Gossip rumors

Bannerlord v1.4.8 · checked 2026-11-10 · updated 2026-11-12

The opening line of a villager or townsperson in a settlement scene, at full precision for game v1.4.8. For a plain-language version, see the town gossip guide.

The behavior is SandBox.CampaignBehaviors.CommonVillagersCampaignBehavior, with no override in NavalDLC or StoryMode. The snippet tables and worked examples are computed by the Python model in src/bannerlord/gossip/; the condition tables are copied from the IL reading. Trade rumors in item tooltips are a separate system, see Trade rumors.

Who talks

Dialog town_or_village_start ({CONVERSATION_SCRAP}), condition conversation_town_or_village_start_on_condition:

• the speaker's occupation is Villager or Townsfolk, the player is inside the settlement, and the speaker is not escorting the player;
• each agent gives at most one rumor, and no rumor text is repeated, until the dedupe resets (see Selection);
• otherwise the agent opens with a fallback line ("Excuse me, … Is there anything you need?", the tavern or the children variant).

Pools

Exactly one pool is used, first match wins:

Issue types with a rumor text:

• SandBox: FamilyFeud, NotableWantsDaughterFound, RivalGangMovingIn.
• CampaignSystem: ArtisanCantSellProductsAtAFairPrice, ArtisanOverpricedGoods, ExtortionByDeserters, HeadmanNeedsGrain, HeadmanNeedsToDeliverAHerd, LandLordCompanyOfTrouble, LandlordNeedsAccessToVillageCommons, NearbyBanditBase.

An unclaimed issue therefore crowds out all other gossip in that settlement.

Which pool of lines a speaker draws from.

General pool

Every line whose condition holds is added; one is then drawn at random (see Selection).

Notation used in the tables below:

• season: 0 spring … 3 winter, computed as DayOfYear / DaysInSeason.
• prosp: ProsperityLevel, Low 0 / Mid 1 / High 2. Town: prosperity ≥ 2000 is Mid, ≥ 5000 is High. Village: from the hearth level.
• loyalty: town loyalty; 50 in villages.
• owner: the leader of the owner clan.
• ruler: the leader of the map faction.

Seasons and economy

The townsfolk "pittance wage" line requires prosp < 0 and is unreachable.

Trade tips

The only price-bearing gossip. Steps:

1. Market: this town; in a village, its TradeBound town (else its Bound town).
2. Targets: other towns with map distance < EstimatedAverageCaravanPartySpeed · 24 (≈ one day of caravan travel).
3. For each trade good in this settlement's stock, cheapest category here first (Town.GetItemCategoryPriceIndex):
   1. best = the target with the highest buy price for the item.
   2. diff = best sell price − market buy price. Prices are computed with no client party: penalty 0.012.
   3. If diff > 1: add a tip "{relative} took {item} to {best} and made {diff} profit".
4. Stop after 4 tips.

Unlike tooltip trade rumors, these are live prices and need no perk, but they cover only towns within about a day and only goods in stock here. best is chosen by the target's buy price, not its sell price.

At most 4 trade tips go into the general pool, each only if the profit is more than 1. Goods are checked in this order, cheapest category here first.

Both prices are computed with no client party, so the trade penalty is 0.012.

Step by step for the table:

1. Grain: diff = 31 − 20 = 11 > 1, tip 1.
2. Fur: diff = 31 − 30 = 1, not > 1, no tip.
3. Pottery: diff = 55 − 38 = 17, tip 2.
4. Wine: diff = 68 − 45 = 23, tip 3.
5. Iron: diff = 66 − 52 = 14, tip 4; the limit of 4 is reached.
6. Silver: never checked, although its diff of 30 is the largest.

Lords and order

World events

Game action logs younger than 60 days:

The siege line compares a clan with the settlement's map faction, which is a kingdom whenever the owner clan belongs to one; it fires only for settlements of independent clans.

Notables

For every hero in the settlement without a party, plus the owner:

"Relation" is the notable's relation with the owner.

Selection

State kept by the behavior:

• _lastEnteredTime: the campaign time of the last reset.
• _rumorsGiven: a map from agent key to the id of the rumor that agent told.

On conversation start:

1. If CampaignTime.Now != _lastEnteredTime: set _lastEnteredTime = Now and clear _rumorsGiven.
2. key = |agent.GetHashCode()|.
3. If key is in _rumorsGiven: fallback line, stop.
4. pool = the pool from Pools.
5. Repeat pool.Count times:
   1. r = pool[RandomInt(pool.Count)], drawn with replacement.
   2. id = the first 12 characters of r's rendered text.
   3. If id is not among the values of _rumorsGiven: set _rumorsGiven[key] = id, say r, stop.
6. Fallback line.

Consequences:

• The dedupe resets at the first conversation after campaign time has moved; it is not saved.
• Two lines starting with the same 12 rendered characters count as the same rumor, so at most one of them is told until the reset.
• Draws are with replacement: with k untold lines left out of n, the agent fails with probability (1 − k/n)^n and uses the fallback even though a rumor remains.

Symbols of the miss probability:

• n: pool.Count, the number of lines in the speaker's pool, told or not.
• k: the number of lines in the pool whose id is not yet among the values of _rumorsGiven.
• 1 − k/n: the chance that a single draw lands on a line already told.
• The power n: one factor per draw.

Worked example, n = 10, k = 1:

1. One draw lands on a told line with probability 1 − 1/10 = 0.9.
2. All 10 draws do: 0.9^10 = 0.3487.
3. So the agent says the fallback line with probability 0.3487 although one rumor remains.

Chance that every draw lands on a line already told, so the speaker says the fallback line.

With 5 lines in the pool:

With 10 lines in the pool:

With 20 lines in the pool:

Unregistered dialog

conversation_townsfolk_ask_asses_prices_on_condition and conversation_townsfolk_ask_asses_prices_on_consequence exist but are not registered as a dialog; the consequence is empty.

Game code

IL decoded from game v1.4.8:

• CommonVillagersCampaignBehavior.il: the whole behavior: AddTownspersonAndVillagerDialogs, conversation_town_or_village_start_on_condition, RumorIdentifier, GetPossibleIssueRumors, GetBeggarStories, get_TradeRumorDistance and the unregistered conversation_townsfolk_ask_asses_prices_* pair.
• GetPossibleRumors.il: GetPossibleRumors, the general pool.
• GetPossibleRumors.lambdas.il: the compiler-generated lambdas of GetPossibleRumors.
• GetProsperityLevel.il: Town.GetProsperityLevel and Village.GetProsperityLevel.
• SettlementComponent.GetProsperityLevel.il: the base SettlementComponent.GetProsperityLevel.
• LogEntry.GetAsRumor.il: GetAsRumor of LogEntry, ChangeSettlementOwnerLogEntry, DeclareWarLogEntry, DestroyMobilePartyLogEntry, MakePeaceLogEntry and VillageStateChangedLogEntry.

Changelog

• v1.4.8 (2026-11-11): Rewritten as deep dive; facts unchanged.
• v1.4.8 (2026-11-10): Moved into the site; content unchanged.