When you go shopping for ships in Bannerlord’s War Sails DLC, a bare hull will cost you anything from 9,000 denars for a Knarr to 120,000 for a Dromon, and the price tag tells you surprisingly little about which hull is actually worth your gold.

The two most expensive heavies cannot take an oar upgrade at all, a Liburna, Cog or Sambuk will outrun every heavy on the open sea, and much of the upgrade screen tends to sit greyed out with a short “Not Available In Settlement” note. Everything below is up to date for Bannerlord v1.4.8 with War Sails 1.2.8, so it also covers the Battle Knarr and the Barlinnger that older ship lists still leave out.

This guide will rank every ship a shipyard can sell you, show you where to buy the best upgrades and go through everything that keeps an upgrade greyed out.

If you just want a name, the Dromon is the best ship overall. The Ghurab is nearly as good and easier to fit with top upgrades, because Sanala sells it together with the Reinforced Wavebreaker Ram and Cotton Sails. The Drakkar is the ship for Nord boarding crews, the Liburna is the best medium, and the Corbita is the trade ship to buy.

Best ships ranked

This is our ranking, built from the hull stats and from what most players pick. Out of 113 players who named a favourite ship in Reddit and Steam threads, 39 went with the Dromon and 21 with the Ghurab. Bear in mind that most of those votes are older than the Battle Knarr and the Barlinnger, which only arrived with War Sails 1.2.5.

Heavy ships

Heavy ships are only built at level 3 shipyards, and they will be the backbone of any fleet that takes on lords at sea.

1. The Dromon is the best ship you can buy. No other buyable hull has as many hit points or as much crew, and it takes both a ram and a ballista. In exchange, it needs the largest skeleton crew of any ship for sale at 44 men and costs 120,000 denars at an Empire shipyard.
2. The Ghurab is a very close second with 56,000 hit points and 112 crew. It is a little lighter in battle, has better seaworthiness than the Dromon and only needs 36 men to sail. Sanala sells it together with the Reinforced Wavebreaker Ram and Cotton Sails, so you can buy and fit it in one stop.
3. The Roundship is the heavy for archers and crossbowmen. It mounts a ballista but no ram, it is the only deep-draft heavy with an oar slot, and its seaworthiness of 38 is the best of the deep-draft heavies. It has no side slot though, so it will never carry shields.
4. The Drakkar is the boarding ship. All 106 of its men fight on deck at the same time, more than on any other hull, and it is the fastest heavy near coasts and on rivers. You will get no ram, no ballista and only four upgrade slots, though.
5. The Lodya takes a ram but no ballista. Thanks to its shallow draft, it is one of only two heavies that can join seaborne village raids, and at 67,500 denars it is the cheapest heavy in the game.
6. The Qalguk is basically a smaller Ghurab, with a ram, a ballista, 32,000 hit points and 100 crew for 93,000 denars. At the start of a campaign, only Makeb builds it.
7. The Dromakion is the cheapest heavy with a ram and a ballista at 90,000, and three cultures build it, so it is the easiest one to find. Its seaworthiness of 27 is the lowest of any heavy though, which means it is going to lose more hit points per hour on the open sea than any other ship.

If your kingdom has the Naval Wardenships policy, every clan in it except mercenaries gets +1 influence a day while one of its lords sails with a heavy ship, and a clan with only light ships or no ships at all loses 1 a day.

Medium ships

Medium ships need a level 2 shipyard. They are what you are going to sail for a good while before you can afford a heavy, and later on they make solid escorts.

