The engineering skill in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is crucial for siege warfare, town management, and crafting powerful siege engines. Leveling it efficiently, however, can feel like a grind. This article provides five proven and often overlooked methods to drastically accelerate your engineering skill gain, moving beyond the typical siege engine construction. We’ll cover practical tactics, smart investments, and even some “cheese” strategies to maximize your learning.
The most obvious way to level engineering is through sieges, but most players only focus on building siege engines before the attack. The real experience comes from actively participating in the siege itself.
- Build and Operate: Constructing siege engines like trebuchets, ballistae, and siege towers grants initial experience. However, don’t just build them and forget them. Man the machines! Firing at walls and enemy units provides a continuous stream of experience.
- Wall Breaching: Focus on targeting walls and gates. Successfully breaching a wall provides a significant experience boost. Coordinate with your army to focus fire on a single section.
- Defend Against Sorties: When the enemy sallies forth to destroy your siege engines, actively participate in the defense. Killing enemy soldiers while defending your machines grants substantial engineering experience, often more than building the machines themselves. Personally using a bow or throwing weapons against the attackers amplifies the XP gains.
Beyond sieges, improving towns and castles is a significant, yet often underestimated, way to level engineering. Focus on projects that grant the highest experience relative to their completion time and cost.
- Prioritize High-XP Projects: When you become a governor, analyze the building projects available. Projects like “City Walls” or “Siege Defense” offer considerably more experience than minor improvements.
- Early Game Focus: Militia Training Fields: At lower levels, building Militia Training Fields in newly conquered towns provides a steady stream of experience while simultaneously increasing the town’s security. This is especially effective in towns frequently targeted by bandits.
- Cycle Projects: Don’t be afraid to switch between projects. If a high-XP project will take a long time, start a smaller project that can be completed quickly to keep the experience flowing. Cancel the long project once the shorter one is done. This provides a constant stream of smaller XP gains, which adds up significantly over time.
- Strategic Workshops: While not direct experience, workshops that produce high-value goods increase your income, allowing you to invest more in projects and companions that boost engineering.
Companions are critical. Assigning a companion with high engineering skill as a governor or quartermaster provides passive benefits and allows you to “delegate and observe” their work for faster learning.
- Recruit the Right Companion: Look for companions with high engineering skills. “The Engineer” or characters with similar backgrounds are ideal. Check taverns and encyclopedia entries to identify potential candidates.
- Governor Role: Assign your engineer companion as the governor of a newly conquered fief. They will automatically initiate building projects, and you will gain experience simply by being present in the town while they are working.
- Quartermaster Bonus: As a quartermaster in your party, the companion will oversee the construction of siege engines during sieges. You’ll still need to participate actively, but the companion’s skill will speed up the process and indirectly increase your experience gain.
- Level Up Focus: Equip your engineer companion with gear that enhances their Intelligence. This boosts their engineering skill even further.
While not always the most honorable approach, certain “cheese” tactics can be used to rapidly increase your engineering skill. Use these methods with caution, as they may be patched in future updates.
- Endless Trebuchet Construction: Find a castle with a weak garrison and repeatedly build and destroy trebuchets. The act of construction provides experience, and you can dismantle the machine immediately after completion to recoup some of the resources. This is tedious but effective.
- Wall Repair Loop (If Available): In some versions of the game, repeatedly initiating wall repairs (even if the damage is minimal) grants experience. Check patch notes to see if this exploit is still active.
- Arena Exploitation (Rare): Occasionally, arenas will have structural damage. If you have high enough engineering, you can repair these structures for a small but repeatable experience gain.
Beyond specific actions, your overall character development and economic strategy directly impact your engineering progression. Investing in the right skills and managing your resources effectively are crucial.
- Intelligence Focus: Prioritize Intelligence when allocating attribute points. Engineering is directly tied to Intelligence, so the higher your Intelligence, the faster you will learn.
- Stewardship Synergy: Develop your Stewardship skill alongside Engineering. Stewardship increases your party size and reduces wage costs, allowing you to maintain a larger army for more frequent sieges.
- Trade Skill (Indirectly): Invest in Trade to generate wealth. More wealth means you can afford better gear for your engineer companion, buy more materials for projects, and maintain larger armies for sieges.
- Smithing Connection While not directly related, Smithing allows you to craft better weapons for yourself and your troops. This increases your combat effectiveness during sieges, leading to more kills and potentially more engineering experience.
Here’s a table summarizing the best methods:
| Method | Description | Difficulty | Efficiency | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Siege Participation | Building & Operating siege engines, breaching walls, defending against sorties | Medium | High | High (Combat) |
| Town/Castle Improvements | Prioritizing high-XP projects like City Walls, cycling projects | Medium | Medium | Low |
| Companion Governor/Quartermaster | Assigning a skilled engineer companion to oversee construction and improvements | Easy | Medium | Low |
| Trebuchet Construction Loop | Repeatedly building and destroying trebuchets (exploit) | Hard | High | Medium (Tedious, may be patched) |
| Wall Repair Loop (If Active) | Repeatedly repairing walls (exploit) | Easy | High | Low (May be patched) |
My Personal Experience: Optimizing for Speed
In my experience, the fastest way to level engineering is a combination of active siege participation and strategic town improvements. I found that focusing on breaching walls during sieges provided the biggest experience spikes. Furthermore, I always prioritize recruiting an engineer companion early in the game and assigning them as a governor to a newly conquered fief. The passive experience gains from their construction projects, combined with my active participation in sieges, allowed me to reach high engineering levels relatively quickly. I also made sure to constantly rotate town improvement projects to maximize XP gained over a period. I also found that taking a few points into smithing to be helpful as you need a good weapon for sieges.
By mastering these five methods, you can transform the slow grind of engineering into a rapid progression, unlocking the full potential of siege warfare and town management in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
This article solved 3 problems: Firstly, it clarified the importance of active participation in sieges beyond just building siege engines. Secondly, it highlighted the often-overlooked value of town and castle improvements, especially when focusing on high-XP projects. Thirdly, it emphasized the critical role of companion engineers and delegating tasks to them for passive experience gains.