This is a basic guide designed to get new players up and running when playing the game. It's intended use is to give a basic description of the gameplay. For more detailed information, such as a full breakdown of damage types, see the other posts on this board.
Getting Started
Character creation is a relatively simple process. You will be asked to select a gender and starting class for your character, which will determine your base attributes and starting possessions. Gender wise the difference is relatively minor - an extra bit of agility for females and an extra bit of strength for males. The classes are much simplified from previous versions, and are pretty self explanatory. Don't worry too much about the class at the moment - it's not that hard to develop your skills in game.
You'll next have the opportunity to customise your character by assigning a few extra skill points, a name and a face. Clicking attributes and skills will give you a brief description of their benefits. Most skills have a limitation on how high they can be advanced depending on their governing attribute. Weapon skills are also capped without investing in the weapon master skill.
Note that each attribute tends to provide some 'undocumented' benefits. Strength boosts your damage, Agility gives a small boost to your speed (including attack speed) and so on. Intelligence can be useful, as every time you spend an attribute point in intelligence you gain an extra skill point. It helps to have some idea of what kind of character you're aiming for, but again if this is your first game don't worry too much about it. Generally, points in horsemanship or athletics, one of the weapon boosting skills (Power draw, throw or strike), Ironflesh and leadership are good bets.
Some things to bear in mind regarding skills. Power Draw also affects your accuracy with a bow. The higher your power draw is above the minimum requirement to use the bow, the more accurate you will be. Athletics increases running speed, and so is essential for infantrymen. Horse archery is a must for mounted archers, though this needs to be a minimum level of 6 to really be effective. Riding is essential for cavalrymen, and each increase in riding affects the speed and maneuverability of the horse. Generally, with an infantryman I prefer athletics and ironflesh over anything else at the start, since you need to be able to move fast, and the extra hitpoints compensate for the lighter armour you're forced to wear. As cavalry, riding and power strike are a no brainer, with extra points going to leadership or prisoner management. Don't worry about weapon skills too much - you'll have ample opportunity to increase these before you really need them.
After creating your character you'll be offered the chance to recruit some men prior to starting the game. There's no real downside to taking them unless you have low charisma or leadership. If this is your first game then you'll probably want to accept their offer.
First Steps
Once you've finished character creation and the tutorial, you should be looking at the map of Calradia. Your party and other parties are represented by a single figure, either on foot or on a horse depending on the party leader. There are also several settlements, the smaller of the type are villages, which will be important later. Larger than these are the walled towns, which are handy places to sell your loot. There are also several castles, which again will come into play later.
For now, the first thing to do is hit the "I" button to see your inventory. By default, your character will probably have a horse and some food, along with some low grade equipment. On the screen in front of you is a representation of your character and the objects they are carrying. There are four weapon boxes which can contain weapons or shields, these can be cycled through with the mouse wheel in combat. There are slots for armour, and a final slot for your horse. At the moment, the only thing you might want to do is move the horse to the mount box. This will speed you up when travelling, and if you are attacked means you start the combat mounted. Once you've had a good look, close the inventory screen.
You can access your character sheet by pressing "C". This will display the same screen you saw during the creation process. Obviously, there's little to do there at the minute, but it's always useful to know how to get there. "P" or clicking the party button displays the party screen. If you accepted the men offering to join you, you'll see your character and also an entry underneath of "peasants", otherwise you'll be a party of one. The party screen will be used later to upgrade troops and equip NPC's, but for the time being there is nothing you need to worry about here. Other screens available is the Game Log (L) which displays information on the factions and nobles of Calradia, and the Quest Log (Q) which shows ongoing quests. Quests are disabled at the moment, so this shouldn't get any entries in this version
You can move the map either by moving the mouse to the screen borders, or using the W,A,S,D keys. The scroll wheel will control the zoom level. To move your party, simply left click anywhere on the map and you will head in that direction. Space will halt your party and pass time. Note that while you are in the map, time is frozen unless you hold space or order your party to move anywhere. Take some time to experiment with moving the map, once you are done it is time to head to town.
Zendar
Towns on the map display in the colour of the owning faction. At the start of the game, this is unimportant. There is one special 'neutral' town which you start near named Zendar. Click on the town to send your party there.
Once you arrive in town, you'll be stood in the town centre (other towns will give you a menu, but more on that later). The screen will show your character in third person. Use the W,A,S and D keys to move forwards, backwards, left and right respectively, while the mouse will control which way your character is facing. You can jump by hitting space, although there's not much use for it at the moment There will be a crosshair in the centre of the screen, by moving this crosshair over an object or character their name will be displayed, and you can interact with them by hitting the 'F' key. The first thing a new character should do is locate the Trainer. He will usually be found standing near what appears to be the town hall, opposite the Arena master. Hit F to talk to him, and he will offer to train you in combat. Accept, and you'll be transported to what looks like a cellar, with random equipment. You can't actually be killed here, so feel free to muck around and get the feel for the weapons. After the battle, you'll be transported back to the trainer. Where you can progress the training, or retry the combat if you got whupped. Try and complete the training, doing so should net you enough experience to advance a level.
Once you have finished the training you should be able to advance to level two. Press 'C' to open the character sheet, and distribute your new attribute and skill points. In order to win, I guess we should go into the combat system in a little more detail.
Combat
Controls in combat are the same as those used in town. W,A,S,D move your character around, the mouse changes your facing. Left click will attack with your weapon, while right click will parry, or use a shield if you have one. By default, attacks are set to directional and parry direction is automatic. This means that the type of attack you perform depends on how you move the mouse, while a right click block will automatically attempt to block in the direction the enemy is attacking from. The mouse wheel shifts between weapons and shields if you have any equipped, scroll up to switch weapons, and down to switch shields.
To set your attack direction, move the mouse left and hold the left mouse button. Your character should draw his weapon to the left side for a left - right slash. Moving up will prepare an overhead strike if the weapon is capable of it, while moving back will prepare for a thrust if the weapon is capable of it. As long as you hold the mouse, the character will keep his weapon ready. Release the mouse to deliver the blow.