1. The Liburna is the best medium. It is the only medium with a ram slot, it has the most hit points of its class at 22,000, and it is the only medium that can stack sails, oars and a Wavebreaker ram for +16% travel speed. Fully fitted, that makes it the fastest ship in the game on the open sea. The Empire builds it for 42,000 denars.
2. The Sambuk (Aserai and Khuzait) and the Cog (Vlandia and Battania) are solid all-rounders with 20,000 and 18,600 hit points and 60 crew each, but no ram or ballista.
3. The Longship puts more men on deck than any other medium, although its 14,800 hit points are the lowest of its class. Pick it if you want to board with Nord or Sturgian troops.
4. The Battle Knarr and the Barlinnger are the ballista mediums, and their front slot will take nothing but a ballista. The Battle Knarr from the Nords and Sturgia is the better of the two with 18,000 hit points and a seaworthiness of 48, the best of any medium. The Barlinnger from Battania and Vlandia is a little bit slower and sits at a seaworthiness of only 22.

Beware that no Nord or Sturgian port sells a ballista. If you buy a Battle Knarr, you are going to have to sail to an Empire or Vlandian port, or to an Aserai port with a level 2 shipyard or better, to arm it.

Light ships

Light ships are sold from shipyard level 1, so you will find them in almost every port early on.

1. The Light Longship is the best light ship. It shares the highest base speed of any ship for sale with the Drakkar, its seaworthiness of 35 is far above every other light warship, and it is the only light hull with a figurehead slot. Nord and Sturgian ports sell it for 12,750.
2. The Western Galley and the Eastern Galley are the cheap and common option at 12,000 and 11,250. Three cultures build each of them, so you will find one almost anywhere.
3. The Birlinn has the most hit points and crew of the light ships, but its seaworthiness of 20 is the lowest of any ship you can buy, it only has three slots, and at 16,500 it is the most expensive light ship. Several players call it the worst ship in War Sails, and it is hard to argue with that.

Trade ships

The trade label on a ship only changes how the game names it, so a trade ship is simply a hull with a big hold and a small crew.

1. The Corbita is the best trade ship. It carries 12,000 cargo, the most of any ship, needs only 10 men to sail, and fully fitted it reaches the highest seaworthiness in the game. It is also the trade ship players agree on. Empire ports with a level 2 shipyard or better sell it for 24,000.
2. The Trade Cog is the runner-up with 11,000 cargo for 19,500 at Vlandian and Battanian ports.
3. The Knarr and the Dhow are light trade ships with 8,000 and 7,700 cargo for 9,000 each, and you will find them at almost any port of their cultures.

Ship stats

Here are all 21 ships a shipyard can build, with their stats before any upgrade. Fishing ships are not on the list because no shipyard sells them, and storyline ships such as the Captured Knarr, the Prison Dromon, the Golden Wasp or the Wounded Beast cannot be bought either.

The first crew number is the skeleton crew, the men you need aboard to sail without a speed penalty. The second is everything the ship can carry, including a reserve below deck that steps in when the men on deck fall. For reference, the Dromon fights with 80 on deck and keeps 40 below, while the Drakkar, the Longship and every light ship put their whole crew on deck at once.

Seaworthiness decides how much damage a ship takes on the open sea and whether it can ignore a storm. The “Can take” column shows whether a hull has a ram slot, a ballista mount, an oar slot and a shallow draft.

Ghurab or Dromon?

Sooner or later, most players have to choose between these two.

• The Dromon has 60,000 hit points and 120 crew with 80 on deck, while the Ghurab has 56,000 hit points and 112 crew with 76 on deck. The Dromon costs 120,000 denars and the Ghurab 112,500.
• The Ghurab needs fewer men to sail, 36 against 44, and has better seaworthiness, 36 against 32 (66 against 62 fully fitted).
• Both carry 4,800 cargo, the most of any heavy, and both have the same eight slots, including a ram and a ballista.
• Both have a base speed of 2.8 and no oar slot, so they top out at the same +10% travel speed from upgrades.
• The Ghurab is lighter in battle. Since ram damage grows with the square root of a ship’s weight, the Dromon will hit a little harder at the same speed.

The bigger difference is where you fit them. Diathma, Zeonica and Danustica build the Dromon and sell most of the top Empire pieces next to it, including the Fire Pot Ballista and Reinforced Battlements with Barracks. Sanala sells the Ghurab with the Reinforced Wavebreaker Ram and Cotton Sails, but no barracks, so a Ghurab that wants more crew will have to visit Galend or an Empire port with a level 2 shipyard or better.

