Newbie Starting Out needs Help

[KrunkSplein]

Hi, just bought the game today (after my first arena fight I knew I had to own it). However, I seem to be having some trouble getting started. I can take out the river bandits okay, and I got to level 6 (with a bow, arrows, shield and axe as my weapons) with a party limit of 22. The trouble is, I can't seem to go anywhere without being slaughtered by either a Swadian war party or a group of Dark Hunters. And I mean SLAUGHTERED. Am I doing something wrong? Am I supposed to stick with the river bandits until I'm level 10 or something?

Also, should I bother with the two other named characters from the beginning or should I stick with a huge squad of peasants?

Last question: Should I stick with the neutral townspeople from the starting city or should I go with the Vaegir peasants?

 

[compfreak]

Unless you're very good, you won't be able to take on warparties and dks until you are level 20-30. And at least until you get a few leadership points, i'd go with the peasants. Marnid and Borcha become very good with time, but it takes a very long time. And for the last question: get either neutrals or Swadians. The Swadian's better armor more than makes up for their slightly less powerful weapons.

 

[Fluffy The Hamster]

Eh. I don't remember that far back, but right now. I slaughter swadians with ease, and dark knights are a thing to joke on. If you want to attack any of the swadians, I say attack the foragers.

But to choose between the two, you can do whatever you want. I chose Vaegir because they were closer :/.

 

[DaanTheOne]

It's also not just your own level that matters when attacking war parties or dark knights. If you're still running around with peasants as followers, you will indeed get slaughtered as war parties contain heavily armed and armoured mounted units like knights that will cut right through your poor peasants.

Try taking on small pirate and bandit parties until some of your men have advanced to better (mounted) units like mercenaries, hired blades or horsemen.

Also, when all your men are on foot and you are faced with enemy cavalry, keep your squad together! Tell them to hold and let the enemy come to you. Wait until the very last moment and then unleash the horde Your infantry will swarm the horsemen, making it very hard for them to maneuver or escape.

 

[ferretsniper]

On low levels i think the best strategy is to save often then if u run into something u cant handle u can just quit and reload your save so u dont get slaughtered.And i picked the vaegirs so that i can make horse archers who own everything

 

[compfreak]

Before you ask, horse-archers are part of a mod. They aren't in the default game. Go to the mod forum if you want that mod. And horse-archers rule

 

[SiR K1lLaLoT]

*nods*

 

[KrunkSplein]

i dunno, a modded-in character that owns seems a little cheat-y to me. Also, do you have any control over who comes into battle with you? I gather move-up/-down have something to do with it, but just want to verify.

Thanks!
Krunk

 

[compfreak]

You've got a bit of control, but it is intentionaly imprecise. And horse-archers aren't really overpowered since they are one of the only troops that have a good chance of damaging you fatally. Well, at least so you lose the round.

 

[Moose]

Well I think your better off staying neuteral and not joining the cat lovers or people who make slightly random posts about horse archers. The best thing to do at the beggining of the game is to just merchant it up. By low and sell obsceanly high thats my motto, but seriosly don't pick fights with the Swadians -or- Vaegirs untill you have some skill with the game.

 

[Can O Soup]

You just said neuter and then cat. Heh.

 

[Sir Saladin]

Kranksplein said that he is new so he probably isn't too interested in mods just yet anyway. I would suggest attacking river pirates unless they outnumber you by a lot and don't hire a huge gang of peasants at first because the pirates that you could kill with them will run away and you will never catch them because a lot of peasants slow you down too much. So all you can do in the beginning is run around looking for a small group of them and remember that you don't ever die in this game you just get knocked out and pretend that you are dead hehe. It took me awhile to get used to that but I like it. And when you level up put points into surgery so that the fighters that you do pick up will get knocked out instead of killed. That is all 007.

 

[Garth]

knights that will cut right through your poor peasants.

Umm, think you're a bit mixed up there.

And when you level up put points into surgery so that the fighters that you do pick up will get knocked out instead of killed.

That's a personal thing, since I find the time it takes to make Borcha and Marnid combatly competent to be a huge waste of my life, I make them immediately useful by pumping them up in all the party skills (except for tactics and leadership, which I handle).

There are many, many, many strategies you could go by to help you survive in the beginning. I'd say most important thing for now is just building up your skills (not your characters), because ultimately you're the one that determines the whole direction of the battle. Your troops are just disposable.

Train a lot in the arena and with the trainer and solo a lot of smaller and weaker parties until you reach the point where one-on-one with any foe, including an unhorsed dark knight, and decked out with anything, even naked and with a club, should be as mindless taking a piss. Eventually even larger groups will take minimal effort.

Skills matter more than stats. Keep that in mind.

 

[Yoshiboy]

knights that will cut right through your poor peasants.

in fact a mob of peasants abbliterate knights as the foolish knights ride right into the center of the mob and get hit-lock.

 

[Lord David]

I've only been playing a short time (full game) so I class myself as a newbi. My tatics sofar have been too fight single handed (save often)I go with fighting hammer and now a bent sniper crossbow and 2 bags of bolts (did that cost a lot of river pirates!) I tend to look for small bands of bandits forest or sea 10 or less river pirates any number (17 the most I've took) have battle field set small then you are only fighting small numbers 5-6. the advantage of this is you rack up the ep's and you can out run anything else. Larger bands can be intresting I just took on 15 sea bandits took out the last one with a 5.2 head shot with 4 points of health left (my mouse finger killing me). I now plan to take a few peasants with me while the bad guys go after the peasants I'll take as many as I can get with the crossbow then go in swinging. If you find a group after you go backwards (S key) they then line up single file and can take them out easy, when you come up against horse troops aim at the horse. hope this helps, keep slugging.

In every generation there is born a slayer

 

[graphia]

The only thing I can really add to this is that when I'm starting a new game, I always make sure my party is *fast*. It's a lot easier for you (mounted), two pack horses and four peasants to hunt down small bands of river pirates and run away from anything bigger than for you to cruise around with 20+ foot soldiers and be attacked by bandits and patrols. A decent run to do is Zendar -> Rivacheg (buy dried meat) -> Curaw (sell meat) -> Salt mines (buy salt; as much as you can handle without your speed dropping below 8.0/7.9, depends how many pack animals you have) -> Zendar (sell the salt for a tidy profit). Rinse & repeat. The good thing about buying small amounts of salt is that you keep up your speed, and by the time you've been off gallivanting around the countryside the merchant's likely to restock a bit.

This way you can get up a decent amount of money, buy yourself a fast horse* and get some good weapons and armour.

*I highly suggest you go mounted unless you've played for a bit and can take out horsemen without trouble on foot. In my opinion playing a 'knight' with a horse and a boar spear or similar is the easiest way to get experience & money quickly, just because couched lances do so much damage.

 

[Temujin]

If you like fighting, another way of making money is to fight in the arena a lot and betting the maximum. you'll get profit and experience wich is allways nice.

the river pirate quest is a great training aswell

 

[Hardclyff]

If you like fighting, another way of making money is to fight in the arena a lot and betting the maximum. you'll get profit and experience wich is allways nice.

the river pirate quest is a great training aswell

As a newbie he will have serious problems winning fights in arena, and you need to win almost every fight to make decent money. Really, river pirates and trading goods is the way to go..

 

[Sir Saladin]

Oh yeah, buying salt at the salt mine and selling it in Zendar. That is a fun way to make some cash at first. Trying to sneak past the deadly groups and making it is a blast. I forgot about that, when the new update hits and I need to make a new character I will try that again.

 

[Raz]

only do infantry, much more effective i say