add up as read, on an actual screen.
- Renown and relation effects of capturing, freeing or selling.
- Building amounts for dungeon capacity, and the escape formula.
- A Gamerguides Roguery list updated in December 2022 includes Slave Trader (Roguery 100) and others; no such name appears in the v1.4.8 DefaultPerks. I treated it as an older version and used none of its numbers.
Summary
Three points. First, recruiting is paid in conformity and time, not gold. You need (Level + 6)² − 10 per prisoner, you gain 10 + Leadership × 0.05 per hour, and only one type gets it each hour. Second, keep the recruit list narrow. More types means splitting the same growth. Third, use lords through ransom offers (20% a day) and prison breaks, whose cost depends on security and Roguery. For the route that turns bandits into regular troops see the Sturgia troop tree guide, and for companions' Roguery and Leadership see the companion guide.
Sources
- Sartiye/Bannerlord-Taleworlds-Assembly-Decompiled-Archive, commit "v1.4.8" (a948fdf): DefaultPrisonerRecruitmentCalculationModel (conformity, hourly growth, morale), RecruitPrisonersCampaignBehavior (one type per hour), DefaultRansomValueCalculationModel (selling), RansomOfferCampaignBehavior (ransom offers), DefaultPrisonBreakModel (prison break), DefaultPartySizeLimitModel (limits), DefaultPerks (perk effects and requirements), DefaultPartyTroopUpgradeModel (bandit upgrades), DefaultCharacterStatsModel (tier formula), PartyScreenLogic (recruit cost). Decompiled game code in a community archive; not official TaleWorlds material.
- TaleWorlds - WS v1.2.8 / BL v1.4.8 announcement (release date; official)
- Steam - Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord news (v1.4.8 is the latest stable build; official)
- mountandblade.fandom.com - Skills (Bannerlord) and Towns (Bannerlord) (Roguery experience hint; the Two Faced mismatch; community wiki)
- Gamerguides - Roguery (updated December 2022; used only to flag the mismatch)
