If you have Imperial Equites or Vlandian Light Cavalry ready to upgrade and the party screen will not turn them into Heavy Horsemen or Vlandian Cavalry, the game is waiting for a war horse that is not in your inventory yet. Getting one is a little bit trickier than it sounds, because only certain villages breed them and the horses already in your bags may well be the wrong type.

War horses are bred in the 33 Horse Farm villages of Calradia, and you will find them for sale there and in the towns those villages trade with. You will also loot them from mid-tier enemy cavalry. The upgrade itself needs the exact horse type the troop asks for. A war horse will not count where the game wants a normal horse, and a noble horse such as a Destrier will not count for any troop at all.

All numbers and names below come from the game files of v1.4.8 with War Sails. Below, I will go through where each kingdom keeps its Horse Farms, which troops need which horse, and what to check when an upgrade still refuses to go through.

Where to get war mounts

War horses are produced by villages of the Horse Farm type. A Horse Farm puts its daily production into its own village market first, and villager parties then carry the goods to the town the village trades with. So you can buy war horses directly in the Horse Farm village, and you will also find them in its trade town. Check both.

Some breeds even carry the name of their farm, like the Valanby Courser from Valanby, the Glintor Pony from Glintor and the Canterion Charger from Canterion.

All 33 Horse Farm villages

The table lists every Horse Farm on the War Sails map, grouped by the kingdom that holds it at the start of a campaign. A village that belongs to a town always trades with that town. A village that belongs to a castle trades with the nearest town of its own kingdom, as long as that town is not too far away, and otherwise with the nearest town of a kingdom it is not at war with. The game recalculates this when towns change hands, which is why the last column only says “usually”.

Without the War Sails DLC, Orthra (owned by Myzea) takes the place of Tememos, so Myzea gets two Horse Farms and Saneopa only one, and the Simira Castle farm is called Kohi Ajik instead of Tismil.

On the War Sails map, seven towns get goods from two Horse Farms each at the start: Hubyar, Askar, Husn Fulq, Baltakhand, Odokh, Ortongard and Saneopa. They are good towns to check first.

Sturgia is the odd one out. Its three Horse Farms all belong to castles and none to a town, so its Revyl Chasers are easy to overlook.

How many war horses a Horse Farm makes

Not every Horse Farm breeds war horses at the same speed. The game files give each regional type its own base output per day.

These base numbers apply to a village with 200 to 599 hearths, while a smaller village will make half as much and one with 600 hearths or more will make one and a half times as much. A raided village produces nothing, and so does a castle village that has no town to trade with. For comparison, the same farms breed normal horses roughly three to five times faster, while noble horses only trickle in at 0.05 to 0.1 per day.

Two culture bonuses come on top. Villages owned by a Khuzait clan, AI or player, will produce 25% more horses, war horses and pack animals (noble horses do not get the bonus). Villages that belong to a castle get 10% more production when their owner is Vlandian.

At base, a single Battanian or Sturgian farm breeds more than twice as many war horses as a Steppe farm. The Khuzaits make up for a part of that with seven farms and their 25% bonus.

Markets and prices

When players name a favourite market, it is usually one of the Khuzait towns (Baltakhand, Ortongard, Odokh or Akkalat) for Steppe Hunters, or Seonon in Battania for Glintor Ponies. The prices they mention land roughly between 450 and 800 denars for the cheaper war horses early on, and around 1,000 or more later in the game. Take those numbers as a rough guide only, since stock and prices move around a lot over a campaign.

You will not have to race the AI lords for them. AI lords only ever buy normal horses. When their spare mounts are worth a lot compared to their gold, they also sell them in town markets, most valuable first, so it does not hurt to look at the horse stock in every town you pass.

Mount, War Mount, Noble Mount and pack animals

Bannerlord sorts every horse into one of four categories, and an upgrade only looks at the category. You don’t have to memorise the breeds. Hover over a horse in the trade or inventory screen and the tooltip will show you its type. Mount means a normal horse, War Mount is what most cavalry upgrades ask for, and Noble Mount is a class that no troop upgrade ever uses.

War horses

The Horse Farms will breed the following war horses. The riding requirement only matters if you want to ride one yourself, since your troops never get the actual horse you hand over.

Three more war horses exist, called War Horse, Steppe Charger and Desert War Horse, each with a riding requirement of 80. They are not regular trade goods, so no Horse Farm breeds them. The plain War Horse is the item the cheat console hands out.

Normal horses, noble horses and pack animals

The normal horses are the Nahasawi, Camel, Battanian Hobby, Midlands Palfrey, Steppe Horse, Sturgian Native, Rouncey and Hunter, plus the rare Husnphree and Nahasa Camel, which no Horse Farm breeds. Mind that the Hunter is a normal horse while the Steppe Hunter is a war horse, and the same goes for the Camel and the War Camel.

