Renown is earned in many ways throughout the game:

• Story-driven events
  
• Player-choice events
  
• Battles & Wars

These events may often surprise you with a good amount of Renown, even though you've done little to earn it other than progress. As these are out of your control, I won't dwell here long.


This is one of the ways to optimize Renown for your playthough. If you've played through the game previously, you may encounter the same events, or you may encounter new ones. Some of these are static and will not differ, while some of these may only happen semi-randomly (or could be triggered by your level of Morale, or other ways.)

Either way, most options have different consequences. If you are comfortable with metagaming or cheating through these, you may find ways to control which events you see, as well as which rewards you receive (or which penalties you can avoid or reduce.) You may even find that if you reload a prior save game or checkpoint, you could have different events presented to you. There are other guides written elsewhere to assist you through these decisions. I was particularly fond of these two:

(Warning: Spoilers abound)
MattWritesStuff: http://hubpages.com/search/include%3Ahubs+mattwritesstuff+banner+saga?sort=Date
Shady314's Stoic Forum Post: http://stoicstudio.com/forum/showthread.php?2045-Do-not-peek-in-here-Big-spoilers!-The-effect-of-choices-in-your-Saga


Perhaps the best way to consistently earn Renown is through fighting. Every kill gives you additional Renown, plus you get a win bonus as well (+2 bonus.) This means that, in general, you should fight whenever you're given the opportunity, and you should always try to win. You will need to master the combat system. You should understand when you feel most comfortable attacking Strength instead of Armor, what turn order makes sense for your chosen squad, etc.

Sometimes you'll be picking a fight with random bandits or Dredge that you may have avoided otherwise. At first, this may seem counter-intuitive, right? You have a caravan of hundreds of people and/or Varl, and you're trying to run away to anywhere else in the world that is safer. However, there is no better source of consistent Renown. And Renown is your currency spent for buying Items, for buying Supplies, and for leveling-up your chosen characters.

Speaking of leveling-up, participating in so many battles has another benefit - your team will rack up more kills, which will allow you to level them up. Once you've decided who you think will comprise your optimal squad, ensure you're spreading around the kills. You may have a Warhawk that can easily knock someone down and put another notch in his belt, but you need to share the opportunities while you have them. You should especially pay attention in the early-game, when it is easier to catch characters up in kills due to weaker enemies. All characters you wish to have in your optimal squad should try to get at least 14 kills total, which is enough to get any of them to max level (once you are ready to spend Renown to level them up.)

When fighting Wars, in order to maximize your Renown, you want to always Charge if possible. This forces your main squad to fight a larger force. While this fight will be more difficult, it will generally include more foes, which will give you more Renown (+1 for each kill, and as was noted by Aleonymous in the comments, +3 for the larger 2x2 dredge.) In addition, when given the option to pursue fleeing Dredge, or to let them scatter, you should pursue (assuming you can win and still get the +2 win bonus) - this will give you even more Renown, in addition to a higher chance of finding an item afterwards.

Renown is the base currency for everything in the game, so spending it always comes at some opportunity cost. Just as there are many ways to earn it, here are some ways to spend it:

• Items
  
• Character Advancement
  
• Supplies

Items are perhaps one of the most tempting ways to spend Renown, especially early in your first game, when you don't know what else will come your way. However, I would advise against most Item purchases with Renown for a few reasons:

• Items can be obtained through other means throughout the game
  
• Items are level-restricted, and so they are only useful for the part of the game where the character is both able to equip them and is in the active party
  
• Items on characters which die or otherwise leave the party may no longer be available to the rest of the group

This guide isn't intended to be a list for items or how to obtain them, those lists exist elsewhere. Here's one:

(Warning: Spoilers abound)
MattWritesStuff: http://mattwritesstuff.hubpages.com/hub/The-Banner-Saga-Walkthrough-Item-List

I found that I was able to get the "Treasure Hunter" achievement in one normal playthrough without buying a single level 5 Item with Renown.

One of the best ways to ensure you continue to be strong in combat situations is to level-up your party members. However, this gets more costly each level, so be cautious as you balance your spending on characters versus Supplies.

One of the lessons you may learn the hard way as you play through the game your first time is that some characters are fragile (emotionally or physically,) and could die at any time. Because of this, for the purposes of optimizing your Renown spend and your kills award to characters, I'd recommend you be judicious with who you invest in. If you lose access to a character for whatever reason, you will not be refunded any Renown spent in leveling that character. In addition, as you switch between story lines, you'll see that each line carries a separate Renown pool.

If you are optimizing your party and don't mind cheating or enjoying the benefits of foreknowledge associated with some characters' demise, feel free to check around for various guides to these heroes, and how to recruit (and keep) them, if possible. Here are two I've used:
(Warning: Spoilers abound)
MattWritesStuff: http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Banner-Saga-Walkthrough-Heroes
FixelFidel's Steam Discussion Post: http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/237990/discussions/0/648817377618472151/

If this is your second (or higher) playthrough, you already have an idea what the rest of the game holds (both character-wise and battle-wise,) and who you might prefer to be in your optimal party. I would recommend investing Renown only in those people, and I would generally recommend you wait until closer to the end of the game before you do (in order to ensure you have enough Renown to purchase Supplies as needed.)

Sometimes it is safe to spend to gain a few levels (perhaps to also add the benefits of level-locked Items,) but I recommend you ensure you are in a healthy Supply situation first.

Perhaps one of the trickiest things to balance in the game is how much to spend on Supplies versus how much you can hold onto for other things. The problem is that you never know when your next opportunity to buy or gain more Supplies will be. There are some stretches that, if you don't know enough or plan enough in advance, you may end up starving your people. Starving people means you lose fighters and varl, which has an impact in some later stages in the game. In addition, starving folks will damage Morale, which may change which events are available to you, as well as reduce the amount of starting Willpower you have each fight. On the other hand, having enough or even plenty of Supplies allow you to rest more often (for your Morale or to heal injuries.) If you're after Achievements, you may be able to get both "High Spirits" and "Quartermaster" in the same run.

Unless the ratio of Supplies:Renown to purchase is terrible (e.g. 1:1 in at least two possible scenarios/locations,) I usually buy as many as I can until I have enough to get me through 15-20+ days. The rest I may stockpile or use to advance a character that I am confident is in my optimal end-game party.

As a side-note, it seems that at the end of Chapter 2, your Supplies may be reset before rejoining this group again. In that case, I would not advise stockpiling. If this changes, I may update my guide.

A very helpful guide was previously posted and begun by Grak entitled: "A Pilgrim's Guide to the Apocalypse." This is a guide which lists your opportunities to purchase Supplies, and in many early-game cases, the number of travel days to account for in-between this opportunities:

(Warning: Spoilers abound)
http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=217383299
Based on your actions, your caravan could have different opportunities or needs regarding resting or Supply events, as well as a different overall size (which determines how many days your Supplies will last,) so managing this could be very tricky. I'd recommend always having some extra if possible.