Two important tips when attacking : hitting block will return your weapon to a parry position. If you click the right mouse button and immediately prepare another attack you can feint the enemy and fool him into trying to block in the wrong direction. Secondly, a shield will always block an attack regardless of direction (unless you are attacked from behind) as long as it is raised, but shields wear down with each block and eventually will be discarded (there is a shield icon on the lower right of the interface which represents damage to your shield). At higher AI levels, the enemy will attempt to feint you into blocking from the wrong direction. If you see the enemy change his swing direction, release and reclick the right mouse button to correct your parry angle.
In these simple combats victory is simply a matter of waiting for the enemy to attack, blocking and then striking with a blow of your own. As you progress through training, your enemies will get progressively harder. Don't be disheartened if you fail to win a combat, either try again or go build your skills up in the arena and return later when you can finish the fight rather quickly.
Since we've mentioned the arena, I'll give a brief description of some other useful commands which you may end up using in there. Firstly, if you are on a horse you can dismount by looking at the horse and hitting 'F' while stationary. You can also mount any horses you find via the same method. If you completed the tutorial, you will already know about archery, but a quick recap - when using a bow, hold the left mouse button to draw back an arrow. The crosshair will narrow, and then open back up the longer you hold the arrow back. For the best accuracy, release your arrow at the target when the crosshair is at it's narrowest point. You can use the 'R' key to switch between first and third person views, and the shift key to zoom your view towards the current target. Some players find ranged combat easier in first person, some find it easier in third. There is a slight bug with the targetting reticule being off between the two, however if you keep consistent you'll soon learn to correct for this. Also, the arrow will drop in flight so for more distant targets remember to aim high. Headshots always cause more damage than a body shot, regardless of armour.
Once you have defeated, or been defeated by, the best opponents the trainer has to offer, it's time to earn yourself some cash. Head on over to the arena master opposite.
Arena's
The people of Calradia enjoy watching combat between champions at the town arena. Each town specialises in different combats, from one on one or two against two fighting to huge six man, four team melees. Zendar generally offers one to one or two to two combat. When you talk to the arena master, he will tell you what kind of battle the next combat will be and ask if you'd like to join in or watch. If you choose to watch, you'll be offered a chance to bet on a team and then taken to view the combat. If you choose to join, you're offered the chance to bet money on yourself and then transported into the arena. For your first few matches it's better to not bet any money, at least until your confident of winning.
Once you join in you'll appear in the arena with random equipment and wearing armour of your teams colour. To win the match, eliminate anyone not wearing the same colour armour as yourself, it's that simple. During the fight, you will get messages scrolling across the left hand side of the screen. These will tell you if anyone has been knocked out, but also report back on any damage you cause. Another interesting message you may see from time to time is one informing you your weapon skill has increased. This is one of the prime reasons to engage in arena combat for a new character - you can increase your skills, gain experience points and money with no risk to yourself. Once the combat is over, be sure to talk to the arena master. He will give you your pay for participating in the fight, and also any money you may have won from betting. In general, I'd advise new players to engage in the arena until they get bored of it, or they reach level three or four. Don't forget to check out the arena's in other towns - they may offer more diverse matches for you to take part in, and you can always have fun testing your mettle.
Once you have grown rich, or tired, of the arena, we should check out the local merchants.
Trading
Most towns have a variety of merchants available to trade from, and villages offer a general stock of goods you can choose to buy. Of most interest to us will be the weaponsmith and the armoursmith. The merchant sells general goods such as trade items and food, while the horse merchant deals with horses, as you would expect.
When walking around town, you can recognise the merchant types by their location. Weapon and armour smiths will usually be standing next to a stall with pieces of armour or a selection of weapons. The merchants can usually be found in their own building, with a distinctive store sign near the doorway. To begin trading, target the merchant and hit F to open a conversation. In the conversation options, select "show me your wares".
The trade screen will appear. On the right, you will see your own inventory, and the amount of money (Denars) you have available. On the left, you will see the merchant's stock, plus the amount of money he has available. Hold the mouse over an object to see it's details. To buy something, click and drag it from the merchant's stock to your inventory, to sell, do the opposite. The total cost will appear at the lower part of the screen. Click ok to complete the trade (assuming you can afford it). Note that while merchants will only sell goods of their particular type, they will buy goods of any type. Also, the stock a merchant carries is completely random, and changes every three days. Remember to check in with the merchants while in towns, both to sell off captured loot and to look for better equipment.
For a new character, the equipment you already have should see you through your initial combats. Generally, good armour should be your first priority, then weapons. Remember to take note of the encumbrance value of each piece of equipment - while on foot, your movement speed will be slowed according to the total encumbrance you are carrying. If you are an infantryman, then the ratio of protection to weight is incredibly important. Horses are unaffected by encumbrance, so cavalrymen can feel free to buy the thickest, heaviest armour they can afford. Don't feel like you must spend all of your gold immediately either, it's a good idea to keep some back for recruiting more men. Once you are done trading, we'll leave Zendar. You can do this by walking out of the town and hitting the F key when told, but a quick shortcut is to use the tab button. Note that this works in all screens - hitting tab anywhere in town will return you to the town menu, and can be handy for getting out of inns, arena's and the like with non-functional doors.
Once your back on the map screen (don't forget to hit I and equip any new purchases, if applicable) it's time to look for a fight. Just to the right of Zendar, near the mouth of the river, is an invisible spawn point for River Pirate parties. These are poorly equipped criminals who make excellent easy targets for new players. Hold the mouse over any wandering parties to see the party name, faction allegiance and numbers. Look for a river pirate party, and click them to give chase.
Getting into a scrap
When you meet a hostile party, you'll be took to a conversation where the enemy will attempt to trash talk you. You will usually have two options, bribe them or fight. We're not scared of a bunch of river pirates (come on, they're evidently too scared of water to be actual pirates) so when you catch them, be sure to tell them you're going to gut them like fish. This will put you on a battlefield, with your character and his party at one side, and somewhere off in the distance will be those despicable pirates.
