Bannerlord Sturgia Troop Tree: Wages and Upgrades

Short answer: hold the line with Heavy Spearmen and Heavy Axemen, and note that you can also reach noble cavalry by upgrading captured Sea Raiders, which does not depend on a village spawn. Sturgian noble troops appear in villages only rarely, but Sea Raider Chiefs upgrade straight into Sturgian Druzhinniks if you have the Leadership perk the wiki calls Veteran's Respect. That is a route into shock cavalry that does not wait on a village spawn. ★How quickly it gets there, and how many Sea Raiders there are to convert, is not something the sources state, so this article does not compare the two.

This is written for stable v1.4.8, released 10 August 2026. Checking Steam's announcements today, the only newer entry is the v1.5.0 beta notice of 19 August 2026, so v1.4.8 is still the stable build. ★However, not one of the wiki pages this article draws on states that it was checked against v1.4.8. The last section sets out exactly which versions they do cite. Read the wages and skills as a guide, not as measured v1.4.8 values.

The full Sturgian troop tree: wages, sources and upgrade costs

The community wiki's Sturgian tree has 24 nodes, and 22 of them have pages. The remaining two, Sturgian Crewman and Sturgian Veteran Shipman, are red links from the wiki's own tree, so no figures could be checked for them. Where the wiki records a value as "?", this article says so rather than filling it in.

Wages track tier almost exactly: 2 at T1, 3 at T2, 5 at T3, 8 at T4, 12–15 at T5 and 17 at T6. ★Noble troops are the exception, and they are cheaper than line troops of the same tier. A Sturgian Warrior Son (T2) costs 2 denars against 3 for a T2 line troop, and a Varyag Veteran (T4) costs 7 against 8. Sturgian nobles are stronger and no more expensive to keep than their tier-mates.

★Three units have no wage on the wiki at all — Sturgian Horse Raider, Sturgian Heavy Axeman and Sturgian Heroic Line Breaker, whose fields read "? denars/day". The two T5 infantry sit beside the Heavy Spearman at 15 denars, so you can bracket them, but this article does not print a number for them.

Line upgrades run 15, 25, 50 then 100 denars. Only the steps that put a man on a horse cost a mount as well: Sturgian Brigand to Hardened Brigand takes 1 mount plus 50 denars, and Hardened Brigand to Horse Raider takes 1 war mount plus 100 denars.

Sturgian nobles stay on foot until tier five, whatever the tree diagram shows

The noble line is infantry from T2 to T4; it only becomes cavalry at the T5 Druzhinnik. The sources genuinely disagree here, so here is what each says.

• The wiki's troop-tree table puts a cavalry icon on the Varyag Veteran (T4).
• The Varyag Veteran's own page calls it "tier-four noble infantry" and its equipment table lists Mount: N/A.
• That same page sets its upgrade cost at 1 war mount plus 100 denars — the horse is bought on the next step, not this one.
• The Sturgia faction page lists as a weakness that "noble troops take a long time to level up into cavalry (tier five)".
• The Druzhinnik's page reads "tier-five noble cavalry".

Four readings say T4 is infantry; only the diagram's icon says cavalry. This article treats T4 as noble infantry, and the practical consequence is clear: you have no shock cavalry until Druzhinniks. If you want mounted damage early, take the line route through Brigand and Hardened Brigand instead.

Upgrading Sea Raiders into Druzhinniks

★This is a second way into the noble line, one that does not wait on a village spawn. Sea Raiders are the bandits of the Sturgian coast and their culture is listed as Bandits — yet their upgrade paths lead directly into Sturgian line and noble troops.

★The Sea Raider Chief is the striking case: its only upgrade is a Sturgian Druzhinnik. A captured Chief does not become a better bandit, it becomes T5 noble cavalry.

1. Clear Sea Raider hideouts and parties in Sturgian territory and take prisoners into your party. The wiki only says noble village spawns are "rare" and gives no figures on how plentiful Sea Raiders are, so the claim here is narrower: there is a route into the noble line that does not wait on village spawns
2. A Sea Raider can branch into a Sea Raider Warrior or into a Sturgian Soldier (T3 line infantry). Take the second if you simply need bodies in the shield wall
3. A Sea Raider Warrior can branch into a Sea Raider Chief or into a Varyag Veteran (T4 noble infantry). This is the step that enters the noble line
4. A Sea Raider Chief upgrades only into a Sturgian Druzhinnik (T5 noble cavalry). This is how you build shock cavalry without waiting on village spawns
5. Druzhinniks then upgrade into Druzhinnik Champions (T6) at 17 denars/day, the same wage as every other culture's T6 noble

★There is a condition. The wiki notes each of these branches as requiring the Leadership perk "Veteran's Respect". The wiki has no page for that perk, so the skill level it unlocks at could not be verified. Guessing a number would wreck a build plan, so none is given here. Check your Leadership perk list in game before committing to this route.

Choosing between the three tier-five infantry

Sturgia's backbone is three T5 infantry whose equipment differs decisively. Figures below are what the wiki records for v1.3.13.