I would say the Dromon is the better ship by a small margin, and it is the ship to buy if you want the toughest hull in the game. That being said, if you play near the Aserai or want both of its travel speed pieces from a single port, the Ghurab gives you almost the same ship for a little less gold.

As for the biggest and most powerful ship in Bannerlord, that is the Dromon, since no buyable hull has more hit points or crew.

Ship speed

Base speed runs from 2.7 to 3.0, and by itself it is fairly misleading. Where you sail and which speed upgrades a hull can take will matter a lot more.

Coast, river or open sea

Every ship sails faster on the open sea (+44.8%) and on rivers (+50%) than along the coast. On top of that, shallow-draft ships get +6.6% near coasts and on rivers but lose 6.6% on the open sea, while deep-draft ships get neither.

That is why the Drakkar is the fastest heavy near coasts and on rivers, while on the open sea it only ties the deep-draft Roundship. Fully fitted with the Horse figurehead, both reach 5.03 out there. The Light Longship matches the Drakkar near land. On the open sea, however, the fastest ship is the Liburna at 5.29 against 5.03 for a Light Longship, both fully fitted with the Horse, and even a bare Liburna, Cog or Sambuk (4.20) beats a bare Light Longship (4.06).

These numbers are for a single ship with a full crew and no wind, perks or skills. A good tailwind can add up to +69% outside storms, so treat them as a way to compare hulls.

Speed upgrades

Only three upgrade lines raise your travel speed on the campaign map:

• Linen Sails (+4%) and Cotton Sails (+8%) from Empire and Aserai shipyards.
• Light Oars (+2%), Aspen Light Oars (+4%) and Ash Light Oars (+6%) from Nord and Battanian shipyards.
• The Wavebreaker Ram and the Reinforced Wavebreaker Ram (+2% each) from Aserai and Khuzait shipyards.

Stacked, that is +16% at most, and only the Liburna and the Lodya have all three slots. The Dromon, Ghurab, Qalguk and Dromakion have no oar slot, so they stop at +10%. The Roundship is the fastest deep-draft heavy at 3.19 fitted. The Lodya looks even better on paper at 3.25, but on the open sea it will be the slowest heavy, with 4.39 fitted against 4.46 for a Ghurab. Top Speed on sheathing and Oar Power on Wide Oars only count in battle.

The Khuzait Horse figurehead adds another +10%, which takes a fitted Drakkar or Light Longship to 3.72. You cannot buy figureheads. They only drop after naval wins over parties led by a hero, at 60% for a kingdom ruler, 50% for a clan leader and 40% for other clan members, with an 8-day wait between drops. Our Bannerlord figureheads guide has the details.

Fleet speed

Your fleet’s base speed is the average of all your ships plus the slowest one, divided by two, so one slow ship will cost you at least half of its gap. A fitted Drakkar alone has a base of 3.42, but pair it with a bare Dromon and the fleet drops to 2.955.

Where to buy ships

A shipyard only builds hulls of its own town’s culture. Light ships appear from shipyard level 1, medium ships from level 2 and heavy ships only at level 3. The town’s culture never changes, so a conquered port will keep building its original culture’s ships whoever owns it.

Nine ports start the campaign with a level 3 shipyard. Car Banseth, the only Battanian port, starts at level 2, and every other port at level 1. Capitals get no bonus, as the Aserai home town Quyaz starts at level 1 too. Battania builds no heavy ship at all, so you will never find one at Car Banseth unless someone sold it there.

Stock is random. A shop holds up to 9, 12 or 15 ships at level 1, 2 or 3, and every day it has a 50% chance to restock to full, although it scraps up to three of them again right away. Each new ship is a random pick among the hulls that shipyard can build, and at Sanala each one only has a 21% chance of being a Ghurab. If your hull is not there, you will simply have to come back later. Ports under siege do not restock.

