Betterlord

A curated Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord modlist by Valtarien (ACE). Version 1.4.7.1.0

Specifications

• Game: Bannerlord v1.4.7 (build 117484)
• DLC: War Sails 1.2.7
• Launcher: Novus Bannerlord Launcher
• Content: 112 third-party mods + 7 official modules
• Modes: Sandbox (default) and Campaign share the same module list (4 MCM settings differ)

Philosophy

Stability first. A mod earns inclusion by clearing one bar: no open incident reports, or a specifically documented fix if it once had one. Popularity and feature richness don't override this. The result plays like Bannerlord — no total overhauls, fantasy content, OP trees, or systems carried forward on feature strength alone.

Maintenance

Betterlord began as a stability-focused fork of Valorlord and is maintained independently from here forward. Each decision — incident history, module choices, audits — stands on its own terms.

Contents

1. Before you start
2. Game client settings
3. Launcher
4. Installing the mods
5. Load order
6. Mod configuration
7. Starting a new game
8. Design philosophy and scope
9. Known issues
10. Maintaining the list
11. Changelog

1. Before you start

You need a clean 1.4.7 install — not 1.4.6 or earlier. Verify the build number in the bottom corner of the main menu.

Update your graphics drivers, then delete these two directories:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord
C:\ProgramData\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord

The first holds saves, mod settings and logs; the second holds compiled shaders. Both regenerate on next launch. Back up any saves you want to keep first — they will not be compatible with this list anyway.

Launch the game once with the official launcher before installing anything, to recreate the configuration files the list depends on.

Extract every mod with 7-Zip. Windows' built-in extractor can leave DLLs blocked, failing to load silently. If you already extracted with something else, right-click each DLL → Properties → Unblock.

Mods install to:

...\Mount & Blade II Bannerlord\Modules\<ModuleName>

Each archive contains one folder that goes directly there.

A note on updates

Mod versions move constantly, so rather than pin them here — wrong within a week — the approach is:

• Track every mod on its source page so you get update notifications
• Read changelogs before applying updates; a "fix" in one mod is often a behaviour change that collides with another
• Update in small batches and verify with Harmony Patch Scanner before committing to a campaign
• Prefer the version shown on a mod's own Nexus page or Files tab over any other source — tracking-centre feeds and launcher-reported required versions are both known to lag or misreport

The core libraries are worth pinning here, because everything depends on them and mismatches are silent:

Some mods list a required MCM version that does not exist on the download page — authors sometimes quote the NuGet package number, which runs slightly ahead. Install the newest published release and ignore the discrepancy.

Flagged for verification (04 Aug 2026 audit): the upstream guide this list originated from currently displays ButterLib at 2.11.0 and MCM at 5.12.1 — both a small step ahead of the versions pinned in Betterlord.xml (2.10.4 and 5.11.4). Per the project's own standing caution above, a displayed version isn't confirmation of what you should install — check each library's own Files tab before updating, and update in isolation with a scan before and after, since these two sit underneath everything else in the list.

2. Game client settings

These prevent engine-level crashes in a heavily modded install. Set them before installing anything.

Video

• Disable Force VSync in Menus
• Frame Limiter → 89

Performance

• Shader Quality → Medium — higher settings can produce stretched textures with exported shaders
• Number Of Corpses → High (125) — never Unlimited, this reliably causes battle crashes
• Number Of Ragdolls → 10
• Disable Motion Blur
• Sound Channels → Medium (256)

NVIDIA Control Panel → Manage 3D Settings → Program Settings → bannerlord.exe

• Low Latency Mode → Ultra
• Max Frame Rate → 90
• Power management mode → Prefer maximum performance
• Vertical sync → Off

3. Launcher

Betterlord uses Novus Bannerlord Launcher, which supports saved presets and named divider entries. The dividers (divCore, divUtil, and so on) are cosmetic grouping entries — they load nothing, they just make the list navigable.

Do not use Vortex. Beyond general reliability problems, it has a documented history of writing a module string the engine resolves differently, producing bizarre symptoms. If something looks wrong, verify that the launcher's module string matches your intended order before suspecting a mod.

Do not use Steam Workshop mods alongside this list. Automatic updates mean changes land without you reading the changelog.

