Beginner guide and others Guides/Strategy/gameplay

I startet Brytenwalda yesterday for the first time, maybe I found a working strategy but it wasn't to hard in the beginning. I started on Britain and traded a bit until I had a treasury around 5000 (3 ingame days). Then I recruited ~20 Hvy. Cav. Mercs (~3500 initially, ~2000 upkeep), from that point on it was a smooth ride, with this force you can go after Dene Raiders on Day 3 or trade in peace for big bucks or do both.

I just had to watch the first 3 days while trading where I was going, the keypoint is the Cav. only Force with Inf. you are to slow on the map for efficient trading or hunting.

    in the beginning i find the horse invaluable. if you could find bands of 1-4, then foot soloing would be fine. problem is, you don't have the gear or skill. and even still, you would then need to have enough money to keep a small warband with you.  no way to solo frank/dena pirates, even late game without a horse. you will be mobbed by the 20-50 blood thirst  bastards. however, theows could be killed on foot, but i suggest you pick off a few off with a bow, or even thrown weapon.

here is what you really want to know:
    if you get a small warband early, you can fight on foot though. problem is, you probably won't be making money as fast. i would recommend making some money first, the horse speed allows you to do without heavy armor or skill needed for foot fighting. if you import a character with enough money say for 1 winery, you inherited from your father?  you could be on your way after a week or two of income plus what you earn on your own. for foot you need 2 shields, 1h weapon (i prefer sword), early a ranged weapon, later a spear to counter calvary. go raider over trader, no horses means too slow to out run many bandits. get a boat, this will be the real challenge due to cost. raid villages. to truly make this work, i would start off as the son of a wine maker (i.e. import a character with enough for first winery, any more money may ruin the immersion). i may try it and see how it works. very serious challenge. but hell it might work. also if you decide to start as a wealthy noble (import character with lots of money), then it's easy street. but at last, to do without import would be a huge mountain to climb, but could be very rewarding or might be impossible.... if you try let us know   see here:

I usually play with the difficulty ramped up as high as possible (plus all the mod options enabled), though I usually keep combat speed to medium. This makes it real hard to solo groups of any enemies (especially early on) as you can get owned by a theows chucking rocks if you are not super careful. Also I always play with the realistic save setting. So no quitting without saving for me. For me the best thing to do is get good with the surrounding lords of a faction you plan to join. Even with a few lords outside that faction. If someone likes you they will usually help you in a fight (Does this work with lords too or just farmers, etc? Never can remember).

It is always a good idea to get good reputation before joining a faction or starting your own. This way if you get caught by a enemy lord who you are warring against you can usually get them to let you go without fighting. I also noticed that gaining rep with a lord is easier than other mods/native because the boosts you get are crazy high it seems. I delivered a message for a lord once and his reputation went from 1 to 6 when usually in other mods it's more like from 1 - 2/3.

How to solo Frank/Dena Hideouts.

These hideouts sometimes appear near the coast or sometimes spawn due to a quest given by a lord. This will help you solo them even at level one. The only equipment you need is a shield and a spear with a weapon reach of at least 150 (though longer is preferred). Every time I've went to take out one of these hideouts it has always been the same scene. You start off on some rocky/mountainous slope having to go down toward a beach with a couple of boats near the water, a cave to the left and right.

The trick to this solo strategy is simple. Make you way down the initial slope and head immediately for the little rock formation to the bottom right. Sometimes a raider will spawn pretty close by to the left. If so stay back and stab him with that long old spear of yours. Now for the boring part. If you see any raiders simple WALK toward them. Take it nice and slow. As soon as they start to toss rocks or run for you, high tail it back to that rock formation and repeat the process.

Doing this very slow and boring procedure will allow you to solo this dens by yourself without any trouble and using only a shield and (long) spear. I'd show a screenshot to help demonstrate but every time I try it is nothing but a black image. Hope this helps!