Near to where you spawn will be a chest on the ground. Look at this and hit F to access your inventory. This will allow you to alter weapons and similar once in combat, you shouldn't need it at the moment but it's good to know.
If you have some men with you, the first thing you want to do is press F1 to order them to hold position and avoid going off and getting slaughtered while I tell you about commanding yourcannon fodder brave men.
The troops which spawn with you are dependent on three things. The first is the battle size slider in the options menu. If the total number of troops in the battle exceeds the limit you've set the battlesize slider to, then a proportionate number of men will spawn on each side. Once defeated, a reinforcement wave will enter. Once the total number of permissable reinforcements has been reached (two waves if I remember rightly) then the round will end and you will see a summary of the battle so far. This will give you the option of continuing the fight or attempting to retreat. Once one side runs out of men, then the combat is over and you'll either be captured by the enemy, or else have the opportunity to capture anyone you knocked out on the field, and help yourself to the enemies loot.
The second thing which determines the amount of men on either side is known as the battle advantage. This is gained in two ways, the first is the tactics skill. For every two points in tactics, you gain +1 advantage point. Secondly, the relative size of the forces comes into play. If a side outnumbers it's enemy, then it gains bonus advantage points depending on relative strengths.
Finally, the party screen order determines the type of troops you spawn with, if there are more troops than can be placed on the field. The higher up in the party order a group of troops is, the more likely that at least some of them will appear by your side.
M&B divides troops into three basic types, depending on their equipment and capable of being ordered seperately. Troops with horses are classed as cavalry, those without infantry. Troops with a bow or crossbow are archers. By default, any orders issued at the start of the battle will go to everyone. Use the number keys to select an individual group if you wish to give seperate orders.
The orders themselves are relatively straightforward and accessible by the function(F) number keys. The most common you will use are Hold (F1) Follow Me (F2) and charge (F3). Hold orders the selected group to proceed to the point you are currently standing at, and remain there until given further orders (they will fight back if attacked, and move to engage enemies if they get too close). Follow instructs the group to follow behind you, and charge sends them tearing off into the enemy to shed their blood.
To give an order, select the relevant group with the number keys (once selected, all orders will go to that group until you select another group) and then issue the order with the function key. You will see the orders being given in the message pane, for example if I hit 1 (everyone) I will see Everyone appear in the message pane. To order my army to follow me for example, I hit 1 then F2, with Everyone Follow Me scrolling in the message pane.
Despite being relatively simple, these orders allow for a lot of flexibility, and are key to winning battles, especially against superior troops. Against these river pirates we can probably manage alone, so you might want to order your men to hang back to avoid casualties. Alternatively, if you allow them to fight they will build experience quicker. A handy tip is to order your men to hold position, then advance your character forward a little. When you meet the enemy, you can attack them yourself and soften them up, before issuing the charge order so your men can finish the job. Having them close by also helps if you get into trouble, as you can turn and run towards them while issuing the charge order, allowing you to take shelter behind them while they 'distract' the enemy for you.
Also of interest, the Delete/backspace key brings up a little tactical overview of the battlefield, showing you how many troops you have and what orders they are currently following. It can be useful if you ever forget what your men are doing.
A useful tip if you get stuck fighting cavalry with infantry - Issue the F8 command (stand closer) to your infantry to order them to bunch up, then order them to hold. Enemy cavalry will generally attempt to charge straight through them, only to be brought to a standstill by the sheer mass of bodies. Your men will then deliver a well deserved thrashing to the idiot while he's trying to turn his horse around.
After the battle, assuming you won, you will be taken to a loot screen. If any of your enemies were knocked out by a blunt weapon in the combat you will now have the option of taking them prisoner if you have any points in the prisoner management skill. If the enemy party had prisoners, you have the opportunity to recruit them to your cause. You will then be taken to a loot screen where you can help yourself to the remains of the enemy equipment. Remember to take any decent stuff for yourself, and grab the rest to sell at the next town you visit.
After the battle, hit P to show the party screen and take stock of your men. Yourself, and any NPC heroes in the party will display a % sign next to them. This shows how much health you have remaining. Normal troopers will either be fully fit, or unconscious, represented by a two numbers with a slash (/) dividing them. The number before the sign shows fighting fit men, while any number after the slash shows unfit men. Resting at a town inn or camping, or even simply standing still and holding space, will allow you to recover health and restore your men to combat fitness. Town inns are the best option, but unless you are a member of the owning faction will cost money. Camping restores them slightly quicker, and simply moving around or standing still recovers health at the slowest rate. This is also modified by the medical skills.
Troops with a + sign next to them are ready to upgrade. To do this, click the troop in the party screen then the upgrade button. You will usually get a choice of what you wish the troops to upgrade to. Each faction (including peasants and bandits) has their own upgrade tree, and the choice of upgrades will depend upon this. Usually, the choice will be between two different types, for example a ranged troop or infantryman, or cavalryman or horsearcher. Don't worry too much about relative worth - any upgrade is better armed and equipped than it's previous tier, and you'll generally need to experiment to decide what kind of balance works best for your own army.
After a battle (or two) then you'll probably need to head back to a town for some R&R, and to make good any losses your army has suffered in battle. As you have no set faction at this time, you should be able to visit any town on the map. Simply click on the closest town. When you arrive, be sure to sell any loot you have acquired to the merchants, then return to the town menu. You should have an option to rest at the inn, followed by a cost in Denars. Rest your party until you're back to full health. Once finished, we'll pay a visit to the heart of any decent town - the local drinking den.
Taverns
The inns of Calradia attract all manner of misfits, some of whom will want to sell you stuff, some of whom will buy stuff, and some of whom will join your cause. When you elect to visit the inn, you'll appear inside the inn, probably near the doorway. As you wander the inn, you might find other people hanging around and enjoying the atmosphere. One will be the barman, who will basically tell you nothing. Another might be the minstrel, who will inform you he's "not implemented in this version". The rest are slightly more interesting:
Mercenaries will offer to join your army for suitable financial recompense. At the moment, the only mercenaries appearing in the inn tend to be high tier unaligned troops. Needless to say, if you can afford it they're a great addition to any army, assuming you have enough room in your party for them.
