How to git gud?

[primalforlorn]

Go to last paragraph to skip the toxic ranting

This is different from most medieval game I have played like kingdom Come deliverance, dark souls series and maybe Skyrim. I have made three character with different skills, none of which made to past the first month as basically the characters are ♥♥♥♥♥♥. One time I wasted all my money on cattle and failed to deliver it on time, the most successful character I made was level 6 fighting a lord with double the number, so I thought, let’s try hammer an Anvil like how I did in total war, nope, the cavalry stuck in enemy infantry and was unable to pull out, my horse just stop dead when it touches the first guy, I doubt the lance even hit a thing. Then I was captured, lost all my best troops and champions and I am broke. My usual tactic of divide et imperium( hope I spelt that correct) doesn’t work since my character can’t run faster than a lame man on wheelchair and there is no parry option or dodge button, I am force to take hits from all directions and shields are less useful than broken condoms in this game. First person mode seems a bit buggy to me, most of the time I hit something on horseback it didn’t register even though my weapon clearly goes through the enemy

Sorry for all the ranting, it’s the first time i am this frustrated since I first played dark souls a few years ago. So do I get good in this game. People speaks very highly of this game and I wish to enjoy it.

[Tacitus Killgore]

Start the game off as a travelling merchant. Make sure you have at least 1 point in Trade. Go from city to city and click on the "asess local prices" button. It will tell you what you can buy cheap in that city and sell for a profit at another city. This is an easy, efficient way of making money.

Don't fight lords unless you're a mercenary or a lord for a faction, if you're alone and you make enemies with a kingdom you'll get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

I was an officer in a cavalry regiment in Napoleonic Wars so I might be able to help with the cavalry problem you're having. Try catching the enemy off guard and flank them. I'll give a description of what tactics you should use.
-Instead of sending your cavalry in head on, hold them back. Wait for your infantry to engage and distract the enemy. Once the enemy is distracted fighting your infantry, tell your cavalry to follow you. Lead them around the bulk of the hostile forces so that they're facing either the side or the behind of your enemies. Once they're in position tell them to charge. I guarantee your cavalry will tear them apart.
-Another cavalry tip for you personally: If a soldier notices you coming for him and he gets ready to attack, find a new target. If he is ready for you, you or your horse are going to get hurt. Try to catch people off guard. Attack from the sides or the back if you can.

To make your character faster level up the Athletics skill. Try not to depend on shields to protect you all the time though. Learn how to block with your weapon. Don't fight multiple people at once if it can be avoided. Go fight in arenas or tournaments to practice.

First person mode is terrible. Only use it for ranged weapons. You'll do a lot better in melee combat in third person, I know I did.

[Tuidjy]

The rant is fine. You should see the sнiтнеаds we sometimes get.

In this game, you cannot expect to be defeating lord parties in the first week unless you are a master of melee. It'll be a while before you get there.

To be good at single-player melee (somewhat different from multiplayer melee) you basically need at least four things:
1) learn to read the opponent's actions so you can tell what is about to come your way
2) practice pulling off the move you want without fail
3) learn as much as you can about game mechanics, weapon properties, and combat rules
4) improve your character's stats, skills and proficiencies

1) and 2) will only come through practice. The safest place to do it is in the training fields (white colored spots on the strategy map) and the arena (dialogue option in major cities)

Go to a training field, and fight one on one until you can read your opponent. Complete the course, and you will get level 2. Then go to a major city, and practice in the arena until your proficiency in your chosen weapon is at least 100. That means you are have basic proficiency, i.e. that you suffer no penalties using that weapon.

By the way, I strongly recommend third person perspective, unless you have a surround screen set up and have modified the field of view (not trivial to do) Otherwise, in first person view, you simply do not see enough to deal with multiple opponents.

3) Learning the mechanics takes reading the manual, browsing the wiki, and asking questions on the forums. There are people with 1000+ hours who are learning about some tricky moves like chamber block for the first time. This game takes into account literally a dozen things in computing the damage from a blow, and despite the rudimentary graphics and few animations, combat is the deepest I've seen for melee, or at least the closest to real fencing.

4) Improving your character will come as you play. You cannot really 'lose' the game, although you can paint yourself into a corner if you screw up badly enough. If the map is united under a king who hates your guts, you will not achieve much... but that situation is hard to get into, even if you work at it.

I recommend just taking it easy for a while. Get a horse, fight in the training fields and arenas, travel the map, avoid bandits, join fights against outlaws on the side of the good guys, but only if the latter are stronger. Maybe read a trading a guide, gather companions, and quest for lords.

Do not try to power game your way to the top too quickly. Even with a guide, you'll be missing basic stuff. Basically the game has three stages:
In the early, or mercenary captain game, you care about cash and businesses.
In the middle, or nobleman game, you care about troops and land.
In the late, or emperor game, you care about relations and vassals.

But you are at stage 0, which is a mudfooted peasant who is still at "Pointy end goes into the other guy". The rest will come. The game is worth it, at least in my opinion. But it will take you a while before you can take on a lord and 100 of his troops with eight companions, and win.