4. Installing the mods

Work down the table in §5 in order. For each entry:

1. Download the archive from the linked page
2. Extract with 7-Zip into Modules\
3. Confirm the extracted folder name matches the Module ID column

Some mods ship multiple builds on their download page — pick the one for game version 1.4.7. Where a mod offers an MCM and a non-MCM variant, take the MCM variant.

Enable everything in Novus in the order shown, save the preset, then launch once and check the log at:

C:\ProgramData\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord\logs\rgl_log_<pid>.txt

Search for Assembly load result. Every entry should read SUCCESS. Anything else means a blocked DLL, a missing dependency, or a mod built for the wrong game version.

Stealth Flag Fix is not a standalone mod. It is a file hosted on the Files tab of the Nexus page linked in the load-order table below (originally posted alongside an unrelated modding-notes guide; the file itself has no dependency on that guide).

Dynamic Looks Change — the link points to the 1.3.X build. An earlier, separate mod of the same name also exists and uses the same module folder; take the linked one.

The div* entries are supplied by Dividers – Mod List Load Order Organizers. Install it first if you want the same visual grouping. Novus only.

5. Load order

Order matters. Harmony resolves same-priority patches by registration order, which follows load order, so moving a mod can silently change which of two competing patches wins.

RTS Camera and RTS Camera - Command System are two components of a single mod (same Nexus page, same author) — they must be installed and load together, never one without the other.

6. Mod configuration

Every setting below is applied through the Mod Configuration Menu, reachable from the main menu (Options → Mod Options) unless noted otherwise. Mods not listed here need no configuration.

Utilities

Bandit Voice Fix

• Debug Logging → off (the default). Only enable it if you find a silent bandit and intend to file a report.
• No load-order sensitivity in this list — its one documented conflict partner isn't present in Betterlord.

Fix For Raiding Cultures Influence Loss

• Misc → Non Raiding Culture Influence Change → -10

Unit Spawn Prioritization For AI

• Main Settings → AI Spawn Prioritization Mode → Homogeneous
• Set the matching option in the game's own Gameplay settings too

User interface

Horse Counter (and Manager)

• Disable Handle Horses Hourly

Item Quality Visuals

• General → Visual Style → Colored Icons
• Enable the Tier 5, Tier 6 and Tier 7 icons

Gameplay

Bannerlord Expanded — Companion Expanded

• Disable Wanderer Join Request
• Disable Enable Companion To Sibling Conversation
• Disable Enable Companion To Son/Daughter Conversation
• Disable Additional Companion Slots

True Relations

• Relations → Radius of Impact → 100
• Relation Change Chance → 50%

Vassal Baron

• Costs → Denars Cost → 100000

Persistent adjustments

Better Attributes

• Disable Player Only everywhere — 22 separate checkboxes
• Disable Crush Through Chance
• Disable Healing Rate Bonus
• Disable Slice Through Chance
• Enable Support for more Bonuses (at the very bottom)

Use the maintained fork linked in the table. An earlier build of this mod silently failed to register most of its patch classes on 1.4.7; the fork resolves this. Confirm you're on the fork's own version line, not the original.

Better HUD

• Disable Enemy Info

Combat

AI Kick N Bash

• No MCM configuration needed — defaults are correct. (An "Injured Animations → HP Threshold" setting was previously listed here; cross-checking the upstream guide's source list structure and this mod's own feature description — kicks, shield bashes, weapon bashes, cooldowns, no injury-triggered animation system — indicates that setting actually belongs to Artem's Lively Animations, which upstream lists immediately after this mod and which isn't part of Betterlord. Removed as a likely long-standing misattribution rather than left in place unverified.)

Knocked Down Heroes Influences Troops

• Enable Disable Hero Knockdown Sounds

Siege AI Fix

• Defaults are fine to start — the mod adds casualty-based retreat, army disbandment and cohesion loss on failed sieges. Fight one siege as attacker and one as defender before adjusting anything.
• It spawns cover and replacement ladders into siege scenes at runtime — if another mod alters siege scene props, watch for misplaced geometry during the wall-breach phase.

