Performance Optimizer

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Significantly reduces CPU and render load on the campaign map, especially for large overhaul mods like Empires of Europe 1700 and The Old Realms. Bannerlord ticks every single entity on the map every in-game hour regardless of whether you can see them. On a dense map this dominates CPU time and causes stuttering. This mod applies intelligent throttling using Harmony patches: entities far from the player are updated less frequently, and the work is spread evenly across time to eliminate spikes. The moment anything enters your vision range it snaps back to full rate.

Results

• Empires of Europe 1700: 40-45 FPS without the mod, 65+ FPS with it (High graphics)

• The Old Realms: 48-50 FPS without the mod, 58 FPS with it

• Periodic micro-stuttering completely eliminated

• World activity preserved - lords move, caravans trade, wars happen

Game version

Built and tested for Bannerlord v1.4.5. Still works on v1.3.15. The mod checks your game version and only enables the patches validated for it - anything not yet validated for your version stays off and vanilla behaviour runs in its place, so it never risks your campaign.

Presets

The mod runs in one of two presets:

• Default - always on, no setup needed. The well-tested, low-risk optimizations that never change AI decisions: visual and sound throttling, outcome-identical strength and value caches, and the army-gathering calculation fix.

• Experimental - opt-in. Everything in Default plus the more aggressive patches: AI think-rate throttling, settlement and clan tick throttling, off-screen nameplate throttling, and extra caches. Bigger gains on dense overhaul maps, less battle-tested.

The Experimental preset requires MCM (Mod Configuration Menu). Install MCM, turn on 'Enable Experimental Patches' in the in-game options, and restart. Without MCM the mod simply runs the Default preset and never touches any MCM code, so it loads and works fine on its own.

What it optimizes

• Party AI decisions and pathfinding (Harmony dispatch patches)

• MobilePartyAi.Tick throttled to 2Hz for distant invisible lords

• AI strength evaluation cached so lords and armies stop recomputing identical power values every think

• Settlement hourly ticks for castles (villages and towns always run at full rate)

• Caravan trade route recalculation (never blocks caravans from leaving towns)

• Clan political AI hourly and daily ticks

• Patrol AI throttled for distant invisible parties

• Settlement and party visual rendering throttled to 5Hz off-screen

• Visibility and distance caching to reduce redundant calculations

The more aggressive AI, settlement, and clan throttles are part of the Experimental preset.

What is never throttled

• Anything near the player or visible on screen

• Anything currently inside a settlement

• Villages (food production and delivery to towns)

• Towns (food processing from village deliveries)

• Your own party, clan, and hero

• Kingdom war/peace decisions

• Settlements under siege

• Bandits, deserters, and looters - they react to the player at full speed

Requirements

Bannerlord.Harmony must be installed and enabled. Load it before this mod. MCM (Mod Configuration Menu) is optional - only needed if you want to enable the Experimental preset.

Compatibility

Tested and confirmed working with:

• Vanilla Bannerlord

• Empires of Europe 1700 (with ~10-12 additional mods)

• The Old Realms (with ~10-12 additional mods)

Compatibility with other mod combinations is not guaranteed. Large overhauls that heavily modify the campaign layer may conflict. If you experience crashes, disable this mod first to isolate the issue and leave a comment with your mod list.

Safe to remove

Yes - no save dependency. Nothing is written to your save file. The mod can be added or removed at any time without corrupting your campaign.

Notes

• Load order does not matter

• Throttle state resets on every load

• Near-player entities always run at full rate

• The on-screen stats HUD has been removed in this version

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 here: nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/11792

Just download and follow the install steps on the page. Same mod, same version.

These mods are powered by passion, stubbornness, caffeine, and the dangerous confidence of saying “I’ll just change one small thing” at midnight.

I work as a landscaper during the day, so modding is basically my second job after I come home tired but still excited to create stuff for this community. Sometimes bugs escape containment. Sometimes two mods look at each other and decide only one of them is leaving alive.

Still, when something goes wrong, it genuinely sucks for me too. I care a lot about the people downloading my work, because modding stopped being just a hobby the moment I realized I could actually make the game more fun for others.

So thank you for downloading my mods, reporting issues, and surviving the occasional loading screen boss fight along the way.

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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