[Twinkletoes]

The learning curve can be a bit steep, but climbing it is worth it. Your sitting on hundreds of hours playtime gold mine here(especially with mods).

You already got 2 essays worth of advice so I will just leave it at that.

[Redmacinton]

here is another Advise

1) if you want money fast then you should do Tournaments i will only Recomend to do this when you have the basic done of, Sword fighting, Polarm fighting, Archer shooting and Horse control. you can easy get around 6000 denars if you bet 200 i think that was the max each time and win every round.

2) there is another way to get money aswell and that is either by doing quests for the lords, kings, Villiager chief and guild masters the other way is by selling slaves to the slave merchant but you have to use blunt weapons this can be bit tricky to pull off when your new, if you do feel Confident to thake a challenging foe then you should fight Sea raiders they can be Diffecult some times to deal with at the start of the game but later on best way to make money from by selling them as slave, selling the loot and good XP for your units.

3) if you want lvl's fast then you should do quests and killing bandits and never fight a battle that you cant win or you have to start over (its alright if you lose a battle but there is a risk to lose gear so dont try to lose) and its best not to pick up a fight against a lord until your either a mercenary or you have joined a faction and got a Decent army by around 50 units that is veterans or close to it.

4) you learn the game by playing it like the rest of the games but in this game it can be a good idea to look up for some guides how to get denars fast and such and whats the diffrense between the faction units.

5) Faction best units.

the nords best units are the Huscarls the best of the best to Win Siege battles by either attacking or defending but they are weak against horses if they dont group up. and the nords does not have the best cavs they got great infrantry but no good horse units or archers

Swadia. has the best cavs that can Tramble any armys down if you just want a full cav army they dont have the best archers but they are decent same as the infrantry.

Vaegirs they have great archers that can sniper units from fare and does alot of damage if the enemy units dont use the shields, but sadly Vaegirs horse units can be alright but some time they dont carry shields the same as they infrantry.

Rhodoks. they archers are litterly beasts that can chew through shields and armor specialised crossbow units perfect for defending against attackers in a siege they have some alright infrantry units with spears but the AI is not the best with them

Sultanic if i say the name correct. has good anti cav units they are almost the same as the Swadia units but just less bad the infrantry is good for slave hunting most of the carry blunt weapons but they can some times forget the shield the archers they got is not the best

the last faction which i cant remember the name but they are just a cav only faction mostly never use them for siege battles they just die realy fast but can be a pain to fight against in open field.

well thats all i have for advises

[ULTRA]

horse archery

[RandomDude]

You're gonna get wiped. Many times. You'll build an army, make a mistake and lose it. That's part of the early game. What's important is your character is growing, and you're improving relations with lords/villages.

When you get to the late teens, early level 20's you'll have a decent character and you'll (hopefull!) have learned some lessons.

What you really want to do is just get enough reknown to become a lord and work your way towards being rewarded with a castle or a town. You'll be able to stash troops in there and so even if you lose an army, you can always go back to your fief and get more.

Spending some time with villages doing quests for them will impove relations and can let you recruit more men. Sometimes you get higher tier units too. Taking the time to get several villages to high relations can be tedious, but it's worth it in Native.

Having a decent training skill (+ decent level) and having companions with similar training and level will also help you train new recruits up quickly.

Don't fight lords at an early level, focus on bandits (not sea raiders, for now) and just grab all the crap gear, sell it, find new bandits, kill them and rinse/repeat.

One fun playthrough I had is where I decided to be a bandit myself. I started in Khergit lands, recruited some khergits and just attacked villagers in nearby kingdoms. The Khergit recruits had blunt weapons so I had lots of prisoners to sell. I worked my way up to raiding caravans (lol) and then soon after, I was invited to become a Lord.

If you're looking for an easy time, recruit swadians and turn them into cavalry asap. trounce forest bandits until you have swadian knights and then trounce sea raiders. You'll get plenty of reknown, enough money to recruit/train etc and you shouldn't have to worry about losing battles too much.

If you prefer infantry, nord recruits have the highest starting level and I've even managed to win with them against a small band of sea raiders. Sea raiders are very similar to Nord Trained Footmen (2 ranks up from Nord Recruit, iirc).

[primalforlorn]

Thanks for all your valuable comments, now I know I have been playing the game wrong this whole time. I will load back to one of my save and try to do what you guys advise and hope I will come to success one day

[Galla]

My plan is usually this : First find the 8 companions you want(there are companion guides online). Kill looters, weak deserers, some sea raiders(great loot), constantly giving your companions better gear if you find it, and selling the rest. Once you've got money, and some decently specced companions with good surgery skill, give them crossbows and hire peasants(I usually hire nords due to their good melee capabilities. Your companions can stay away from the fight while still contributing quite a lot with crossbows(they can quite easily become the best ranged units in the game), meaning you won't suffer many casualties due to the surgery skill.