Slave Trader : Should you have any prisoners, you can cash them in here. The slave trader will offer to give you cold hard Denars for anyone you've captured.
Informers : Will offer to sell you information about a faction for a small sum. This information is probably useless to you at the moment (it updates the Log), so feel free to ignore these guys.
Hero's : There are four NPC's in the game who spend their lives on an eternal pub crawl around Calradia. Evidently, this gets boring after a while and so they're always eager to join your ranks. Again, this is a no brainer, and we'll cover why shortly.
All of these people are random, sometimes you'll go to an inn and find it empty, other times it will be full. If the inn in one town is empty, feel free to move on to the next town and try again. Since these change regularly, remember to check in even if you've already visited an inn, you never know who might be waiting for you there.
Once your party is rested and refreshed (and hopefully a little larger) then you're ready to go find your next fight. You now have almost everything you need to forge your own legend across Calradia, so from now on I'll simply touch a little on the things I haven't yet covered. The game itself is still completely open ended, and even without quests there's plenty to do that I've not yet mentioned. You can join a faction and receive your own village or castle, or join the war against it's enemies. Alternatively, you can be a trader, moving from town to town and selling goods for huge bucks. Perhaps you'll elect to remain neutral and hunt down the various bandits that plague the land. The choice is entirely up to you, and there's no real 'right' way to play the game. One thing to mention here is the renown score. You'll note at the start of each battle that you get a message telling you how much renown you will receive for winning. This is a measure of your fame in Calradia, and accumulates as you win combats. Once you reach around 100 renown, you'll probably start getting requests from the various monarchs to lend your sword to their faction. Feel free to ignore or accept these invitations at will. At the moment, a slight bug in the game means you won't get offered a fief unless you wait for a monarch's invitation to join (you can join at any time simply by talking to the faction leader), so if you want to go down the faction route it pays to be patient. Like I said however, what you choose to do from this point on is entirely up to you.
Heroes
As I mentioned, you might happen across one of the four heroes in your journey around Calradia. Heroes are NPC's complete with their own inventory, character sheet and skill set. They offer several benefits over standard troops, as follows:
As you can see, there's no real reason not to accept their offer to join if you have room for them. Once accepted, they become a permanent fixture in your party. To access a hero's abilities, enter the party screen from the map, highlight the hero and choose to talk to them. If you choose "Tell me about yourself" it will display their character sheet, which allows you to check their skills and also allocate points when they level up. Alternatively, you can choose to view their equipment which will let you move equipment from your own inventory to theirs, and set their equipment accordingly. Note that they will inform you if you try to equip something they can't use (usually because the required skill is too low). When levelling, they obey the same rules as your own character, including spending weapon skill points, i.e. they need ranks in weapon master to spend points beyond a certain threshold.
Party Skills
Party skills can be a bit confusing, so we'll cover them next. Skills designated as party skills, with one notable exception, take the highest skill in the party as their effective level. However, skills contributed by NPC's rather than your own character suffer a penalty if the skill is a lot higher than your own. All of this is calculated by the game, thus if Marnid has the highest trading skill in the party, then every time that skill would be used the 'roll' will use Marnid's skill instead of your own. This makes the NPC's a valuable addition to your party, since you can use them to provide skills you don't want to invest your own character points in.
The exception to this rule is the trainer skill. Trainer provides experience to every member of the party except the character with the skill. For instance, if you have Marnid and Borcha in the party, and both they and yourself have a single rank of trainer, then your normal troops get three times the benefit (one bonus from each member) while your NPC's recieve two gifts of experience (one from each NPC with trainer who isn't themselves). Although trainer is generally slower than actual combat experience, with the correct skill point spending it is possible to create an NPC core that can take any troop from a recruit to a seasoned veteran in twenty four hours.
Villages
You will notice that you can visit villages on the map. There are three main things you can do at villages. The first is recruiting volunteers. This seems to depend on your relationship, renown and charisma, but whenever you do this you'll recieve some basic troops of the faction the village is owned by. For example, ask for volunteers at a Swadian town and several tier 1 Swadian troops will offer to join you. This is currently the only way you can get faction troops in the game without joining a faction.
Secondly, villages offer the same rest options as other settlements, and also have a generic merchant (generally, they sell a large selection of food).
Finally, if the village is an enemy you can attack it. This will place you into battle against the hapless peasants who live in the village. Winning the battle will provide a large amount of cash, plus a lot of decent loot (mainly food and trade goods). However, this will lower your relation with the village and it's owning faction. At present, there is no way to raise your relation with a village, so be careful if you intend to eventually join a faction.
When you reach a suitable renown and level with a faction, you may be offered a village as a fief. This provides you with a small tax income, and a source of recruits for your army. You can upgrade various things in your fief, but the actual effects are still uncertain. Fief management isn't fully implemented yet (castles offer nothing but a place to stash troops at the minute) but they're usually still worthwhile.
Special Combats
You can siege enemy castles after joining a faction. This takes you to a special battle scene where your men will run a siege tower up to the walls, and proceed to attack the defenders. Winning a siege grants ownership of the castle to your faction, and you may even end up being rewarded the castle as a fief. Alternatively, if the odds are stacked in your favour or you lay siege without assaulting for long enough, you can request the castle surrenders. If accepted, this grants ownership to your faction without the combat.
You can also attempt to sneak into the towns of enemy factions, whether to do business or attempt to beg forgiveness of their owning faction. If you get caught, you might be forced to defend yourself. This gives you a special battle where you are armed only with some throwing knives, a robe and a staff, and must either flee the town or eliminate all of the town guards.
You can assist allies against enemy parties too. If you join such battles, you take command of your allied party against the enemy. This can be useful for gaining experience without risking your own troops too much, and can also help you overcome parties too large to handle alone. To do this, whenever you see a combat involving a party you are friendly with and one you are enemy with, simply click on the battle. You'll be given the standard pre-battle talk, if you choose to fight you'll find yourself leading the allied troops into battle.