Note: The AI is pretty dumb in this aspect but they sometimes get lucky and get up there with you. But this is rare indeed as it has hardly happened to me. Carry a backup sword or something just in case.

started a new character to try some different tactics. started in ireland this time. gonna try no trading. will document end of first 4 weeks, then next 30 days. my character is a outcast noble jute, all my skills are combat oriented.
week 1
i have 4k scillingas and a sword and leather jerkin armor. i only have 3 infantry with me.
week 2
have a ship and 39 recruits (the large number keeps other pirates away), 4.9k scillings. raiding towns on irelands coast. picked only one faction so far to harass. now have low enough relation i can loot and burn villages. attacking villagers and releasing captives to prevent honor from going down too fast.
week 3
turns out you better have good infantry to loot villages, got my but kicked. now have 40 heavy/med infantry and 3k scillingas, 2 companions.
week 4
16k scillings.
day 60
i have 60 heavy infantry, a wagon, 3 more companions, good armor, 3 wineries, and 1600 scillingas. i've mostly raided all of ireland, and fought a few small battles.
    so far, pretty good, lots of fun. i've given up horses and am living out my viking dreams. athletics seems pretty important, and sucks moving so slow on map. me and my companions are going 1h/s and javelins. -40 honor though. also dena pirates won't fight me and can out run me. i need to get the rest of my companions now so i can get path finding.
day 90
i caved and traded salt 3 times . was a short run and easy money.honor is at +22, farmer quests (kill bandits) and saving lords fixed it. have about 10k scillingas. 60 men still, but most are now franks/dena pirates. not a fan of franks but they all upgrade to ship captains (elite heavy infantry). also, frank/pirates are a lot cheaper than heavy mercs, and heavy faction troops are even cheaper. few more companions. they have leather or chain mail, and all have shields, javalins, swords and axes. tested sword vs axes again. seems early on axes do same to 2x as much damage. but, they are slow and short. case in point: bandits jumped me in town, one got a few hits with an axe (ouch, hurt a lot and would have died without my heavy armor). but i was able to quickly cut him down with my sword (85 vs 77 max axe speed) while backing out of axe range (95 sword has 20 to 35 reach advantage and long blade vs axe head). however, you can be successful with axe if you learn to stay close and get athletics up quick so you can get there quickly and stay there.  21 str/ 10 agi/ 5 int (dumb as all hell)/ 9 cha (ok looking). 7 on iron skin and power strike make me pretty bad ass. athletic only 3 but i will go for 6. body armor is 57/13 plus 5 on gloves, 32 on helm, and 14 boots.
king status
...will update...
conclusion
so, horse is needed early but you can get rid of it pretty quick and fight on foot with your men. trading isn't absolute, but it slows money if you don't do some(imo). you absolutely need businesses. i find armor more important on foot because you can't simply ride away. remember your warcry, and save it for when you get surrounded or to even to move enemy so your men can surround. when facing a lot of heavy calvary make sure you have heavy spearmen. a calvary charge can route your men! i was like wtf? my heavy infantry are running! think i should have gone looking for my companions a little earlier, but seems to be working out. last campaign i got to king status at around 290 days. we will see if i can do same this time.
me:

I thought that, if you had some donkeys in your inventory, you moved faster. You don't have to 'equip' them, just having them was enough.

Can anyone confirm this?

i thought horses increased speed and donkeys increased looting<<<in next version of brytenwalda. if some one finds a link please post it. and yes they only need to be in your inventory. but i need my inventory space 

EDIT: here it is    http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,168472.0.html

question is, does warband look at horses and mules/donkeys differently? doubt it.

sorry folks but I really don't know how to use the shields bash, what's the key??

Vestinus said:

sorry folks but I really don't know how to use the shields bash, what's the key??

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To activate shield bash, hold down the block button (right mouse) and then simply attack (left mouse). If done right you will knock your opponent back.

I am finding the different types of troops and factions in Brytenwalda a little overwhelming, and confusing. For example if I wanted to join the Britons, there are is Faction named Britions, but there is a Briton troop tree?

