Better Caravans

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Better Caravans

Smarter caravan AI for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Fixes the vanilla caravan AI that causes caravans to endlessly bounce between the same 2-3 nearby towns, ignoring the rest of the world. In vanilla, the routing score for a destination is multiplied by 1/distance, so a town half a day away scores twice as high as one a full day away. Every caravan in the region reads the same global price index, sees the same short profitable route, and piles onto it simultaneously. The game has no concept of a saturated route.

How It Works

This mod applies three corrective layers on top of the vanilla scoring, all tunable in-game via the Mod Options menu (requires MCM v5):

Route Crowding Penalty

Each caravan already heading to a destination reduces that town's score. With 3 caravans going there the score drops to 40%, making other towns look more attractive. Naturally spreads caravans across the map without forcing them anywhere.

Minimum Distance Enforcement

Destinations closer than a configurable number of travel days receive a steep score penalty. This directly kills the 2-3 town back-and-forth loop. Default is 1.5 days.

Recently Visited Penalty

If a caravan visited a town within the last N days, that town's score is reduced. Stops the exact same round-trip from repeating immediately after the caravan returns.

Mod Options

• Enable / disable the mod entirely

• Apply to player caravans only, AI only, or both

• Crowding penalty per competing caravan (slider)

• Minimum crowding score floor (slider)

• Count all factions or same faction only for crowding

• Minimum travel distance in days (slider)

• Whether home town is exempt from the distance penalty

• Recent visit cooldown in days (slider)

• Recent visit penalty strength (slider)

Requirements

• Bannerlord.Harmony must be installed and loaded before this mod.

• MCM v5 (Mod Configuration Menu) is optional but recommended for in-game settings.

Compatibility

Works with any mod. No XML overrides, no game data changes — pure Harmony patches on the caravan AI scoring method only. Verified working on both v1.3.15 and v1.4.5. The vanilla caravan scoring method was rewritten internally between these versions (to support naval trade routing), but this mod's patches were checked directly against both versions' game code and need no special setup on either one.

Safe to Add or Remove Mid-Campaign

Yes — nothing is written to your save file. The mod can be added or removed at any time without corrupting your campaign. When removed, caravans immediately revert to vanilla routing.

Update Log

v1.0.1

• Confirmed full compatibility with Bannerlord v1.4.5, verified directly against the new caravan AI code (v1.3.15 remains fully supported too).

• Fixed a bug where the mod's internal per-caravan visit-tracking data could persist across campaigns within the same game session (e.g. after loading a different save or starting a new campaign without restarting Bannerlord). This data now clears automatically when a campaign ends.

• No changes to default settings, mod behavior, or existing save compatibility.

Not on Steam? Available on Nexus Mods If you own Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord on another platform (GOG, Epic, etc.) and can't use the Steam Workshop, you can get the exact same mod on Nexus Mods https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/11905

While I make mods for fun, testing can be time-consuming, and often takes more time than actually playing them. It’s part of the process though. If you enjoy my work and feel like supporting it, a small donation would genuinely make my day

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