Civilian Outfitting

Civilian is a new armor and weapon trait introduced in Mount&Blade II: Bannerlord. Any equipment with this trait - denoted with a pictogram of two farmers side-by-side - may be carried and used within the walls of a town. Overview[] Each character has a kit, separate from the character's normal combat/field equipment, which is only used in towns. In the inventory/trade screens the player can toggle between these loadouts while managing their equipment and that of their companions. By default, every character in the game will have a civilian outfit of clothes and one weapon - usually some variety of arming sword (one-handed sword). However, every equipment slot may be filled as usual and there are a variety of low-tier polearms, axes, two-handed or versatile swords and throwing weapons that are permitted in this loadout as well. The same equipment may not be shared between the field outfit and civilian outfit. Equipment items in the trade screen will appear blue when viewing the civilian kit to visually separate equipment that may only be used in the field and in battles. Generally-speaking, the civilian outfit prohibits the use of any ranged weapon that uses separate ammunition, any purpose-built polearm, any shield, as well as any sort of heavy, plated or mail armor and large, bulky shoulder/back item. Farming equipment is generally permitted. Strategy[] (v1.6.1 beta) It is important to make sure your companions are as well-armored in towns as they can be, as you have less control over their participation in any given engagement and a mistake here could cost you their valuable skills for a time while they recover from their wounds. High-tier troops - particularly cavalry and archers - are also unusually vulnerable to attrition in street fights with ostensibly far inferior troops, so it is recommended to send them away or place them as far down the list as possible in this context. Civilian armor features mostly low armor values, which can place the player and their associates in danger if a street fight breaks out. Enemies in the street will usually be using cutting weapons which are very effective against light armor and therefore these fights tend to favor high mobility, fast attacks and superior numbers. That said, there are some armor types that - for one reason or another - are allowed in civilian kits. Gambesons are mostly allowed and the top-tier of civilian harness appears to be the Brigandine, which is actually an entry-level heavy armor - it's availability in this context may be a development oversight as it eclipses any other available civilian armor by a large margin. The top-tier of civilian weapons at this moment are the two-hand/one-hand long swords, often available in Battanian towns. These do so much raw damage - let alone the damage done by a skilled two-hand combatant - that any character struck twice in the body or once in the head will be immediately neutralized. Furthermore, their handling, length and speed are at least equal to, but usually better than their one-hand counterparts, meaning that the user will be able to strike and counter faster than those using, for example a handaxe or arming sword. Strangely, two-hand weapons are rarely used by street criminals. Fortunately, it is actually fairly easy to craft such a weapon yourself at the smithy. Whether or not a sword is allowable in the civilian kit appears to be entirely based on the blade component, so be sure to select carefully. The only ranged weapons available appear to be throwing knives. These are very much a niche weapon, and have little use in gang fights, due to their low per-hit damage, low rate of attack and high skill barrier. That said, if you are forced to fight alone, they may prove a valuable force-multiplier in the first moments or for a character with exceptional mobility who can outrun and avoid getting into a melee with the opponents. The skills most applicable to civilian encounters are Athletics, One Handed, Two Handed, Smithing, Throwing, and Roguery. Athletics is probably the single most important skill in this context. Increases to mobility and survivability are even more important here, where armor can only do so much to improve one's protection. In many fights, the player will need to carefully manage their distance to the enemy and athletics does the job. There are a number of skills in athletics that will increase the character's offensive capability, as well. Smithing is very important in the overall scheme. It allows the player easy access to the all-powerful two-handed sword much more easily than trying to earn one through tournaments or purchase one from a town. Once a mere initiate into the practice of smithing, one should have more than enough material at hand to make at least one two-handed sword of acceptable quality. Later-on, the player will be able to create works of amazing quality, suitable to any weapon category relevant to the civilian market and vastly superior to anything the player can reasonably afford or even find, in some cases. One Handed will be useful early on due to the difficulty of acquiring a two-handed weapon in the early stages, but it will quickly be surpassed by two-handed, so the player should probably just focus their one-handed skill perks on battlefield utility. Technically, there are later one-hand perks specifically for fighting without a shield (AKA every use case in a street fight), but at this point in development, they are largely moot. While there is an argument to be made for specializing in a single melee discipline (i.e., to put all of your focus points into One-handed), it definitely pays in many circumstances to be more versatile than specialized when it comes to melee combat skills. All three of these - One-handed, Two-handed and Polearm - feature bonuses to allied troop performance which can make a significant difference in battles both in towns and on the battlefield. In the field, one officer will often need to command a mixed company of one-hand and two-hand infantry, alongside pikemen, spearmen and voulgiers so it really does pay to try and spread the wealth of focus points in the melee skills. Two Handed is quite prescient, especially the sword-focused skills and especially as the player accumulates wealth and Smithing skill. As mentioned above, this category of weapons dominates street fights, easily allowing a single character to lay waste to many of the enemy. Note that in the quest Rival Gang Moving In, the enemies and allies of the player can feature a number of mercenaries who are armed with shields. In this case, taking the anti-shield perks available in the two-hand path can be of some use here, but shouldn't come at the cost of more generally useful two-hand perks. Throwing is again, a niche option in the civilian context, but if the player is already making heavy use of it on the battlefield, it certainly can't hurt to bring a bag of knives or two. Roguery becomes more useful during late game when the numbers of enemies in a street fight start to resemble small battles more than the little skirmishes of early game. This skill path features a number of perks late in the tree that dramatically increase offensive capability with civilian equipment, not to mention help increase the profitability of criminal enterprises.