Tips for getting through the early part of the game

[DarkShogun417]

So I got PoP a while ago, and have had 2 games where I've gotten reasonably far. The first one my character reached around level 30. I'm starting a new character, and being captured by bandits left and right. I recall this happening when I started my 2 other characters as well. I have 111 prestige, so I can't be a vassal or get into tournaments yet.

So I'm asking if anyone has any tips for getting through the early game.

 

[CleanWar]

So I got PoP a while ago, and have had 2 games where I've gotten reasonably far. The first one my character reached around level 30. I'm starting a new character, and being captured by bandits left and right. I recall this happening when I started my 2 other characters as well. I have 111 prestige, so I can't be a vassal or get into tournaments yet.

So I'm asking if anyone has any tips for getting through the early game.

Follow armies and auto resolve their battles. Take the prisoners. Sell them. And take or release the lords.
Then go mercenary for a faction, to fix up the relations with the faction.

 

[Sir Nickolas]

Early game is rough in Prophesy of Pendor. Almost everything a player learns in Native must be thrown out the window, PoP is a completely different beast.

Now, please note that my advice is coming from a person that plays on easy difficulty (19%), and I still have not completed my first playthrough, but should still be considered sufficient.

Early game I would focus on simply becoming stronger and hiring companions. Now, some would rather focus on enterprises first to obtain financial backing and get more returns, but it depends on your playstyle. Do you begin with companions that can become stronger in time, or do you go for the financial backing so you can obtain books and pay your party easier? Also, should one desire it, there is a hidden Qualis Gem in Rane which can be used to obtain an elixir (+2 to all stats bar INT) or obtain access to Al-Alziz as a foundation to Rune Weapons. (Remember 3 gems are required, Unlock, Strange Weapon, Rune Weapon.) Of course, you could also save said gem to found a Knighthood Order, but one should't worry about that early-game as other gems are available to be obtained.

In addition, I would try and stay away from many of the minor faction armies in early-early game. Quality, not Quantity, wins battles. Having a strong Companion or even just a strong mounted unit (Personal favorite: Heretic Magnus)  in Early-Game helps immensely as they become a one man army against minor spawns. An example is one of the starting quests, where the player must head into the Vanskerry Hideout (or equivalent). The Vanskerry Leader will devastate the unprepared player, even on Easy difficulty. However, with a strong unit such as Lethaldiran, he will go down a bit easier. In addition, Mounted and Ranged units are a godsend during the early stages of any Pendor playthrough, so try to focus on them.

Once you feel comfortable enough (I would estimate around 50 soldiers), try becoming a mercenary. Mercenaries in Pendor are rather luxurious from my experience, they almost always cover party expenses and any denars from enterprises come in as profits. Now, there is no real need to always accompany the marshal, you can continue trying to become stronger in general during this stage. Also, don't be afraid to engage yourself in the war, but don't go at it alone. These battles will net a fair amount of prisoners and also give a bit of Renown.
As a Mercenary, you don't have to be tied down to one faction. If you are thinking about going the King route, try and keep the various factions balanced by switching your contracts per month. As long as the player doesn't piss off the factions outside of war, when going lone-wolf or switching contracts player-faction relations will reset.

When you finally obtain the ability to join in tournaments, everything changes, and I personally believe this step marks the beginning of mid-game (and a huge amount of joy), but that is a story for another time.

* * * * *

Edit: Also check out the manual, FAQ, and the Pop Wiki for further assistance. If you are interested in lore and other information, check out the The Master Link Compilation Thread.

Links:
Overview, Manual, and Strategy Guide // FAQ // PoP Wiki

 

[Arcanum]

Kill everything weaker than you. And run away when you find yourself in the opposite position.

Also, the first few months in game, don't bother with troops, just find your wanted companions, level, and gear yourself and them.

 

[lothario]

So I'm asking if anyone has any tips for getting through the early game.

It's tricky at first for everybody, because you don't know how powerful and dangerous the small enemy groups are until you know their troops and have fought them many times, so you know what to expect after that. Once you can properly assess the actual threat posed by bandits and the like, then you will be able to not ever get beaten by following the simple rule of running away from guys that you can't beat, and being fast enough to escape in the first place.

Survival tip #1: Be fast on the map. That is the most important thing in early game. Do NOT top out the number of troops in your party thinking that it will make you unbeatable to have a bunch of troops. What you want is about 20-30 troops that are earning levels and getting powerful. Invest in Pathfinding and Spotting.