Crafting

Visible Smithing Stamina While Waiting

• Additional options → Enable [Town] Show current stamina percent

NPCs

Truly Useful Wanderers

• General Settings:
  • Disable Use 6 Attribute Templates For All Heroes
  • Enable Enable Wanderer Level Scaling
  • Disable Enable Skill prefixes
  • Enable Age scaling for wanderers
  • Enable Age-based skill count for wanderers
  • Wanderer Max / Min Skill → 200 / 50
  • Minor Lords Max / Min Skill → 200 / 50
  • Children Max / Min Skill → 250 / 20
  • Disable Enable Elders & Smiths
  • Disable Enable Ordinary Lords

Dress The Wanderer

• Misc → Enable Disable equipment for Main Hero
• Maximum Tier → 3, Minimum Tier → 1
• Takes effect on new games only

Nobles and Wanderers In AI Parties

• General:
  • Disable Only Clan Leaders Can Hire Wanderers
  • Enable Recruit Same Culture
  • Buy Missing Equipment Chance → 0% — Lord's Gear owns AI equipment purchasing
  • Upgrade Equipment Chance → 0%
  • Disable Enable Tavern Spawns — Companion Expanded owns tavern spawns
  • Disable Enable Companion Limit Options
  • Disable Enable 'Make Family' Dialogue
  • Disable Enable 'Make Noble' Dialogue

World map

AI Executioner

• Hero Protection → off in Sandbox, on in Campaign — see §7.

AI Values Life

• Surrender Notifications → Enable Surrender Banners
• Disable Player Faction Only
• Death % → 0.03
• Death Protection → off in Sandbox, on in Campaign — see §7.

Realistic Prisoner

• Player → Max Loss % → 0.80
• Enable Surrender w/ Honor
• Disable Stealth Too
• Disable Civilian Too
• NPC → Disable Stealth Too, Disable Civilian Too
• Do not enable Preserve Economy — Lord's Gear owns AI equipment-loss economics; leave this at default.

Auto Best Role

• Battle & Army → disable all three options. Enable Battle Auto Assignment is the important one — Immersive Battlefields owns battle formation assignment
• Auto Assign Messages → Disabled
• Enable Skip Player Party
• Assignment Check Intervals → 24 hours

Auto Resolve Rebalanced

• Siege Rebalance Settings → Settlement Advantage Multiplier → 1.5 — leaving this at its default value produces badly unbalanced auto-resolved sieges. This was missing from Betterlord's configuration entirely prior to this audit; add it now if you haven't.

Lord's Gear

• AI Gear Purchase:
  • AI Gold Spending Percentage → 0.20
  • Disable AI Restrict Weapon to Culture
  • Clan Shop Visit Chance → 5%
  • Clan Gold Spending Percentage → 0.20
  • Enable Clan Restrict to Culture
  • Disable Clan Restrict Weapon to Culture
• Do not enable Enable Gear Loss on Capture — Realistic Prisoner owns gear loss on capture; leave this at default.

No Lord Free Troops

• Interface → Disable Show spawn messages
• Enable Remove troops on new game start
• Initial troop count → 7

Tournaments

Balanced Tournament Armor

• Change Armor → Troop Tier → 4
• Enable Wear Armor of Own Culture

Diplomacy and economy

Betterlord runs Diplomacy alone in this category — no second mod contests war, peace, rebellion, or succession. This is a simpler ownership picture than a list that also runs a dedicated war/peace overhaul, and it means Diplomacy's settings should be left closer to their own defaults rather than tuned down for a second system that isn't present.

Diplomacy

• Leave Civil Wars (Daily Chance To Start/Join Rebel Faction, Daily Chance To Start Civil War), War Exhaustion, Fief Repatriation, Minimum War Duration, and Declare War Cooldown at the mod's own defaults, or set them to your own preference. There is no longer a second system these need to be cleared for — reconfigure deliberately rather than carrying forward settings tuned for a mod that isn't in this list.
• Kingdom Diplomacy → your preference on Delay Fiefless Kingdom Elimination.

Improved Economy For AI Lords

• Enable Enable Towns Denars Increase. This was disabled in this list's predecessor specifically because Harvest And Production owned town economy there; Harvest And Production isn't part of Betterlord, and no other mod claims this system. The setting's own name indicates its shipped default is enabled — disabling it here would leave AI-lord town income with neither Harvest And Production's handling nor this mod's own, which serves no one. Restored to default.

