The Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord economy and trade systems have been detailed by Taleworlds. The game's developer has been hard at work with Bannerlord and they've been releasing regular Steam News posts detailing the features of the game. The most recent post focuses on one of the weaker areas of the Mount & Blade games: the economy.

Previously, Mount & Blade had a relatively simple economic system. You could carry various goods between villages with the standard mantra of "buy low, sell high". Warband added the ability for players to set up their own businesses in the game's cities to earn a little more money, but the system was still pretty simple overall. A Steam News post on the Bannerlord economy tells us that we're in for some nice improvements for the sequel.

The new economic system will begin by using a more realistic model for villages. Every village will have a level of prosperity; this prosperity level will subsequently be used to measure which goods (and how much of each product) the villages will consume. The consumed goods will then translate to upgraded stats for towns and villages. As an example, a village that consumes food will increase its food stores.

Prices are also expected to change depending on events in the game world. If a war begins, soldiers are going to need more equipment like swords, armor, and shields. That means that craftsmen are going to be working overtime producing those goods and they'll require the raw materials to make them.

We've only had a few small hints as to what we can expect from the Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord economy and trading system, but what Taleworlds has told us about so far certainly sounds interesting. Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord will hopefully release sometime this century and ideally with everything we want from it.

What do you think of the upcoming changes to the Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord economy? Do you think it will be an improvement over the previous system or did you prefer the simpler mechanics? Let us know in the comments below!