• Heavy Spearman — the core of the shield wall. Polearm 140 makes it the only anti-cavalry option of the three, and its Heavy Lamellar Over Hauberk is the heaviest body armour among them. It carries no throwing weapon, so it adds nothing at range.
• Heavy Axeman — holds the wall and still throws. It keeps a shield while carrying Raider Throwing Axes at Throwing 130. With Polearm 80, leave the cavalry charges to the spearmen.
• Heroic Line Breaker — a charge unit only. Two Handed 150 and Athletics 150 are the highest here, but it has no shield at all. Put it in front of archers and it melts. Keep it behind the wall and release it once the enemy is already engaged.

The Sturgian pattern is a wall plus a flanking hammer. The wiki's Sturgia page calls a wall of Heavy Spearmen and Heavy Axemen "nigh invulnerable to archer fire and cavalry charges" once formed, but says that unlike Vlandian or Battanian pike formations it cannot effectively destroy enemy cavalry. So the wall absorbs, and the Druzhinniks hit the flank or rear.

Sturgian strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: deep heavy-infantry options, with axes common across the roster, which helps in melee
• Strength: most infantry carry throwing weapons, offsetting the mediocre archers
• Strength: large round shields make them resistant to missiles in sieges
• Strength: mounted skirmishers are an effective counter to enemy cavalry
• Weakness: mediocre archers, and no true horse archers at all
• Weakness: nobles take a long time to reach cavalry at tier five
• Weakness: the territory is stretched along a wide border, which tends to produce wars on distant fronts at once
• Weakness: they take the snow movement penalty like everyone else. There is no home-ground bonus as the Aserai have, so defending their own frontier is slow

Economically the wiki rates Sturgia as medium with 7 towns, 8 castles and 32 villages, and names its main goods as fur, flax and cattle (main producer of each) plus fish.

How the tier-six noble compares with the other five cultures

All six T6 nobles cost 17 denars/day, so wage tells you nothing; only the profile differs.

Read the Druzhinnik Champion as a horseman who still works dismounted. Polearm 170 does not reach the 260 of the Imperial Elite Cataphract or the Vlandian Banner Knight, but Athletics 140 is the highest of the five mounted entries. Across all six it is second: the Battanian Fian Champion's 170 is higher, and the remaining four sit at 60–90. Throwing 90 is also high for a cavalry unit. The Sturgia page lists exactly this as a strength: noble shock cavalry on par with other cultures' cavalry that doubles as effective infantry because of its increased athletics.

★Where these numbers come from, and the version caveat

The wages, skills and equipment above are what the community wiki (Fandom) records. It is fan-run and is not an official wiki.

★The important finding: checking the stated version on all 22 pages, not one of them cites v1.4.8.

• v1.3.13 (released 24 December 2025) — Horse Raider, Veteran Bowman, Heavy Spearman, Heavy Axeman, Heroic Line Breaker, Druzhinnik Champion
• v1.3.14 (released 3 February 2026) — Reaver
• v1.5.3 beta, v1.5.7 beta, v1.5.10 beta — Recruit, Woodsman, Warrior, Warrior Son, Brigand, Hunter, Soldier, Varyag, Hardened Brigand, Spearman, Line Breaker, Varyag Veteran, Druzhinnik
• No version stated — Peasant, Archer

So every Sturgian page that states a version uses either a v1.3 build older than stable or a v1.5 beta newer than stable. The Peasant and Archer pages state no version at all, so their figures have no known date. Either way, no page says it was checked against v1.4.8. Note too that the tier-six table above mixes in v1.2.11 (Vlandian Banner Knight). The checked version is given per unit in the right-hand column of that table.

★Also, v1.5.3, v1.5.7 and v1.5.10 do not appear in Steam's announcement history. Going back through 60 official Steam news items today, the newest v1.5 entry is the v1.5.0 beta notice of 19 August 2026, with no later beta announcements. TaleWorlds does ship betas announced only on its forums, so this does not mean those builds are fictional — only that they could not be confirmed here. Treat beta-derived figures as possibly different on stable.

On the other hand, tier layout, recruitment sources, upgrade costs and equipment loadouts are not what patches usually move. Skill values are. The Battanian Fian Champion and Khuzait Khan's Guard both had Bow cut from 260 to 200 in v1.3.8, and only the Fian was restored to 220 in v1.3.13. You can plan a composition from this article; check exact skill numbers in the in-game encyclopaedia.

Summary

• Line troops form a wall of Heavy Spearmen and Heavy Axemen. Polearm 140 spearmen stop cavalry while axemen soften with throwing axes
• The Heroic Line Breaker has no shield. Highest 2H and Athletics of the three, but never put it in front of archers
• ★Nobles are infantry through T4 and only mount up at the T5 Druzhinnik, contradicting the icon in the tree diagram
• ★Village noble spawns are rare; upgrading Sea Raiders with the Leadership perk Veteran's Respect reaches the noble line without waiting on one. A Sea Raider Chief goes straight to Druzhinnik
• The T6 Druzhinnik Champion has the highest Athletics of the five mounted nobles, second overall behind the Fian Champion, and fights well dismounted
• ★No source page cites v1.4.8. Sturgian pages that state a version use v1.3 or a v1.5 beta, and the Peasant and Archer pages state none at all

Sources: the community wiki's Sturgia page, its Sturgian troop tree, the individual unit pages, and the official Steam announcement for v1.4.8.