Advice

[Khaos]

So...I am apparently trash-garbage at this game. Is there some sort of..."New game" friendly area or something? General advice for early class combos? Someplace safe-ish to grind?

Also, had a guy come with a crossbow...that needs to be reloaded. How does one DO this? I try to use it and it says reload but then nothing happens...

[titanopteryx]

Reloading is like a spell you cast on yourself. Use reload and then click on the character doing the reloading. Alternatively, click reload and then press enter.

[Sill]

A solid piece of advice I can give you is use Scout early and often. Throw Rock is hilariously good after a couple levels, and Scout gives +1 mobility, has access to First Aid and a skill that improves the healing, along with a "movement" skill.

Use it as your main class till you at least get a few abilities, then swap to newer classes while keeping it your sub class for utility. Once you've gotten a feel for how you want to build crew and yourself, you can safely swap off them. If you want the abilities back, the Arena grand prize is a Ability Stone and a fair bit of gold if you can cheese the fights. (Getting good allies with break weapon is awesome for it)

[McFrugal]

When first starting out, you can go anywhere on the map. This means you may run into areas with strong enemies. Groves are generally safe for a low experience party, though there are some harder ones and they seem to be randomly placed. The premade points of interest vary a lot in how difficult they are. Some of them are easy, others are incredibly dangerous.
So my advice for gaining experience is to save before every fight, and if it's too hard, just change the icon for the location on your map to something recognizable (like the warning symbol) and come back later.

Scout is a good idea, yeah. Even a melee unit can benefit from Throw Stone. I would recommend immediately switching to Scholar if you plan for that character to use magic. A Scholar's spells will do more damage than Throw Stone, and the magical support classes are very strong. You should try to get access to Sage and Warden abilities asap.

[game-zerox]

My advice is that if you intend to go melee, get the warrior's counterattack skill first. The sailor's steady ability should help you take a lot of hits and at level 1 it should last about two turns.

Speaking of warrior, bash is also deceptively good as each "stopped push" will deal 3 damage to the target and the one stopping it. That mean that at level three, you could deal a bonus 9 damage to two adjacent enemy each. Just remember of friendly fire.

One last thing about pushing: if you see a cliff or a deep hole, pushing enemies into them will let them fall and will (most likely) kill them. Only downside is that there won't be a corpse to loot if there's no ground below.

[Greg_Murrell]

Crossbow is reloads by pressing the button of the crossbow -> Enter. Though that means your turn will end, so make sure to move before hand.

For early classes, I personally recommend a melee Race, Warrior (with counter), and hammers for strong damage. Sage, Warden, and Tactician are excellent support classes, while Scout and Rogue provide good utility.

[Kostura]

I'm still working out class progression and combat myself, so I can't give advice on that. But if you need money the best way to get it is to take trade contracts from the guild. Explore a little bit first, discover all of the major cities so you know where to go for specific trade goods, and you can make 1000-2000 gold per contract.

[Super yuppers]

I'm not that experienced but i may be of help
1- Don't come close to deep water ( dark blue water ) it spawns sea monsters
2- Get a 5 man crew quickly and plan which one going to follow which class paths don't be afraid of their income it's cheap as ....... if you trade all the time i had 7 people early on because i didn't know what i was doing but i managed to do long runs and feeding them all the time without feeling much of a problem but yes 5 is great early on
3- Get a spear for one of your crews if 2 enemies in line it can hit both of them good easy damage
4- Trade! find a good trade loop Pearls/Bullion long trade runs are good , i for example did a trade loop in my cog Buying bullion from Wraele then i would sail to Port 0type restock with food then into Towerwall restock food again then sail to Dunning mars selling the Bullion in Dunning mars and restock food then run into Towerwall and restock food then to Port Alphe to restock food Then to Runewald to sell the Slik i got from Dunning mars then i would sail back to Wraele to sell the Furs i go from Runewald i didn't explore the whole map yet but this trade run makes about 5000/6000 everytime try to have 20 food and 20 of the certain trade item you want to trade if for example doing this trade run lowers the number of Bullions stocked in Wraele any number about 8 is good enough buy Seacoal from Port 0type to be ready to trade 20 items Dunning Mars
5- Invest in your main nation port and the port you like to buy stuff from for example the more you invest in a port it favors you vs the other nations it becomes friendly to your nation stuff become cheaper too ( buying a cheaper stuff means you making more money then before ) and new items appears!
6- The crossbow guy can fight with a shield the poor bow guy can't and he hits harder too atleast early on!
7- Buy all iron equipment for all your crew early on they are cheap find a blacksmith from your main nation port and buy for everyone mix and match your favorite group fighting style
8- Donate to your main nation chapel or temple or whatever they are called 1k gold = +1 favor point to your main nation 20 or 50 points and you get yourself something
9- explore those land areas when you have the crew of 5 with iron items which is pretty much very early on get them some exp

I hope it is helpful for you ^^

[Khaos]

Wow, thanks for the advice all! Tons of useful stuff in here for me to try.

[Greg_Murrell]

Bows disallow shields and are weak, but I find are more suitable for the debuffs you might find on Scout, Rogue, or Spell Archon. Some late game Bows also have +1 range (at some cost). So don't discount the bow. Just don't try to make it a hard-hitter like your crossbows.