Getting Started
Character creation is a relatively simple process. You will be asked to select a gender and starting class for your character, which will determine your base attributes and starting possessions. Gender wise the difference is relatively minor - an extra bit of agility for females and an extra bit of strength for males. The classes are much simplified from previous versions, and are pretty self explanatory. Don't worry too much about the class at the moment - it's not that hard to develop your skills in game.
You'll next have the opportunity to customise your character by assigning a few extra skill points, a name and a face. Clicking attributes and skills will give you a brief description of their benefits. Most skills have a limitation on how high they can be advanced depending on their governing attribute. Weapon skills are also capped without investing in the weapon master skill.
Note that each attribute tends to provide some 'undocumented' benefits. Strength boosts your damage, Agility gives a small boost to your speed (including attack speed) and so on. Intelligence can be useful, as every time you spend an attribute point in intelligence you gain an extra skill point. It helps to have some idea of what kind of character you're aiming for, but again if this is your first game don't worry too much about it. Generally, points in horsemanship or athletics, one of the weapon boosting skills (Power draw, throw or strike), Ironflesh and leadership are good bets.
Some things to bear in mind regarding skills. Power Draw also affects your accuracy with a bow. The higher your power draw is above the minimum requirement to use the bow, the more accurate you will be. Athletics increases running speed, and so is essential for infantrymen. Horse archery is a must for mounted archers, though this needs to be a minimum level of 6 to really be effective. Riding is essential for cavalrymen, and each increase in riding affects the speed and maneuverability of the horse. Generally, with an infantryman I prefer athletics and ironflesh over anything else at the start, since you need to be able to move fast, and the extra hitpoints compensate for the lighter armour you're forced to wear. As cavalry, riding and power strike are a no brainer, with extra points going to leadership or prisoner management. Don't worry about weapon skills too much - you'll have ample opportunity to increase these before you really need them.
After creating your character you'll be offered the chance to recruit some men prior to starting the game. There's no real downside to taking them unless you have low charisma or leadership. If this is your first game then you'll probably want to accept their offer.
First Steps
Once you've finished character creation and the tutorial, you should be looking at the map of Calradia. Your party and other parties are represented by a single figure, either on foot or on a horse depending on the party leader. There are also several settlements, the smaller of the type are villages, which will be important later. Larger than these are the walled towns, which are handy places to sell your loot. There are also several castles, which again will come into play later.
For now, the first thing to do is hit the "I" button to see your inventory. By default, your character will probably have a horse and some food, along with some low grade equipment. On the screen in front of you is a representation of your character and the objects they are carrying. There are four weapon boxes which can contain weapons or shields, these can be cycled through with the mouse wheel in combat. There are slots for armour, and a final slot for your horse. At the moment, the only thing you might want to do is move the horse to the mount box. This will speed you up when travelling, and if you are attacked means you start the combat mounted. Once you've had a good look, close the inventory screen.
You can access your character sheet by pressing "C". This will display the same screen you saw during the creation process. Obviously, there's little to do there at the minute, but it's always useful to know how to get there. "P" or clicking the party button displays the party screen. If you accepted the men offering to join you, you'll see your character and also an entry underneath of "peasants", otherwise you'll be a party of one. The party screen will be used later to upgrade troops and equip NPC's, but for the time being there is nothing you need to worry about here. Other screens available is the Game Log (L) which displays information on the factions and nobles of Calradia, and the Quest Log (Q) which shows ongoing quests. Quests are disabled at the moment, so this shouldn't get any entries in this version
You can move the map either by moving the mouse to the screen borders, or using the W,A,S,D keys. The scroll wheel will control the zoom level. To move your party, simply left click anywhere on the map and you will head in that direction. Space will halt your party and pass time. Note that while you are in the map, time is frozen unless you hold space or order your party to move anywhere. Take some time to experiment with moving the map, once you are done it is time to head to town.
Zendar
Towns on the map display in the colour of the owning faction. At the start of the game, this is unimportant. There is one special 'neutral' town which you start near named Zendar. Click on the town to send your party there.
Once you arrive in town, you'll be stood in the town centre (other towns will give you a menu, but more on that later). The screen will show your character in third person. Use the W,A,S and D keys to move forwards, backwards, left and right respectively, while the mouse will control which way your character is facing. You can jump by hitting space, although there's not much use for it at the moment
There will be a crosshair in the centre of the screen, by moving this crosshair over an object or character their name will be displayed, and you can interact with them by hitting the 'F' key. The first thing a new character should do is locate the Trainer. He will usually be found standing near what appears to be the town hall, opposite the Arena master. Hit F to talk to him, and he will offer to train you in combat. Accept, and you'll be transported to what looks like a cellar, with random equipment. You can't actually be killed here, so feel free to muck around and get the feel for the weapons. After the battle, you'll be transported back to the trainer. Where you can progress the training, or retry the combat if you got whupped. Try and complete the training, doing so should net you enough experience to advance a level.Once you have finished the training you should be able to advance to level two. Press 'C' to open the character sheet, and distribute your new attribute and skill points. In order to win, I guess we should go into the combat system in a little more detail.
Combat
Controls in combat are the same as those used in town. W,A,S,D move your character around, the mouse changes your facing. Left click will attack with your weapon, while right click will parry, or use a shield if you have one. By default, attacks are set to directional and parry direction is automatic. This means that the type of attack you perform depends on how you move the mouse, while a right click block will automatically attempt to block in the direction the enemy is attacking from. The mouse wheel shifts between weapons and shields if you have any equipped, scroll up to switch weapons, and down to switch shields.
To set your attack direction, move the mouse left and hold the left mouse button. Your character should draw his weapon to the left side for a left - right slash. Moving up will prepare an overhead strike if the weapon is capable of it, while moving back will prepare for a thrust if the weapon is capable of it. As long as you hold the mouse, the character will keep his weapon ready. Release the mouse to deliver the blow.