-Loth

 

[Roberto3371]

Unlike native becoming a mercenary for another faction pays for your entire troop upkeep no matter what you have so its a great way to collect and train up hero adventurers at no real cost to yourself. If you're playing it on anything which involves your character only taking 1/4 damage then you can win tournaments with next to no challenge and make vast amounts of money that way. If you play the game on full damage to yourself and companions tournaments become very hard indeed.  While you can be a trader after trying it extensively even with a character who starts out with trading skill of 8 it really needs a bit of work to make it a profitable alternative. Don't forget of course to purchase an enterprise in each town, while it is loosely based off the resources in each town for some reason silk and dye is often the most profitable despite raw silk only appearing in Janos where it is not profitable to run that business.

Don't be afraid to run around by yourself at the  start though its a great way to earn money especially if you equip a mace and get lots of early renown even on hard difficulty with some tactical consideration you can be the bane of bandits everywhere.

 

[Jeames]

If you become a mercenary, use lots of high-end troops and increase your leadership. From what I understand of it, I think the kings pay the base upkeep (maybe a little less), and you pocket the leadership discount. Therefore, get lots of (hero) adventurers wherever possible. Barclay, Jatu and Melitine troops are also highly profitable choices. Using expensive troops also gives the obvious advantage of being able to take on significantly larger armies before you're fielding knights, giving some pretty good loot.

Also, try to lure unique spawns with heroes to feasts or sieges, in order to get as many of those priceless Qualis gems as possible. Make Qualis gems your no.1 priority. You can also get one in the Rane chest, and if a traveller gives you he location of a Red Brotherhood hideout. If you do get to one of the hideouts, run for the chest and loot it, you will keep the loot (including the gem) regardless of whether or not you win.

 

[lothario]

If you don't like the idea of being beholden to a faction as a mercenary, you can get your weekly troop costs covered (and possibly much more) by building dyeworks in various towns. It costs 10k gold to start one, but they more than pay for themselves... about 500 denars per week adds up to a whole helluva lot more than 10k. Get a dozen (or hopefully more) dyeworks going, and you can have as many expensive troops as you want.

-Loth

 

[Roberto3371]

If you don't like the idea of being beholden to a faction as a mercenary, you can get your weekly troop costs covered (and possibly much more) by building dyeworks in various towns. It costs 10k gold to start one, but they more than pay for themselves... about 500 denars per week adds up to a whole helluva lot more than 10k. Get a dozen (or hopefully more) dyeworks going, and you can have as many expensive troops as you want.

-Loth

Except possibly in Ethos where oil is better and Senderfell where ironworks is good and a few of the towns offer just as much for a wool weavery, worth checking out the other options as well.

 

[lothario]

Yup, Ethos is not a great idea for dyeworks, thanks for reminding us... I've actually lost money having a dyeworks there a couple of times. The other towns tolerate a dyeworks just fine, I've messed around building other stuff in certain towns before, like you mention, and just always come back to dyeworks being the best idea. Call it "lazy thinking" on my part. They pay for themselves so fast that it just doesn't matter in the long run if you paid 4000 or 10000 to get a business up and running.

-Loth

 

[Roberto3371]

For most of the towns it is the best option but for 3 can't remember which wool weavers offers the best return. And if this is the starting out section then the difference of 4000 denars is quite significant assuming you're not cheating.

 

[placenik]

Best question is- what kind of character you want to be?

Only universal advice I can give is- get Red Brotherhood rumor ASAP. If you are low level, 5 high level mercenaries will win you fight.

 

[lothario]

For most of the towns it is the best option but for 3 can't remember which wool weavers offers the best return. And if this is the starting out section then the difference of 4000 denars is quite significant assuming you're not cheating.

Haha, you and I must have different definitions of "long term investing". 10k is not a lot to start off paying if you're getting over 100k in return eventually. Out of that 100k+, what's that difference of 4000? Less than 4%, by definition. 4% is not a lot to me.

-Loth

 

[ms_ts_2007]

I sound like a broken record already but....

Use couched lance hits. Master them. Once you do that, the rest is really easy.

 

[Roberto3371]

For most of the towns it is the best option but for 3 can't remember which wool weavers offers the best return. And if this is the starting out section then the difference of 4000 denars is quite significant assuming you're not cheating.

Haha, you and I must have different definitions of "long term investing". 10k is not a lot to start off paying if you're getting over 100k in return eventually. Out of that 100k+, what's that difference of 4000? Less than 4%, by definition. 4% is not a lot to me.

