There are a few different things you can do with prisoners in Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord. You can sell them, donate them to cities for influence, let them go, or even execute them. You can also recruit prisoners in Bannerlord to your party. If you recently captured an enemy lord’s army and want some of their higher-level units, you’re in luck! Here’s a guide on how to recruit prisoners in Bannerlord.

If you’re interested in more Bannerlord content, check out our other guides!

Step 1. How to Get Prisoners in Bannerlord

Getting prisoners in Bannerlord is fairly easy, here’s how to get some. At the end of each battle, there is a chance that wounded enemy troops will appear in the prisoner screen. If you killed the unit they will not appear here. You can’t capture dead people! Weapons that deal blunt damage are better for wounding and knocking out enemies.

Basically, you want to run around the map and find an enemy lord with an army. Make sure you find an enemy lord you can beat! Once you fight them and win, you will have the option to not only take his loot, but take his men prisoner if they were wounded. You can do this with looters and bandits too, but we want to recruit these units to our party. We want high level soldiers, cavalrymen, and archers – we don’t want level 1 looters.

Step 2. How to Recruit Prisoners in Bannerlord

how to recruit prisoners bannerlord prisoner tab

Once you’ve taken some enemy units prisoner you are halfway there. Now we play the waiting game. In the party tab there is a section for prisoners. In the beginning of the game you will not be able to hold a lot, but as time goes on this number will grow as your party grows. In the tab with the prisoners you can click on an prisoner unit and see how many you have and their stats.

You will also notice a little button that will be grayed out at first, but over time will become clickable. This is the button you click to recruit the prisoner to your party. It will not be available to click immediately, but over time after breaking their spirit you will be able to. Think of it like every night you talk to them and try and get them to switch sides and eventually they agree.

how to recruit prisoners bannerlord prisoner tab

If the button is grayed out, simply travel around the map or wait in a city. Go about your business and wait until they eventually want to join you. Do note though that your movement speed will suffer if you have prisoners in your party! The number 1 next to the Sturgian Woodsman means we can recruit 1 of them to our party by clicking the button of a man and an arrow below the unit. Once you can click the button go ahead and do that and it’ll add them to your party. This Woodsman and Recruit only took a few hours to want to join our party. You’ll find that higher level troops take longer to be able to recruit than lower-level troops. You can wait in your castle, city, or anywhere else if you find you need more time!

And that’s how to successfully recruit prisoners to your party in Bannerlord. Prisoners can be a great source of troops to bolster your party with after a battle with an enemy lord. We hope our guide on how to recruit prisoners in Bannerlord helps you on your quest to conquer all of Calradia!

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