Uhtred of Bebbanburg
Sergeant at Arms
Beginner’s Guide to Sword of Damocles Mount and Blade
By Uhtred of Bebbanburg
I was asked to make this beginners’ guide to SoD touching on several key topics which have been talked about in various threads throughout the forums and to bring as many as I can into one thread.
Please feel free to ask questions that I haven't answered and I will try to elaborate or expand in my original posts so they are all in one spot. This isn't everything about the game but I will get to it eventually or link to it.
I. Getting started—Hints and Tips
II. How do I make money?
III. Understanding the new factions and how to use them.
i. Field Battles
ii. Siege Battles
IV. Nation Building
V. Exploits or Features?
VI. Special Section on Weapons, Horses, and Other Stuff
I. Getting Started--Hints and Tips
1. For the easiest leveling use a horse for yourself and your companions. This is still Mount & Blade after all. After you’ve mastered SoD you can do something more frustrating like not using any horse troops at all (including yourself and companions).
2. I try to keep their equipment uniform. For instance they all carry two shields and a one-handed blunt weapon. Blunt weapons are good for fighting on foot and on horse and they allow you to capture lots of prisoners. Selling prisoners is a good source of money and will enable you to upgrade equipment faster in the early game.
Some other good reasons to specialize in blunt is that it allows you to separate your companions from your other troops. Hitting F11 will allow only those troops with blunt weapons to go into battle. This is good if there is only a few enemy and you want to give that experience to your companions.
Smashing a guy in a face with a Flanged Mace always does the job but other weapons can just bounce off if you are too close or don’t have momentum. Plus there is the stupid AI which chooses the wrong weapon at the wrong time. Blunts are good all the time and if you employ a more powerful secondary weapon like a Balanced Foil or a throwing weapon you can make them choose between them by selecting F11 to use only blunt weapons or F5 to cease fire on ranged weapons. But if you have a sword and spear you can’t make them choose either and there’s nothing so irritating as watching a companion climb a ladder with a dinky spear knowing that he’s going to get killed.
3. Your prisoner level should be increased but you will never be able to get it high enough to hold all the prisoners you capture in many battles. For this reason you should deploy a regiment to carry your prisoners. Simply talk to one of your soldiers and ask them to form a regiment. Then on the campaign map, click on them to do the troop transfer. This regiment can follow you or you can tell it to go to an owned castle or town to wait until you can show up to sell them all. This method is useful in that none of the prisoners in a regiment will be recruited by your town or castle. It frees up space in the castle jail for captured lords and other prisoners you actually want to recruit and it allows you to immediately return to defending your realm and deal with prisoners later.
4. As you level up your companions you will be able to take on much larger groups of enemies. This is very important for several reasons.
a. First is you won’t have as many soldiers to share loot with which means more loot for you to sell.
b. Your renown for each battle will be higher and this is essential if you want to be able to take on the Legion invasion when it comes.
c. Because it’s just you and your companions there is no wasted experience. When fully leveled elite troops make kills some of that experience is lost on them. Also if you have troops that are ready to upgrade but can’t be upgraded because there are no facilities then they also soak up experience to no end.
d. You start off with some homeland troops. I generally use them for a few battles to gain some loot and then I disband them. It will be months before you are able to take a castle and you will have to pay wages to troops you can’t upgrade and who will take a share of loot from every battle. More recently I’ve turned this group into a regiment and used them to hold all the prisoners so I can sell the low value prisoners at Tihr and the high dollar prisoners whenever I find a Ransom Broker.
e. As long as you have your original homeland troops in your army don’t click on them to upgrade when they are ready. You don’t get the upgrade but you do have to pay them the higher wage. That’s like buying a chick an expensive dinner and going home by yourself.
f. If you click on “Camp”, “Take other Action” and then “Quick Start” you can get all the companions you want in the game and add some money and experience to your group. Not everyone wants to start from scratch every time and this gives you some options to accelerate (cheat?) the early game.
5. The best troops to recruit are from refugee countries. These troops will cost you less money and are easily found wandering about Calradria in deserter groups. If you have a group of blunt wielding horsemen then they are easy to capture. I put them all in a regiment of one and keep building them up until I’m ready to take a castle. Having 500 of these troops as prisoners costs you nothing and recruiting them into your army will give you enough men to take and hold castles. You will have to protect this regiment from bandit attack. It does you no good to have 500 elite troops as prisoners and have group of 5 looters capture it.