-Loth

The most you get out of your investments does not reach nearly 20,000 a week let alone 100k I said 3 of the cities offer a better return as in more money than putting the silk and dye weavery so yeah we do have different ideas on long term return if you are careful and actually look before just blindly setting up shop you can make more money long term.  Yet again the thread is about early game and in the early game money doesn't grow on trees.

Though let's be honest here if you really want a helping hand getting through the beginning there is always the salty spice trainer option.

 

[lothario]

The most you get out of your investments does not reach nearly 20,000 a week let alone 100k I said 3 of the cities offer a better return as in more money than putting the silk and dye weavery so yeah we do have different ideas on long term return if you are careful and actually look before just blindly setting up shop you can make more money long term.  Yet again the thread is about early game and in the early game money doesn't grow on trees.

You misunderstand, my friend... when I referred to "long term", I meant over the life of the investment. Most games last a significant amount of time. During that time while your dyeworks are churning out 500+ denars per week, you can easily recoup 100k per dyeworks -- as long as you set them up quickly during the early game phase. The sooner the better. That's why this is relevant to the early game discussion we are having here, and also why I said that my lazy thinking usually works out in the end for me. In the long run, meaning until the end of the game, that small difference of paying slightly more for a dyeworks vs. other kinds of businesses is a drop in the bucket.

I am not disagreeing with your point that in some selected towns, a dyeworks is not the absolute best business you can start. Ethos is a shining example of where my lazy thinking can steer somebody wrong. But everywhere else, as far as I am concerned, a dyeworks is good enough. If you use "build dyeworks everywhere except Ethos" as a rule of thumb, you can't go wrong.

-Loth

 

[noosers]

Go check the stickified master link compilation and refer to the wiki. Quite a lot of early game strategies meant there and most of it still valid.

Other than that, run from fights you can´t win and kill them all. Get a few serious mercenaries, they can make the difference early game. Then get a feeling for the game. Epic Vaseline moments will be there aplenty, but someone needs to buy my merchandise so bad for you, good for me.

Once you acquired the needed caution and feeling for the fights though you´ll ultimately end up laughing about those early game Epic Vaseline moments.

And the only way to play PoP properly is on max difficult settings.

 

[Roberto3371]

Well y'know loth I have to say the only annoying thing is having to manually find the guildmaster each time can't say cycling through the options to see which business is best has ever been THAT much of a hassle for me. And at either end of long term whichever makes the most money is the most useful but luckily PoP accommodates a lot of different play styles so to each their own.

 

[CleanWar]

The most you get out of your investments does not reach nearly 20,000 a week let alone 100k I said 3 of the cities offer a better return as in more money than putting the silk and dye weavery so yeah we do have different ideas on long term return if you are careful and actually look before just blindly setting up shop you can make more money long term.  Yet again the thread is about early game and in the early game money doesn't grow on trees.

You misunderstand, my friend... when I referred to "long term", I meant over the life of the investment. Most games last a significant amount of time. During that time while your dyeworks are churning out 500+ denars per week, you can easily recoup 100k per dyeworks -- as long as you set them up quickly during the early game phase. The sooner the better. That's why this is relevant to the early game discussion we are having here, and also why I said that my lazy thinking usually works out in the end for me. In the long run, meaning until the end of the game, that small difference of paying slightly more for a dyeworks vs. other kinds of businesses is a drop in the bucket.

I am not disagreeing with your point that in some selected towns, a dyeworks is not the absolute best business you can start. Ethos is a shining example of where my lazy thinking can steer somebody wrong. But everywhere else, as far as I am concerned, a dyeworks is good enough. If you use "build dyeworks everywhere except Ethos" as a rule of thumb, you can't go wrong.

-Loth

In Janos my Dyeworks always do some bad bussnis.
They give like 100 denar
Even had a moment that it gave -800 :O.
So i just build a bakkery there XD

 

[noosers]

If you check the surrounding villages for their goods and talk to the guildmaster you should get a pretty decent feeling for what to build to earn a steady coin.

If bread or ale is a scarce commodity but grain available in that area build a bakery or brewery.
An oil press works wonders as well if enough olives are around, as oil is really scarce.

And if you buy olives for <90, drop it at your oil press, tell them to save up the oil, and manually export it from the Empire you can sell it for 450-600 a unit in far away towns like Ravenstern.purchase/sell on their own.
There you reload with furs and iron and head back home for flax, fish and salt.
Once the prices have set and you know the places, you can make pretty good money by trading alone.
If you own too many enterprises or are too busy to micromanage them, simply leave them minding their own business.

All you need is Leslie and a couple of horses early game and you can make more than enough cash for all the NPCs you want to have faster than you´d expect.