How to Level Up Troops & Companions in Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord

Leveling up troops and companions in Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord is the only way to keep your army in good shape. You may increase numbers steadily as you recruit more and more prisoners, peasants and soldiers, but you’ll soon be in trouble if you don’t have any higher ranking troops. However, leveling up companions and other units takes a lot of time. In this guide, we’re explain how gaining experience works and how to level up troops & companions faster in Bannerlord.

Best way to level up troops

The only way for a character to get experience points (aside from quests) is by scoring kills. This means that only the killing blow matters when it comes to XP – if your companion takes down an enemy to 10% health, then you finish them off, you’ll be the one to reap the reward. So you need to make sure you let others score some kills as well.

One great way to give you troops a more prominent role in combat is to use the auto-resolver. Use it on peasant armies and anything that doesn’t represent an actual threat to your more valued units. You could also pick Vlandian culture at the start – it’ll give you 20% more experience points per battle. Investing skill points into leadership also helps somewhat, but those aren’t easy to come by.

Can you equip companions or level them up manually?

You can both equip and level up companions manually. Changing their equipment is done through the inventory screen. Open it up, then use the arrows to the left and right of the name box to jump between characters. Leveling up works the same, except you need to go to the skills menu instead of the inventory. Just click one of the arrows until you reach the character you’re looking for.