Compatibility patches

Universal Patch

• Disable Armor Standardization
• Disable Debug (at the bottom)

7. Starting a new game

Sandbox or Campaign

Betterlord defaults to Sandbox. Campaign works with the identical module list — StoryMode is already enabled at position 9, so nothing is installed, removed or reordered. One setting changes.

Why Campaign needs these. The main quest requires specific nobles to remain alive, and both AI Executioner (through executions) and AI Values Life (in battle) can kill them. With protection off, a Campaign run can quietly become unfinishable: no warning, no error, the quest simply cannot be completed. Set these before starting, because turning protection on later will not bring anyone back.

Heroes Must Die — a third mod that contributed to this same hero-protection system in this list's predecessor — is not part of Betterlord's base configuration. Its absence means one fewer death vector to protect against, not one fewer setting to configure: the two toggles above are the complete set for this list as shipped. If you add Heroes Must Die back later, it brings its own Hero Protection toggle and this table grows to three rows again.

Player death. No mod in Betterlord currently modifies player death probability on knockdown — vanilla rules apply in both Sandbox and Campaign.

Game options

Set these in the game's own settings, not MCM:

Suggested keybinds: Fast Forward → Up Arrow, Toggle HUD → ], take/release ship helm → F5.

Additional in-game shortcuts for mods in this list:

• RTS Camera — F10 to toggle free camera mode in battles, L to open its own mod configuration (separate from MCM).
• Catapult Guide — Middle Mouse Button while operating a mangonel, ballista, or trebuchet.
• Horses — Q to call your horse when it's out of reach; Q to replenish arrows/quivers/throwables when the horse is adjacent; Ctrl+Q while mounted.
• Inventory Filter — Shift+Click on an item slot in the inventory to filter by that item type.

Session hygiene

Exit to desktop between loading saves — do not return to the main menu. Some mods re-register their Harmony patches when a campaign initialises, and going back to the menu and loading again stacks a second copy of those patches on top of the first, with the effects compounding over a session.

8. Design philosophy and scope

Betterlord's ordering principle: stability first, everything else second. A mod earns a place by having no documented incident against it and, where its history includes one, by having that incident resolved and verified — not merely time having passed. Feature richness was not a design goal in itself; several capable, popular mods are absent here specifically because their update cadence, patch-conflict footprint, or open bug history didn't clear that bar as of this list's last audit.

What that excludes, in brief: custom troop-tree systems, a dedicated civil-war/succession overhaul, bandit-militia economy mods, and any mod whose only public distribution channel (e.g., Patreon-only) prevents verifying its update history the same way every other entry in this list can be verified. None of these are excluded on the belief that they're bad mods — several are well-regarded — they simply didn't meet this list's specific evidentiary bar for inclusion at time of writing. Re-evaluate any of them individually if their circumstances change.

What's included but worth knowing: a small number of mods here touch systems (NPC appearance generation, in particular) that a related — now-excluded — mod had a confirmed defect in. None of the included mods have any incident of their own; the caution is about the system they touch, not anything they've done. Treat this as a standing note to watch, not a reason for concern.

Two components travel together by necessity, not by mod count: RTS Camera and RTS Camera - Command System are one mod's two parts. Betterlord's true independent mod count is 111 once you account for this — 112 module IDs, but 111 things you're actually choosing between.

9. Known issues

None currently open. Every specific Harmony patch conflict and crash report on record from this list's development history involves at least one mod that isn't part of Betterlord's base configuration — so as shipped, there is nothing outstanding to work around.

This will not stay true forever: adding any excluded mod back in may reintroduce a conflict that was previously documented against it. Before reintroducing anything, check whether it has a known conflict partner, and whether that partner is also present.

10. Maintaining the list

Scan in-campaign, not from the main menu. Harmony Patch Scanner only sees patches actually registered, and some register only when a campaign or mission starts, not at load. A main-menu scan understates your conflict count. Load a save, fight one field battle, then scan.

Betterlord does not yet have its own in-campaign scan baseline — run one after your first session and treat that as the reference point for all future diffs. Do not assume any numbers from this list's predecessor apply; the module set has changed enough that a fresh baseline is the only honest one.