Water depth plays no part either. Pravend has no Roundships because it starts with a level 1 shipyard, and once it reaches level 3 it will build them just like Galend.

Shop ships often come pre-fitted, as every slot has a 50% chance to hold a random piece from the town’s list, and each fitted piece only adds 45% of its normal price. A typical Dromon at a level 3 Empire port will cost you about 132,000, and a fully fitted one up to about 162,000.

Prices and discounts

A bare hull costs its value times 1.5. Trade skill, prosperity, culture, relation and clan tier change nothing. Only two discounts exist: Royal Navy Prerogative gives -10% if your clan rules a kingdom with that policy, and Arsenals of State gives -15% when you buy at a port your own kingdom owns. Together they come to -23.5%, which brings a bare Dromon down to 91,800.

Selling a ship to a port pays 45% of its value minus the repair cost. Older ship lists still show the prices from before War Sails 1.2.5, when light and trade ships cost more, such as about 24,000 instead of 16,500 for a Birlinn or about 27,000 instead of 24,000 for a Corbita. The Dromon, Ghurab, Roundship, Dromakion and Drakkar kept their prices.

Best ship upgrades

War Sails has 56 upgrade pieces that change stats, plus 15 roofs that only change looks. A port sells a piece only if the town’s own culture is one of the piece’s two cultures and its shipyard level is at least the piece’s tier, so every tier III piece needs a level 3 shipyard.

For a one-stop shop, the three level 3 Empire ports are hard to beat with 29 stat pieces each, followed by Sanala with 20. Between them you will find most of the best pieces, but at the start of a campaign you are still going to need Hvalvik or Thronderlag for Ash Light Oars and Varnovapol for Fine Honed Boarding Weapons. If you only buy one thing, Cotton Sails are probably the best upgrade for any ship you sail a lot.

Rams

Six hulls take a ram: the Dromon, Ghurab, Qalguk, Dromakion, Lodya and Liburna. In a battle you fight yourself, every ram uses the same damage multiplier, so between two rams only the weight bonus changes the damage. Speed counts even more than weight, and the best hits come from a fast, square strike near the middle of the enemy ship.

That leaves two good choices, and both add +5% hit points. The Heavy Reinforced Ram from Empire and Sturgian ports adds +10% weight for the hardest hit. The Reinforced Wavebreaker Ram from Aserai and Khuzait ports adds only +5% weight, but also +2% travel speed and +5% top speed. On most ships the Wavebreaker is the better pick, because its travel speed will help you every single day on the map.

Sturgian ports hide a trap here. Next to the real Reinforced Ram and Heavy Reinforced Ram, they also sell look-alike northern rams with the same names that add only +5% weight instead of +10% and no ram strike in auto-resolve. If you want the stronger version, buy your ram at an Empire port.

Ballistae and battlements

The Empire-only Fire Pot Ballista carries 20 shots per battle, and Aserai ports sell the Fire Grapeshot Ballista with 22 shots instead. No upgrade adds ballista ammo in 1.4.8.

On the heavies that have one, the fore slot can take battlements instead. Reinforced Battlements with Barracks add +10% crew capacity, and with one in the fore and one in the aft slot a Dromon goes from 120 to 144 crew. As such, you will have to choose between a ballista and more men up front.

In the aft slot, the tier III Reinforced Battlements with Improved Rudder have a bug in 1.4.8. The battlements do not show up on the ship because their 3D model is missing, but the stats still apply. The “Rudder Power” bonus of 5% listed on that piece does nothing at all.

Hull, side and deck

Reinforced Bronze Sheathing gives the most hit points of the hull pieces, and Reinforced Copper Sheathing ties for the most seaworthiness. The deck slot is the most flexible one, with the Large Cargo Tent for traders, the Heavy Storm Cover for long trips, boarding weapons for boarders and arrow crates for archers.

Most combat pieces, such as shields, arrow crates, boarding weapons and battlements, also add hidden auto-resolve strength that the tooltip never shows. If you auto-resolve a lot of sea battles, they are worth a little bit more than they look.