The noble horses are the Destrier, Palmatian, Karahan, Askarat, Omor Trotter and Swenryn Pony, plus rarer ones that no Horse Farm breeds, such as the Royal Destrier, Wadar Hotblood, Cossian, Pureblood and Storm Charger. You can ride them or sell them. They will never count for a troop upgrade.

The pack animals are the Sumpter Horse, Mule, Pack Camel, Saddle Horse and Work Horse. They add carrying capacity and count for nothing on the upgrade screen. The Saddle Horse and the Work Horse in particular sound like something a soldier could ride, so it helps to remember these five names.

Which troops need a war horse

The horse requirement sits on the troop you upgrade into. Each step that has one uses up a single horse of the right category per troop, and every other step only costs gold and experience. The steps below will use up a normal horse:

And these steps will need a war horse:

A few things follow from these two tables:

• Every main culture hits a war-horse step somewhere in its cavalry line, Battania and Sturgia included. Even the archer lines need one in two places, when an Imperial Veteran Archer becomes a Bucellarii and when a Battanian Veteran Skirmisher becomes a Mounted Skirmisher.
• Some lines need two horses, a normal one first and a war horse later. Vlandian Footmen on their way to Vlandian Cavalry are the classic case, and so are Imperial Vigla Recruits on their way to Heavy Horsemen, Varyags on their way to Druzhinnik and Battanian Trained Warriors on their way to Horsemen.
• The noble lines differ. The Vlandian, Khuzait and Aserai noble lines need one war horse each, for the Gallant, the Torguud and the Faris, and the tiers after that cost no further horse. The Imperial and Sturgian noble lines need a normal horse first (Equite, Varyag Veteran) and a war horse later (Heavy Horseman, Druzhinnik). The Battanian noble line needs no horse at all.
• No step asks for more than one horse per troop, and the top tiers are free. The Vlandian Knight and Vanguard, the Imperial Cataphract, the Khuzait Kheshig, Heavy Lancer and Heavy Horse Archer, the Aserai Veteran Faris and the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion need no further horse.
• Bandits that turn into regular troops, such as a Marauder becoming a Khuzait Lancer, also need the Leadership perk Veteran’s Respect.

For reference, the horse requirement only applies to you. AI lords upgrade their regular cavalry without owning a single horse, and that opens up a cheaper route further down.

Why you can’t upgrade your cavalry

When the horse is missing, the game will name the category it needs, but it will not tell you why the horses you carry do not count. If a troop refuses to upgrade, go through this list.

1. Check the horse type against the step. A troop going into Light Cavalry, Equite, Tribal Warrior, Mamluke Regular, Battanian Scout or Varyag Veteran needs a normal horse, and a stack of war horses will not help it. The steps in the war-horse table need a war horse, and normal horses will not help there.
2. Look for noble horses. After a fight with a lord’s army, you can easily be carrying a pile of Destriers, Palmatians or Karahans. They look like the best horses you own, but they will never count.
3. Look for pack animals. A Sumpter Horse, Mule, Pack Camel, Saddle Horse or Work Horse counts for nothing.
4. Make sure the horse is in your party inventory. Horses you left in a settlement stash will not count until you take them along again.
5. Count your horses. With 20 ready Equites and 12 war horses, only 12 of them will become Heavy Horsemen.
6. Check the perk for bandits. Turning a bandit into a regular troop needs Veteran’s Respect (Leadership 150) as well as the horse.
7. Check experience and gold. The troop still needs enough experience and you still pay the upgrade gold, but the upgrade will never buy the horse for you. It has to be in your bags before you click.
8. Check your mods. In the base game, only the steps in the two tables above need a horse. If your game asks for one at every tier, a mod such as RBM is changing the troop files.

Which horse the upgrade uses up

When you carry several horses of the right type, the game will take the cheapest one first. It will also leave any horse you have locked in the inventory screen until every unlocked horse of that type is gone. So if you have a valuable war horse that you want to ride or sell later, lock it before you start upgrading. Older advice about the upgrade eating your best horse is out of date.

The horse you hand over does not change the troop. The game simply removes it from your inventory, and the new trooper rides the standard horse of its own equipment. The Khuzait Lancer shows this nicely, because it rides a noble Karahan, yet upgrading a Horseman into a Lancer will eat a war horse from your bags.

The breed does not matter. Buy the cheapest war horse you can find and keep the expensive ones for yourself and your companions.

War horses from battles

Battle loot is the other big source, but it depends a lot on who you fight. The elite cavalry of Vlandia, the Empire, the Khuzaits and the Aserai rides noble horses, so beating a lord’s best riders will mostly fill your bags with horses you cannot use for upgrades. The war horses you want are under mid-tier cavalry.

The Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion comes with either an Omor Trotter or a Revyl Chaser. There is no reliable drop rate to give you. That being said, armies full of horse archers, Faris and Vlandian Cavalry are probably the ones to hunt when you are short on war horses.

Veterinarian

Veterinarian (Medicine 125, for the Surgeon) gives a 50% chance to recover the horse of each mounted soldier of your own party who dies in battle. You get back that troop’s standard mount, so a dead Vlandian Cavalry trooper will give you a Valanby Courser, while a dead Banner Knight will give you a Destrier that is useless for upgrades. Additionally, the perk has a 30% daily chance to recover a lame horse. Neither effect works at sea.

A lot of players believe it also hands you the horses of the enemy riders you kill, and some popular money-making setups are built on that idea. The game’s code says otherwise. The perk only looks at the dead of its own party, so beating a Vlandian army will not shower you with their Destriers. For a cavalry army it is still very good, since it refunds about half of the mounts your dead riders leave behind.

Cheaper ways to a cavalry army

Recruits that already ride war horses

The war-horse step only costs you a horse when you do the upgrade yourself. A Vlandian Gallant, an Imperial Heavy Horseman, a Khuzait Torguud and an Aserai Faris all ride war horses already, and none of them will need another horse on the way to the top of its line. If a notable offers you one of them at that tier, the horse is paid for. You will need good relations with the notable and some patience, though, because recruits of that tier take time to show up.

Garrisons and clan parties

Since the AI does not need horses, you can let it do the upgrading for you. Put cavalry that is ready to upgrade into the garrison of one of your towns or castles and come back a little later. The garrison will upgrade them without touching a single horse, and the troops keep their experience when you move them in and out.

It is not free. The game charges the upgrade gold to the owner of the fief, which is you, and it does so silently, so there is no line for it in your income. The garrison wage limit can also block the upgrades. Towns and castles work the same way here, so if a castle refuses to upgrade anyone, the wage limit or missing experience is probably the reason.

Clan parties will do the same. Give your ready troops to a companion’s party, wait a day or so, and take them back upgraded. The party pays the upgrade gold out of its own purse, so a companion with little money will only upgrade a few, and a wage limit you have set for that party can block it too. This trick only skips the horse for regular troops, though. Bandits still need theirs.

Bandit routes

With Veteran’s Respect (Leadership 150), three bandit conversions skip the war horse entirely. A Raider upgrades into a Khuzait Kheshig, a Harami into an Aserai Veteran Faris and a Highwayman into a Vlandian Champion, all without a horse. If you recruit Raiders, Harami or Highwaymen from your prisoners, you are going to get high-tier cavalry for gold and experience only.

The steps before them cost horses. A Marauder needs a war horse to become a Raider, a Nomad Bandit needs one to become a Harami, and a Brigand needs a normal horse to become a Highwayman. The route works best with bandits that are already at the right tier when you capture them.

Perks that help

Breeder (Riding 175, for the party leader) has a lot of myths around it, but the math is fairly simple. Once per day, the game makes a single 1% roll for your whole party. On a success, it picks one random animal stack from your inventory, with every stack having the same chance no matter its size, and adds copies equal to your total number of animals divided by 50, rounded, with a minimum of one. Mounts, pack animals and livestock all count, there is no cap, and nothing happens at sea. The horses your troops ride are not part of the count.

On average, that is about one success every 100 days. With 200 animals in your bags, a success will add four copies of whichever stack it picked, which could be your war horses just as well as your cows. I would not count on it to supply your cavalry.

Beast Whisperer (Scouting 175, for the Scout) gives a 5% chance per day to find a random horse while you travel over steppe or plains. It can be a normal horse, a war horse, a noble horse or a pack animal, so treat any war horse from it as a bonus.

The rest are small discounts and production boosts:

Do not expect the governor perks to fill a market with war horses. If you play as a Khuzait, your culture also makes recruiting and upgrading mounted troops 10% cheaper. The other Riding, Medicine and Steward picks are in the best perks guide for Bannerlord.

At sea with War Sails

War Sails did not change any horse requirement, and the Nords have no cavalry, so the DLC adds no new troops that need war horses. Horses in your inventory do take up cargo space on your ships, though, and neither Breeder nor Veterinarian will do anything while you are at sea. If you are going to sail for a long time, it is probably better to leave your spare horses in a fief stash before you set off.

Conclusion

Most of the time, a stuck cavalry upgrade comes down to the wrong type of horse in your inventory, so check the tooltip before you buy. Early on, I would simply buy the cheapest war horses at a Horse Farm village or its trade town and lock anything valuable. Later in the campaign, mid-tier enemy cavalry, a Veterinarian in your party and your garrisons will probably cover most of what your army needs.