Hark! Friends, I bring you tales from my travels across Calradia. Tales of tournay wealth. Tales of Mount and Blade!
Mount and Blade: Warband is a open world action adventure RPG, but unlike others in this category you are by no means the main character in this story. No, instead you are a nothing, a nobody and will continue to be so until you get yourself together and start making a name for yourself. Let me tell you that in a world without mail making a name for yourself is harder than it seems.
You can win a few fights against stray brigands and you might earn the respect of the people with you but no one in even the local village will know or care. No, you need to think of winning on a larger stage… The tournament! Of course it seems so simple now, you could spend your time fighting 20 battles and risking your life and loot in each or you could fight a few times with blunt weapons and get just as much if not more recognition for it, not to mention the lavish life you could lead by betting on yourself to win.
Sounds easy doesn’t it? Just win the tournament, right? Well its not. In fact, its complete bullshit. Remember how I said you’re a nobody? Well nobodies have no skills, no experience fighting and wont stand a chance in a tournament. Unless of course, you cheese it all. See, in every round in the tournament every fighter will be issued a random weapon, and you’ve probably only got decent with one. So if your experience is anything like mine you’ll breeze through most of the tourney with a sword and shield just to be given a bow and arrow against a horse in the final round. “Fuck”.
Yes indeed. “Fuck”… Don’t worry your little head, all archers are also given a secondary weapon. A little wooden dagger. Yes this handful of firewood is actually a weapon of mass destruction in the tournament, especially in one and one fights. You can swing that little bastard faster than your opponent can and you can knock out a horse with a few swings on the behind.
With smart bets you can end up winning 3500 gold each tournament and enough renown that 20 fights with local looters are nothing more than a passing fling. You can go from tournament to tournament raking in the dough and once you’ve made enough money doing that you can start the long game. Becoming a small time business owner!
That’s right, investing into small businesses allows you to make passive income, and M&B has a nifty little mechanic where you can supply the businesses yourself for cheaper if you provide the raw materials.
And thus begins the life of a grain smuggler.
I started many breweries in the northern areas of the map, they were earning me enough money to upkeep my army and make me money and yet I wanted more. I devised a plan to earn silly amounts of money with minimal effort. I would go to every village in neighbouring territories, I then bought all the grain I could carry, this caused local shortages, rival breweries couldn’t supply themselves and thus started losing money, the only ale in the land was being produced in my breweries, by my people, making my income. This tripled my income and it only took a few in game days, all the while I was just playing the game.
Of course I could have looted the villages I came across but this would’ve lead to my reputation being lowered from the travelling tournament champion to the wandering bandit. No instead I thought it much more cruel and profitable to become the most famous warrior in the realm by winning championships, looting bandits, trading loot for grain at no cost to myself and making bank with beer.
There is of course much more to this game, but quite honestly I haven’t gotten to that yet. I’m having fun wandering from city to city making a name for myself and becoming silly rich. You can siege castles and towns, become a vassal to many kings and rise the ranks to lordship if that’s your bag. I will eventually get to it I’m sure but I would much rather become the most powerful stick wielder Calradia has ever know.
8/10
Cameron's Considerations 
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