Another thing is looking at the troop trees, it appears that every tree has a mixture of ranged, calvary, and infantry troops. Are there any advantages of one troop tree over another (example the Nords would excel as infantry, the Sarranids would do better on horses).

I have been reading that javelins are good. Does this mean bowmen will not be giving you value for money?

Could someone help with this?

Looking at the troop trees you can click each troop and see the stats. and inventory of the troops,
thereby comparing them.
The Britons, Picts, Angles, Saxons and Celts are all divided into several kingdoms (the Jutes have just one IIRC).
So that means for example all Briton kingdoms have troops from the Briton troop tree.

Javelins and bows each have their advantage. Bows have longer range and many arrows in the quiver.
Javelins are more powerful (even more so in next version) but shorter range and only a few in the bag.
It depends on your tactics.

Can someone suggest which troop trees would be easier to survive on? Or are they all balanced to the point that there is no real difference?

And in a situation of War, example war with a Briton Faction, does this mean for the purpose of morale, all Briton Kingdoms (across more than one Faction) must not be recruited into the Player's army to avoid a morale hit?

I don't know that much about balance...

If you have negative relation with a faction that also means the morale of those troops in your party is lower.
You should preferably recruit from factions that are friendly/allied.
But they are still fighters, so put the 'enemy troops' in the vanguard 

Finch said:

Can someone suggest which troop trees would be easier to survive on? Or are they all balanced to the point that there is no real difference?

And in a situation of War, example war with a Briton Faction, does this mean for the purpose of morale, all Briton Kingdoms (across more than one Faction) must not be recruited into the Player's army to avoid a morale hit?

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picts are the hardest. low end troops for them have weak armor. saxon/engals/jutes have the best heavy infantry, irish have strong calvary and 2 handed sword infantry, brits have decent archers and ok calvary, but archers over all are weak due to the high occurance of shields. javelins are flat out amazing. they destroy shields, and can take out troops in a single hit. bows do ok in a siege defense. i often order them to a tower, and let the heavy infantry hold the gap. the enemy will hold their shields to the infantry and the archers have clear head shots.

morale, if you are at war with a jute faction, then jute troops cause a morale hit. however, if you are part of a faction, you should not get a morale hit even if the warring faction is the same nationality.however, your companions many be from a warring factions causing a small morale hit (very small).

Thank you Adorno and blackitalian. That's what I wanted to know In my present game, I am playing as Irish so that is comforting.

Regarding bows/javelins: Bows are potent, but to be effective, they need to be used against unshielded enemies or the unshielded flanks/rear of an enemy shieldwall. That's not that hard to do, but the AI generally fails to do it, or counter it, so it might feel cheap.

Of course javelins/axes benefit from being thrown into the unshielded flanks/rear as well, but they're not dependant on it to the same degree as bows... ideally, just about everyone in your shieldwall should have a throwing weapon. If you really need a fast and hard charge, you can always tell them to hold fire, but most of the time, a steady stream of missiles prior to melee will work to your advantage.

Not sure if this could be done, but the AI should learn to target horses, not riders, with ranged weapons... that'd increase the value of ranged weapons, and bows in particular, quite a bit, as horses are easy, and always unshielded, targets.

Can someone help, how do I assign a leader to wagons? I have a Supply Wagon and 2 companions in my Party, but nothing happens when I try to assign a leader for my wagon.

Finch said:

Can someone help, how do I assign a leader to wagons? I have a Supply Wagon and 2 companions in my Party, but nothing happens when I try to assign a leader for my wagon.

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after the wagon has a leader, send the wagon to a town and the companion will leave with the wagon. other wise the companion stays in your party. be warned, many people report the wagon being "lost" and unable to make a new one. i use it as extra storage and go to towns myself. play as you enjoy.

I use the wagon as a pack mule myself, but that is me not using the feature fully. My problem is I cannot select any leader. There are no choices for leaders. I click on select a leader, it brings me to a slider, but there are no selections under that slider, hence I cannot assign a leader. Can you explain how it works?

you have to have companions in your party. the slider runs between different companions.