5 Essential Bannerlord 2 Mods for Enhanced Companion Gameplay

Companions in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord are crucial for building a powerful warband and managing your growing empire. However, the vanilla game’s companion system can feel limited. This article explores five essential mods that address common pain points and dramatically improve your companion experience. We’ll dive into how these mods enhance companion customization, skill progression, and overall usefulness, providing concrete steps to implement them and optimize your gameplay.

Many players feel that Bannerlord’s companions lack depth and customization. The biggest complaints revolve around limited skill development, inflexible roles, and a lack of engaging interactions. The following mods tackle these issues head-on, offering solutions to make your companions more valuable and engaging members of your party.

1. Character Reload: Complete Companion Customization

Character Reload is a game-changer for companion customization. It allows you to completely respec your companions, redistributing their skill points and perks to better suit your needs.

• Respecing Companion Skills: This is invaluable for correcting poor AI choices or specializing companions for specific roles like scouting, medicine, or engineering. No more struggling with a scout who’s terrible at scouting.
• Changing Companion Culture: You can change the culture of any character to any other culture, this is very convenient for building a cultural diverse army.
• How to Use: Download and install Character Reload from Nexus Mods (ensure it’s compatible with your Bannerlord version). In-game, find the companion you want to respec, open the encyclopedia, search for them, and there will be a “reload” button in the character’s page.

2. Improved Companions: Smarter AI and Skill Progression

Improved Companions focuses on enhancing the AI and skill progression of your companions. It tweaks the way companions level up and choose perks, resulting in more competent and specialized individuals.

• Smarter Perk Selection: The mod improves the AI’s perk selection, preventing companions from choosing useless or counterproductive perks.
• Realistic Skill Progression: Skill progression is adjusted to make more sense and avoid companions becoming jacks-of-all-trades. They will now focus on their primary skills.
• How to Use: Download and install Improved Companions from Nexus Mods. No further configuration is typically needed; the mod automatically affects companion behavior.

3. Bannerlord Tweaks: Fine-Tuning Companion Behavior

Bannerlord Tweaks is a comprehensive mod that allows you to adjust various aspects of the game, including companion behavior. This mod gives you the power to fine-tune how your companions act in battles and manage their roles within your party.

• Adjusting Companion Wages: This is especially useful for managing your finances in the early game when every denar counts.
• Influencing Companion AI: Bannerlord Tweaks allows for subtle but impactful changes to AI behavior, such as prioritizing self-preservation in combat.
• How to Use: Download Bannerlord Tweaks from Nexus Mods. Configure the mod via its in-game menu to adjust companion-specific settings.

These mods go beyond simple fixes and introduce new layers of depth to your companion interactions, making them feel more like real characters with their own stories and motivations.

4. Notable Traits Expanded: Unique Companion Backstories

Notable Traits Expanded adds a wealth of new traits and backstories to companions, making them feel more unique and fleshed out.

• Expanding Companion Lore: This mod enriches the game world by providing companions with more compelling and diverse backgrounds.
• Affecting Interactions: These traits can influence companion behavior and dialogue, leading to more engaging interactions.
• First-Hand Experience: I found that recruiting companions with unique traits added a significant roleplaying element to my playthrough. It made me think more carefully about who I chose to bring into my party.
• How to Use: Simply install Notable Traits Expanded from Nexus Mods. The new traits will automatically appear on newly generated companions.

5. Detailed Character Creation: Crafting Your Ideal Companions

Detailed Character Creation is typically used on the player character, but it can also be used to recreate or perfect your companions in a new save.

• Complete Control Over Appearance: This mod grants you unparalleled control over every aspect of your character’s appearance, allowing you to create truly unique and memorable individuals. This also extends to companions if you start a new game.
• Refining Character Aesthetics: Players looking for maximum immersion can use this mod to craft companions that fit perfectly within their vision of the game world.
• How to Use: Install Detailed Character Creation from Nexus Mods. When you start a new game, you’ll have access to the expanded character creation options. To apply this to a companion, you need to start a new game and recreate them from scratch.

In my experience, the most impactful mods are those that address the core limitations of the vanilla game while adding depth and immersion. I’ve found that simply tweaking stats or adding overpowered abilities often detracts from the overall experience. The key is to find mods that enhance the existing gameplay without breaking the balance.

For example, I was initially hesitant to use Character Reload, fearing it would make companions too powerful. However, I quickly realized that it allowed me to correct mistakes in my companions’ skill progression and specialize them for specific roles, making them more valuable and contributing to my party’s success.

Similarly, Notable Traits Expanded added a layer of roleplaying that I hadn’t anticipated. Learning about my companions’ backstories and how their traits influenced their behavior made them feel like more than just disposable units.

One of the most important aspects of modding Bannerlord is ensuring compatibility and managing your load order. Using a mod manager like Vortex or Bannerlord’s built-in mod launcher is crucial for avoiding conflicts and ensuring that your mods function correctly.

Here’s a general guideline for load order, though it may vary depending on the specific mods you’re using:

1. Harmony
2. ButterLib
3. UIExtenderEx
4. Mod Configuration Menu
5. All other mods

It’s always a good idea to read the documentation for each mod and follow the author’s recommendations for load order. Incorrect load orders are the number one reason for crashes and other issues.

To ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information presented in this article, I have consulted the following sources:

• Nexus Mods: The primary source for Bannerlord mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord
• Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Wiki: A comprehensive resource for game information: https://mountandblade.fandom.com/wiki/Mount_%26_Blade_II:_Bannerlord

These resources provide detailed information about each mod, including installation instructions, compatibility notes, and user reviews.

Choosing the right Bannerlord 2 mods for companions can transform your gameplay experience. By addressing the limitations of the vanilla game and adding new layers of depth and immersion, these mods make companions feel more valuable, engaging, and essential to your success. Experiment with different combinations of mods to find what works best for your playstyle and enjoy a richer, more rewarding Bannerlord experience.