Two important tips when attacking : hitting block will return your weapon to a parry position. If you click the right mouse button and immediately prepare another attack you can feint the enemy and fool him into trying to block in the wrong direction. Secondly, a shield will always block an attack regardless of direction (unless you are attacked from behind) as long as it is raised, but shields wear down with each block and eventually will be discarded (there is a shield icon on the lower right of the interface which represents damage to your shield). At higher AI levels, the enemy will attempt to feint you into blocking from the wrong direction. If you see the enemy change his swing direction, release and reclick the right mouse button to correct your parry angle.
In these simple combats victory is simply a matter of waiting for the enemy to attack, blocking and then striking with a blow of your own. As you progress through training, your enemies will get progressively harder. Don't be disheartened if you fail to win a combat, either try again or go build your skills up in the arena and return later when you can finish the fight rather quickly.
Since we've mentioned the arena, I'll give a brief description of some other useful commands which you may end up using in there. Firstly, if you are on a horse you can dismount by looking at the horse and hitting 'F' while stationary. You can also mount any horses you find via the same method. If you completed the tutorial, you will already know about archery, but a quick recap - when using a bow, hold the left mouse button to draw back an arrow. The crosshair will narrow, and then open back up the longer you hold the arrow back. For the best accuracy, release your arrow at the target when the crosshair is at it's narrowest point. You can use the 'R' key to switch between first and third person views, and the shift key to zoom your view towards the current target. Some players find ranged combat easier in first person, some find it easier in third. There is a slight bug with the targetting reticule being off between the two, however if you keep consistent you'll soon learn to correct for this. Also, the arrow will drop in flight so for more distant targets remember to aim high. Headshots always cause more damage than a body shot, regardless of armour.
Once you have defeated, or been defeated by, the best opponents the trainer has to offer, it's time to earn yourself some cash. Head on over to the arena master opposite.
Arena's
The people of Calradia enjoy watching combat between champions at the town arena. Each town specialises in different combats, from one on one or two against two fighting to huge six man, four team melees. Zendar generally offers one to one or two to two combat. When you talk to the arena master, he will tell you what kind of battle the next combat will be and ask if you'd like to join in or watch. If you choose to watch, you'll be offered a chance to bet on a team and then taken to view the combat. If you choose to join, you're offered the chance to bet money on yourself and then transported into the arena. For your first few matches it's better to not bet any money, at least until your confident of winning.
Once you join in you'll appear in the arena with random equipment and wearing armour of your teams colour. To win the match, eliminate anyone not wearing the same colour armour as yourself, it's that simple. During the fight, you will get messages scrolling across the left hand side of the screen. These will tell you if anyone has been knocked out, but also report back on any damage you cause. Another interesting message you may see from time to time is one informing you your weapon skill has increased. This is one of the prime reasons to engage in arena combat for a new character - you can increase your skills, gain experience points and money with no risk to yourself. Once the combat is over, be sure to talk to the arena master. He will give you your pay for participating in the fight, and also any money you may have won from betting. In general, I'd advise new players to engage in the arena until they get bored of it, or they reach level three or four. Don't forget to check out the arena's in other towns - they may offer more diverse matches for you to take part in, and you can always have fun testing your mettle.
Once you have grown rich, or tired, of the arena, we should check out the local merchants.
Trading
Most towns have a variety of merchants available to trade from, and villages offer a general stock of goods you can choose to buy. Of most interest to us will be the weaponsmith and the armoursmith. The merchant sells general goods such as trade items and food, while the horse merchant deals with horses, as you would expect.
When walking around town, you can recognise the merchant types by their location. Weapon and armour smiths will usually be standing next to a stall with pieces of armour or a selection of weapons. The merchants can usually be found in their own building, with a distinctive store sign near the doorway. To begin trading, target the merchant and hit F to open a conversation. In the conversation options, select "show me your wares".
The trade screen will appear. On the right, you will see your own inventory, and the amount of money (Denars) you have available. On the left, you will see the merchant's stock, plus the amount of money he has available. Hold the mouse over an object to see it's details. To buy something, click and drag it from the merchant's stock to your inventory, to sell, do the opposite. The total cost will appear at the lower part of the screen. Click ok to complete the trade (assuming you can afford it). Note that while merchants will only sell goods of their particular type, they will buy goods of any type. Also, the stock a merchant carries is completely random, and changes every three days. Remember to check in with the merchants while in towns, both to sell off captured loot and to look for better equipment.
For a new character, the equipment you already have should see you through your initial combats. Generally, good armour should be your first priority, then weapons. Remember to take note of the encumbrance value of each piece of equipment - while on foot, your movement speed will be slowed according to the total encumbrance you are carrying. If you are an infantryman, then the ratio of protection to weight is incredibly important. Horses are unaffected by encumbrance, so cavalrymen can feel free to buy the thickest, heaviest armour they can afford. Don't feel like you must spend all of your gold immediately either, it's a good idea to keep some back for recruiting more men. Once you are done trading, we'll leave Zendar. You can do this by walking out of the town and hitting the F key when told, but a quick shortcut is to use the tab button. Note that this works in all screens - hitting tab anywhere in town will return you to the town menu, and can be handy for getting out of inns, arena's and the like with non-functional doors.
Once your back on the map screen (don't forget to hit I and equip any new purchases, if applicable) it's time to look for a fight. Just to the right of Zendar, near the mouth of the river, is an invisible spawn point for River Pirate parties. These are poorly equipped criminals who make excellent easy targets for new players. Hold the mouse over any wandering parties to see the party name, faction allegiance and numbers. Look for a river pirate party, and click them to give chase.
Getting into a scrap
When you meet a hostile party, you'll be took to a conversation where the enemy will attempt to trash talk you. You will usually have two options, bribe them or fight. We're not scared of a bunch of river pirates (come on, they're evidently too scared of water to be actual pirates) so when you catch them, be sure to tell them you're going to gut them like fish. This will put you on a battlefield, with your character and his party at one side, and somewhere off in the distance will be those despicable pirates.
Near to where you spawn will be a chest on the ground. Look at this and hit F to access your inventory. This will allow you to alter weapons and similar once in combat, you shouldn't need it at the moment but it's good to know.