Upgrade prices

Every piece has a light, medium and heavy price, and except for the ballistae the heavy one is steep. Cotton Sails cost 3,200 on a light ship but 14,550 on a heavy. Master Shipwright on your First Mate cuts upgrade prices by 30%, and our Bannerlord companions guide will help you find a companion for that role.

Since War Sails 1.1.1, a piece you buy is tied to the ship it was bought for. You can refit it on that ship for free at any port, but you cannot move it to another ship, and removing it refunds nothing.

Are upgrades worth it?

On the ships you sail every day, yes. Speed pieces pay off on every trip, and a ram, sheathing and battlements will make a flagship much harder to sink. On spare hulls that mostly trail behind your flagship, tier III pieces are hard to justify, and a shop ship that already carries the pieces you want is cheaper than fitting them yourself.

Not Available In Settlement

If an upgrade sits greyed out with the tooltip “Not Available In Settlement”, the port simply does not sell it. That almost always comes down to the town’s culture or its shipyard level, but a few other things will block an upgrade as well.

Here is each blocker and how to get around it:

1. The town’s culture is not one of the piece’s two cultures. The owner’s culture plays no part here. For example, Galend has a level 3 shipyard, but as a Vlandian port it will never sell you sails, rams or shields.
2. The shipyard level is lower than the piece’s tier. Tier I, II and III need shipyard level 1, 2 and 3, so head to one of the nine level 3 ports or build up the shipyard in a town you own.
3. Your ship has no slot for that piece. No Nord hull has a ram slot, the Roundship has no side slot, and on the Battle Knarr and the Barlinnger the front slot only takes ballistae.
4. The ship is damaged, and the game says “You can’t upgrade ships that need repairs”. Queue the repair in the same port screen and add the upgrade right after it.
5. Your fleet is not docked here. If the port only lets you browse the shipyard, your ships are somewhere else, and you will get “You cannot upgrade ships when your fleet is away”.
6. You opened the fleet screen outside a port, or you are in the naval storyline. Upgrades only work from a town’s port menu during the normal campaign.
7. You cannot afford everything you queued, so the confirm button stays disabled with “Not Enough Gold”.
8. The town was sacked. Sacking can knock a shipyard down, though never below level 1, and the top-tier pieces will be gone until it is rebuilt.

Your clan tier, renown, relation with the owner, your skills and the ship’s class do not matter at all. A war with the town’s faction does matter, and so can a high crime rating, because then you can only get in disguised, and in disguise the port stays closed. Any piece fits any class of ship that has the slot, and only the price changes.

Upgrading a shipyard

The shipyard is a normal town building. Going from level 1 to 2 takes 4,800 construction points, and from 2 to 3 another 6,000. Each level lets the port build a bigger class of ship, sell the next tier of upgrades and stock more ships.

In a town you own, you simply queue the shipyard in the town’s projects like any other building. AI towns pick their next project at random, so a port’s shipyard can climb during a campaign, and faster in a rich town because construction grows with prosperity. Hover over a town on the campaign map to see its shipyard level.

Fleet size and Over fleet size

There is no hard cap on how many ships you can own. The fleet limit players talk about is really two things, the Over fleet size penalty on the map and the command limit in battle.

Over fleet size

You can sail with up to three ships without any penalty. From the fourth ship on, your speed at sea drops. Four ships cost you 5.4%, six ships 10.0%, eight ships 14.6% and ten ships 17.6%, and it never goes past 20%.

The penalty only counts ships, so four light ships slow you down exactly as much as four heavy ones. In an army, the leader counts every ship of every attached party.

Two Shipmaster perks shrink it. Shore Master works from your Navigator, or from you if you have none, and Fleet Commander has to be the party leader’s own perk. Each one leaves 70% of the penalty and both together 49%, so at 10 ships you will go from -17.6% to -12.3% with one and -8.6% with both.