Do not trust launcher version strings. Novus reads RequiredVersion from each mod's SubModule.xml, and many authors never update it. Verify by DLL timestamp, or by checking whether a mod's expected patches actually appear in a scan.

Diagnostic workflow when something breaks:

1. Better Exception Window report, if one appears
2. rgl_log_<pid>.txt and rgl_log_errors_<pid>.txt from that session
3. Harmony scan diff against your last known-good baseline
4. Mod toggling, guided by which mods updated most recently
5. Windows Event Viewer for crashes that produce no log at all — stack overflows in particular

Back up before every update batch, and before running any save-repair command.

Considering an addition? Apply the same bar as everything already here: no open incident, or a specific verified fix if one existed previously. A mod that merely hasn't broken yet is not the same as a mod with a track record.

11. Changelog

2026-08-04 — Betterlord v1.4.7.1.0

• Initial release. Forked from a personal predecessor list at the module-selection level: every third-party mod evaluated individually against a stability-first bar (no open incident, or a verified-resolved one) rather than carried forward by default.
• 112 third-party modules (111 independent mods — RTS Camera's two components count as one), 7 official modules, 5 foundation libraries.
• Diplomacy's settings reconfigured to run standalone rather than paired with a second war/peace system — see §6.
• Improved Economy For AI Lords' town-income setting reverted to default (see revision below — resolved same day, not left pending).
• No open known issues at time of release — see §9.
• Same-day audit against the upstream guide's current text (Vanilla 1.4.7 Plus Modding Notes, mods/11354, last updated 04 Aug 2026): every MCM setting for every mod present in Betterlord cross-checked line by line.
  • Removed a likely long-standing misattributed setting from AI Kick N Bash ("Injured Animations → HP Threshold") — upstream's list structure and the mod's own feature description both indicate this setting belongs to Artem's Lively Animations, which isn't part of Betterlord.
  • Added Auto Resolve Rebalanced's Settlement Advantage Multiplier (1.5) — present in the mod, present in this list, but its configuration had been omitted entirely until now. Upstream flags the default as producing badly unbalanced auto-resolved sieges.
  • Corrected Balanced Tournament Armor's Troop Tier from 3 to 4 and added the missing "Wear Armor of Own Culture" toggle, matching upstream's current recommendation.
  • Expanded Realistic Prisoner's config with its separate NPC-side settings and a "Preserve Economy" caution (owned by Lord's Gear), and added the matching "Gear Loss on Capture" caution to Lord's Gear itself.
  • Added in-game keybinds for RTS Camera (F10, L), Catapult Guide, Horses, and Inventory Filter — all present in Betterlord, none previously documented here.
  • Flagged ButterLib and MCM as a small step behind the versions upstream currently displays — see §1.
• Second same-day pass: audited every cross-mod ownership rationale in §6 against both upstream's current text and this list's own predecessor notes, specifically checking whether each stated reason for a non-default setting still holds given which mods are actually present in Betterlord.
  • Confirmed five ownership rationales still valid as written (referenced mod present, reasoning unchanged): Nobles and Wanderers In AI Parties' two cross-references to Lord's Gear and Companion Expanded, Auto Best Role's reference to Immersive Battlefields, and the Realistic Prisoner ↔ Lord's Gear pairing.
  • Improved Economy For AI Lords' "Enable Towns Denars Increase" resolved, not just flagged. Its disabled state existed only to defer to Harvest And Production, which isn't part of Betterlord. No other mod claims this system, and the setting's own default is enabled. Committed to enabling it rather than leaving it as an open question — this list's own principle (assume defaults when a stated reason no longer applies) requires a decision, not a caveat.
  • Diplomacy's standalone reconfiguration (previous session) re-verified against this same principle — already correct as written, no further change.
  • No other stale ownership rationale found. Every other cross-mod reference in §6 either points to a mod that's present and still accurate, or belongs to a mod that's excluded from Betterlord entirely (making the question moot rather than open).

Credits

All credit for the mods themselves belongs to their authors, linked in §5.

Betterlord is maintained by Valtarien (ACE) and published in case it is useful to others. It carries no warranty and no support commitment, and it claims nothing over the mods it lists — those belong to their authors under their own terms.