If you have some men with you, the first thing you want to do is press F1 to order them to hold position and avoid going off and getting slaughtered while I tell you about commanding your
The troops which spawn with you are dependent on three things. The first is the battle size slider in the options menu. If the total number of troops in the battle exceeds the limit you've set the battlesize slider to, then a proportionate number of men will spawn on each side. Once defeated, a reinforcement wave will enter. Once the total number of permissable reinforcements has been reached (two waves if I remember rightly) then the round will end and you will see a summary of the battle so far. This will give you the option of continuing the fight or attempting to retreat. Once one side runs out of men, then the combat is over and you'll either be captured by the enemy, or else have the opportunity to capture anyone you knocked out on the field, and help yourself to the enemies loot.
The second thing which determines the amount of men on either side is known as the battle advantage. This is gained in two ways, the first is the tactics skill. For every two points in tactics, you gain +1 advantage point. Secondly, the relative size of the forces comes into play. If a side outnumbers it's enemy, then it gains bonus advantage points depending on relative strengths.
Finally, the party screen order determines the type of troops you spawn with, if there are more troops than can be placed on the field. The higher up in the party order a group of troops is, the more likely that at least some of them will appear by your side.
M&B divides troops into three basic types, depending on their equipment and capable of being ordered seperately. Troops with horses are classed as cavalry, those without infantry. Troops with a bow or crossbow are archers. By default, any orders issued at the start of the battle will go to everyone. Use the number keys to select an individual group if you wish to give seperate orders.
The orders themselves are relatively straightforward and accessible by the function(F) number keys. The most common you will use are Hold (F1) Follow Me (F2) and charge (F3). Hold orders the selected group to proceed to the point you are currently standing at, and remain there until given further orders (they will fight back if attacked, and move to engage enemies if they get too close). Follow instructs the group to follow behind you, and charge sends them tearing off into the enemy to shed their blood.
To give an order, select the relevant group with the number keys (once selected, all orders will go to that group until you select another group) and then issue the order with the function key. You will see the orders being given in the message pane, for example if I hit 1 (everyone) I will see Everyone appear in the message pane. To order my army to follow me for example, I hit 1 then F2, with Everyone Follow Me scrolling in the message pane.
Despite being relatively simple, these orders allow for a lot of flexibility, and are key to winning battles, especially against superior troops. Against these river pirates we can probably manage alone, so you might want to order your men to hang back to avoid casualties. Alternatively, if you allow them to fight they will build experience quicker. A handy tip is to order your men to hold position, then advance your character forward a little. When you meet the enemy, you can attack them yourself and soften them up, before issuing the charge order so your men can finish the job. Having them close by also helps if you get into trouble, as you can turn and run towards them while issuing the charge order, allowing you to take shelter behind them while they 'distract' the enemy for you.
Also of interest, the Delete/backspace key brings up a little tactical overview of the battlefield, showing you how many troops you have and what orders they are currently following. It can be useful if you ever forget what your men are doing.
A useful tip if you get stuck fighting cavalry with infantry - Issue the F8 command (stand closer) to your infantry to order them to bunch up, then order them to hold. Enemy cavalry will generally attempt to charge straight through them, only to be brought to a standstill by the sheer mass of bodies. Your men will then deliver a well deserved thrashing to the idiot while he's trying to turn his horse around.
After the battle, assuming you won, you will be taken to a loot screen. If any of your enemies were knocked out by a blunt weapon in the combat you will now have the option of taking them prisoner if you have any points in the prisoner management skill. If the enemy party had prisoners, you have the opportunity to recruit them to your cause. You will then be taken to a loot screen where you can help yourself to the remains of the enemy equipment. Remember to take any decent stuff for yourself, and grab the rest to sell at the next town you visit.
After the battle, hit P to show the party screen and take stock of your men. Yourself, and any NPC heroes in the party will display a % sign next to them. This shows how much health you have remaining. Normal troopers will either be fully fit, or unconscious, represented by a two numbers with a slash (/) dividing them. The number before the sign shows fighting fit men, while any number after the slash shows unfit men. Resting at a town inn or camping, or even simply standing still and holding space, will allow you to recover health and restore your men to combat fitness. Town inns are the best option, but unless you are a member of the owning faction will cost money. Camping restores them slightly quicker, and simply moving around or standing still recovers health at the slowest rate. This is also modified by the medical skills.
Troops with a + sign next to them are ready to upgrade. To do this, click the troop in the party screen then the upgrade button. You will usually get a choice of what you wish the troops to upgrade to. Each faction (including peasants and bandits) has their own upgrade tree, and the choice of upgrades will depend upon this. Usually, the choice will be between two different types, for example a ranged troop or infantryman, or cavalryman or horsearcher. Don't worry too much about relative worth - any upgrade is better armed and equipped than it's previous tier, and you'll generally need to experiment to decide what kind of balance works best for your own army.
After a battle (or two) then you'll probably need to head back to a town for some R&R, and to make good any losses your army has suffered in battle. As you have no set faction at this time, you should be able to visit any town on the map. Simply click on the closest town. When you arrive, be sure to sell any loot you have acquired to the merchants, then return to the town menu. You should have an option to rest at the inn, followed by a cost in Denars. Rest your party until you're back to full health. Once finished, we'll pay a visit to the heart of any decent town - the local drinking den.
Taverns
The inns of Calradia attract all manner of misfits, some of whom will want to sell you stuff, some of whom will buy stuff, and some of whom will join your cause. When you elect to visit the inn, you'll appear inside the inn, probably near the doorway. As you wander the inn, you might find other people hanging around and enjoying the atmosphere. One will be the barman, who will basically tell you nothing. Another might be the minstrel, who will inform you he's "not implemented in this version". The rest are slightly more interesting:
Mercenaries will offer to join your army for suitable financial recompense. At the moment, the only mercenaries appearing in the inn tend to be high tier unaligned troops. Needless to say, if you can afford it they're a great addition to any army, assuming you have enough room in your party for them.