Command limit

The command limit is the number of ships you can field in a naval battle. It starts at 3, and three party-leader perk choices add +1 each:

• Boatswain 200, where Port Authority and Blessings Of The Sea are an either/or pair that both give +1.
• Boatswain 250, where Merchant Fleet gives +1 but its alternative Resilience does not.
• Shipmaster 225, where Stormrider and Master and commander are another pair that both give +1.

That gives your own party a maximum of 6 ships. In an army, the limits of all parties under your command are added up and capped at 8 for your side. You also need enough healthy troops to cover the skeleton crews of the ships you field, or fewer of them will deploy. None of these perks changes the three-ship threshold for Over fleet size, and our Bannerlord best perks guide covers the rest of your perk choices.

Crew

At sea, your crew is every man in your party, wounded included. If that is fewer than the sum of your ships’ skeleton crews, you lose (1 – men / skeleton crew) x 40% of your speed, so half crew costs you 20%. Carrying more men than your ships can hold will slow you down as well.

Two Shipmaster 200 perks help here, and you can only pick one. Chain to Oars lets your prisoners count as crew for map speed, but not in battle, where only healthy party members man the ships. Fleet Commander instead cuts the skeleton crew your ships need for map speed by 20%, though not in battle.

Spare ships can go to one of your clan’s war parties. Storing them in a town port is only possible in the 1.5.0 beta so far.

Storms, repairs and capturing ships

Sea wear and storms

Ships only take wear on open sea tiles. Along the coast and on rivers no ship takes any, whatever its draft, so a Dromon that hugs the coast is just as safe from wear as a Longship. Storms are a separate matter. They form over the open sea and drift with the wind, and they damage ships in any water they cover, coastal water included.

Storms have a strength of 3 for a Storm, 6 for a Thunderstorm and 10 for a Hurricane at the eye, and they get weaker toward the edge. A ship ignores a storm when its seaworthiness is higher than 20 times the storm’s strength. Above 60, you will shrug off even the eye of a plain Storm, and fully fitted only the Corbita, Roundship, Ghurab, Qalguk, Drakkar, Battle Knarr, Dromon and Lodya get there. Storm Covers, cargo tents and sheathing are the pieces that add that seaworthiness.

Repairs

Repairs are instant. You pay 25% of the ship’s value times the share of hit points it is missing, so rebuilding a bare Dromon from almost nothing costs 20,000. Your fleet has to be docked at the port, and your ships never repair by themselves.

Capturing ships

After a naval win, every enemy ship first takes 20-50% of its hit points as damage, and ships that drop to 0 sink. Each survivor then has a flat 50% chance to become capturable, and no skill, perk or hull condition changes that roll. If you won alone, every ship that passes is offered to you, up to 25. If you fought next to AI lords, every winning party, yours included, takes turns picking ships that improve its fleet, and the leftovers come to you based on your share of the battle.

The Gilded Purse perk only moves you up in that picking order, so when you fight alone it adds nothing. Sunk ships can never be taken.

FAQ

What is the biggest ship in Bannerlord?

The Dromon, with 60,000 hit points and 120 crew. The Ghurab comes next with 56,000 and 112. The most men fighting on deck at once is the Drakkar with 106.

Can you upgrade ships anywhere?

No. You can only upgrade in a town’s port with your fleet docked there, and only with pieces that match the town’s culture and shipyard level. Pieces that ship already had are the exception, as you can refit them at any port.

How do you get ships without buying them?

Win naval battles. Each surviving enemy ship has a 50% chance to be offered to you, and you will usually get more when you fight alone. Convoys that surrender give you goods and prisoners, but no ships.

What is the best trade ship?

The Corbita, with 12,000 cargo for 24,000 denars. If you play far from the Empire, the Trade Cog is the closest alternative.

Do upgrades carry over when you sell a ship?

They stay on the ship you sell, and you cannot take them off and move them to another ship. Fitted pieces raise the ship’s value a little, so you will get a small part of their price back in the sale.