Your army is everything in Bannerlord. Having the right kind of troops and tactics for any given situation is vitally important for success in Calradia. An important aspect of maintaining your force is having specialized companions for different roles within your army. “No man is an army”, and that is especially true with Bannerlord with 18 different skills you cannot train them all. Luckily, you can assign your companions to fill different roles within the army.
How To Assign Companions to Different Roles
The quickest way to assign one of your companions to a role within your army is to head to your clan screen by pressing the L hotkey, or selecting the ‘Clan’ menu button from the UI at the bottom of the screen. Then, head over to the ‘Parties’ tab where you can see all the parties in your clan. Select your party and you will see all of the companions listed. By selecting their drop-down menu, you can assign them to a role within your party.
Another great thing you can do from here is hover over each of the roles for a second. If you hover your mouse over one of the roles, the companion’s level in that skill will briefly appear on the screen. This can give you a good, quick idea on who you should assign to each of the roles to have yourself a smooth running party. As you can see in the image above, Alynneth has a pretty good trade skill at 41 so I’d rather her be my quartermaster.
Another great thing about assigning the parry roles through the clan menu is that you can assign roles not only for your current party, but for any party in your clan. Once other parties in your clan are able to take along companions with them, they will be able to be assigned roles through this menu as well. A very handy screen to have for all of your companion handling.
There is another way to assign roles for your companions as well. If you were to go to your party screen, either by pressing the P key or selecting the option in the UI down the bottom of the screen you can asses your entire party. There, navigate to one of your companions which you want to change the party role for. If you are to left-click on one of your companions you will see a small button which resembles a speech bubble. Press this to start a dialogue with the companion.
Now, you will be taken to a screen where you can talk to your companion. Now, select the dialogue option which reads, About your position in the Clan. From here you have two options. You can either tell the companion you no longer have a need for their services and kick them out of the clan, or assign them a new role in the clan. By selecting the option “I would like to assign you a new role.“, you can decide what you would like the clan member to do.
You will then have the option to decide on a role for this particular members. This is not the most ideal way to assign a clam member role as you’ll have to go through a lot more menus and conversation in order to assign them a role. Plus, you can’t immediately see the skill level which your companion has in each of the related skills for the task. Honestly, save yourself the trouble and just assign your companions a new role via the clan party menu.
Why Assign Companions Roles?
Having the right man (or woman) for the job is very important. Your party’s healing speed relies on the doctor of the party’s medicine skill. If you haven’t assigned a doctor to the party specifically, your own character will have to use their medical skill to determine whether party members live or die. It can be very important to have a dedicated surgeon as part of your party so that you don’t have to waste specializations in leveling to have a strong medical skill.
Some companions you will meet will already have skills in certain areas. Some may already be quite good in the medical skill and it would only be beneficial to your party to have them be the party surgeon. Furthermore, having a good Scout at the head of your party can improve your speed on the map and show more parties around your character.
Essentially, assigning different companions to different roles within your party allows you to have specialist in each skill, meaning they will level up their relative skills faster and allow you to build whatever character you want. One of the most frustrating things about the game is trying to get to certain skill levels and being terrible at others. I was personally trying to conquer castles and build siege weapons taking my character’s very low engineering level into account. Once I found a companion who already had a decent engineering skill, I was bale to build my siege camps and weapons so much faster.
Assign your companions different roles and have specialists in each area! Companions aren’t just for helping your out in battle after all.
Related: How to Recruit Bandits in Mount and Blade Bannerlord | Play Bannerlord Online Co-op With A Mod