Slave Trader : Should you have any prisoners, you can cash them in here. The slave trader will offer to give you cold hard Denars for anyone you've captured.
Informers : Will offer to sell you information about a faction for a small sum. This information is probably useless to you at the moment (it updates the Log), so feel free to ignore these guys.
Hero's : There are four NPC's in the game who spend their lives on an eternal pub crawl around Calradia. Evidently, this gets boring after a while and so they're always eager to join your ranks. Again, this is a no brainer, and we'll cover why shortly.
All of these people are random, sometimes you'll go to an inn and find it empty, other times it will be full. If the inn in one town is empty, feel free to move on to the next town and try again. Since these change regularly, remember to check in even if you've already visited an inn, you never know who might be waiting for you there.
Once your party is rested and refreshed (and hopefully a little larger) then you're ready to go find your next fight. You now have almost everything you need to forge your own legend across Calradia, so from now on I'll simply touch a little on the things I haven't yet covered. The game itself is still completely open ended, and even without quests there's plenty to do that I've not yet mentioned. You can join a faction and receive your own village or castle, or join the war against it's enemies. Alternatively, you can be a trader, moving from town to town and selling goods for huge bucks. Perhaps you'll elect to remain neutral and hunt down the various bandits that plague the land. The choice is entirely up to you, and there's no real 'right' way to play the game. One thing to mention here is the renown score. You'll note at the start of each battle that you get a message telling you how much renown you will receive for winning. This is a measure of your fame in Calradia, and accumulates as you win combats. Once you reach around 100 renown, you'll probably start getting requests from the various monarchs to lend your sword to their faction. Feel free to ignore or accept these invitations at will. At the moment, a slight bug in the game means you won't get offered a fief unless you wait for a monarch's invitation to join (you can join at any time simply by talking to the faction leader), so if you want to go down the faction route it pays to be patient. Like I said however, what you choose to do from this point on is entirely up to you.
Heroes
As I mentioned, you might happen across one of the four heroes in your journey around Calradia. Heroes are NPC's complete with their own inventory, character sheet and skill set. They offer several benefits over standard troops, as follows:
- They cannot be killed, only ever knocked out
- They contribute party skills
- You can give them their own equipment
- You can level them up as you do your own character
As you can see, there's no real reason not to accept their offer to join if you have room for them. Once accepted, they become a permanent fixture in your party. To access a hero's abilities, enter the party screen from the map, highlight the hero and choose to talk to them. If you choose "Tell me about yourself" it will display their character sheet, which allows you to check their skills and also allocate points when they level up. Alternatively, you can choose to view their equipment which will let you move equipment from your own inventory to theirs, and set their equipment accordingly. Note that they will inform you if you try to equip something they can't use (usually because the required skill is too low). When levelling, they obey the same rules as your own character, including spending weapon skill points, i.e. they need ranks in weapon master to spend points beyond a certain threshold.
Party Skills
Party skills can be a bit confusing, so we'll cover them next. Skills designated as party skills, with one notable exception, take the highest skill in the party as their effective level. However, skills contributed by NPC's rather than your own character suffer a penalty if the skill is a lot higher than your own. All of this is calculated by the game, thus if Marnid has the highest trading skill in the party, then every time that skill would be used the 'roll' will use Marnid's skill instead of your own. This makes the NPC's a valuable addition to your party, since you can use them to provide skills you don't want to invest your own character points in.
The exception to this rule is the trainer skill. Trainer provides experience to every member of the party except the character with the skill. For instance, if you have Marnid and Borcha in the party, and both they and yourself have a single rank of trainer, then your normal troops get three times the benefit (one bonus from each member) while your NPC's recieve two gifts of experience (one from each NPC with trainer who isn't themselves). Although trainer is generally slower than actual combat experience, with the correct skill point spending it is possible to create an NPC core that can take any troop from a recruit to a seasoned veteran in twenty four hours.
Villages
You will notice that you can visit villages on the map. There are three main things you can do at villages. The first is recruiting volunteers. This seems to depend on your relationship, renown and charisma, but whenever you do this you'll recieve some basic troops of the faction the village is owned by. For example, ask for volunteers at a Swadian town and several tier 1 Swadian troops will offer to join you. This is currently the only way you can get faction troops in the game without joining a faction.
Secondly, villages offer the same rest options as other settlements, and also have a generic merchant (generally, they sell a large selection of food).
Finally, if the village is an enemy you can attack it. This will place you into battle against the hapless peasants who live in the village. Winning the battle will provide a large amount of cash, plus a lot of decent loot (mainly food and trade goods). However, this will lower your relation with the village and it's owning faction. At present, there is no way to raise your relation with a village, so be careful if you intend to eventually join a faction.
When you reach a suitable renown and level with a faction, you may be offered a village as a fief. This provides you with a small tax income, and a source of recruits for your army. You can upgrade various things in your fief, but the actual effects are still uncertain. Fief management isn't fully implemented yet (castles offer nothing but a place to stash troops at the minute) but they're usually still worthwhile.
Special Combats
You can siege enemy castles after joining a faction. This takes you to a special battle scene where your men will run a siege tower up to the walls, and proceed to attack the defenders. Winning a siege grants ownership of the castle to your faction, and you may even end up being rewarded the castle as a fief. Alternatively, if the odds are stacked in your favour or you lay siege without assaulting for long enough, you can request the castle surrenders. If accepted, this grants ownership to your faction without the combat.
You can also attempt to sneak into the towns of enemy factions, whether to do business or attempt to beg forgiveness of their owning faction. If you get caught, you might be forced to defend yourself. This gives you a special battle where you are armed only with some throwing knives, a robe and a staff, and must either flee the town or eliminate all of the town guards.
You can assist allies against enemy parties too. If you join such battles, you take command of your allied party against the enemy. This can be useful for gaining experience without risking your own troops too much, and can also help you overcome parties too large to handle alone. To do this, whenever you see a combat involving a party you are friendly with and one you are enemy with, simply click on the battle. You'll be given the standard pre-battle talk, if you choose to fight you'll find yourself leading the allied troops into battle.