By Uhtred of Bebbanburg
I was asked to make this beginners’ guide to SoD touching on several key topics which have been talked about in various threads throughout the forums and to bring as many as I can into one thread.
Please feel free to ask questions that I haven't answered and I will try to elaborate or expand in my original posts so they are all in one spot. This isn't everything about the game but I will get to it eventually or link to it.
I. Getting started—Hints and Tips
II. How do I make money?
III. Understanding the new factions and how to use them.
i. Field Battles
ii. Siege Battles
IV. Nation Building
V. Exploits or Features?
VI. Special Section on Weapons, Horses, and Other Stuff
I. Getting Started--Hints and Tips
1. For the easiest leveling use a horse for yourself and your companions. This is still Mount & Blade after all. After you’ve mastered SoD you can do something more frustrating like not using any horse troops at all (including yourself and companions).
2. I try to keep their equipment uniform. For instance they all carry two shields and a one-handed blunt weapon. Blunt weapons are good for fighting on foot and on horse and they allow you to capture lots of prisoners. Selling prisoners is a good source of money and will enable you to upgrade equipment faster in the early game.
Some other good reasons to specialize in blunt is that it allows you to separate your companions from your other troops. Hitting F11 will allow only those troops with blunt weapons to go into battle. This is good if there is only a few enemy and you want to give that experience to your companions.
Smashing a guy in a face with a Flanged Mace always does the job but other weapons can just bounce off if you are too close or don’t have momentum. Plus there is the stupid AI which chooses the wrong weapon at the wrong time. Blunts are good all the time and if you employ a more powerful secondary weapon like a Balanced Foil or a throwing weapon you can make them choose between them by selecting F11 to use only blunt weapons or F5 to cease fire on ranged weapons. But if you have a sword and spear you can’t make them choose either and there’s nothing so irritating as watching a companion climb a ladder with a dinky spear knowing that he’s going to get killed.
3. Your prisoner level should be increased but you will never be able to get it high enough to hold all the prisoners you capture in many battles. For this reason you should deploy a regiment to carry your prisoners. Simply talk to one of your soldiers and ask them to form a regiment. Then on the campaign map, click on them to do the troop transfer. This regiment can follow you or you can tell it to go to an owned castle or town to wait until you can show up to sell them all. This method is useful in that none of the prisoners in a regiment will be recruited by your town or castle. It frees up space in the castle jail for captured lords and other prisoners you actually want to recruit and it allows you to immediately return to defending your realm and deal with prisoners later.
4. As you level up your companions you will be able to take on much larger groups of enemies. This is very important for several reasons.
a. First is you won’t have as many soldiers to share loot with which means more loot for you to sell.
b. Your renown for each battle will be higher and this is essential if you want to be able to take on the Legion invasion when it comes.
c. Because it’s just you and your companions there is no wasted experience. When fully leveled elite troops make kills some of that experience is lost on them. Also if you have troops that are ready to upgrade but can’t be upgraded because there are no facilities then they also soak up experience to no end.
d. You start off with some homeland troops. I generally use them for a few battles to gain some loot and then I disband them. It will be months before you are able to take a castle and you will have to pay wages to troops you can’t upgrade and who will take a share of loot from every battle. More recently I’ve turned this group into a regiment and used them to hold all the prisoners so I can sell the low value prisoners at Tihr and the high dollar prisoners whenever I find a Ransom Broker.
e. As long as you have your original homeland troops in your army don’t click on them to upgrade when they are ready. You don’t get the upgrade but you do have to pay them the higher wage. That’s like buying a chick an expensive dinner and going home by yourself.
f. If you click on “Camp”, “Take other Action” and then “Quick Start” you can get all the companions you want in the game and add some money and experience to your group. Not everyone wants to start from scratch every time and this gives you some options to accelerate (cheat?) the early game.
5. The best troops to recruit are from refugee countries. These troops will cost you less money and are easily found wandering about Calradria in deserter groups. If you have a group of blunt wielding horsemen then they are easy to capture. I put them all in a regiment of one and keep building them up until I’m ready to take a castle. Having 500 of these troops as prisoners costs you nothing and recruiting them into your army will give you enough men to take and hold castles. You will have to protect this regiment from bandit attack. It does you no good to have 500 elite troops as prisoners and have group of 5 looters capture it.