A Newbie's Guide on the Campaign (With Video)

You're a new player and want to start your world conquest but know where to start from or got stuck at some point ? Don't worry! This guide will teach you the basics of WFAS showing the first 30 minutes of campaign. It includes things like: How to complete the starting quests, how to recruit units, how to make money from trade, how to deal with raiders, how to get quests from lords, how to recruit prisoners, and many others, everything is shown in video and as well as explained below in detail.

The Guide

0:00 - 1:40 Picking the Difficulty & Character Creation.

Difficulty: If you are new it is advised to instead pick easy difficulty and "Allow me to quit without saving". Because being a newbie chances are you won't be so skilled in battle, and you will make a lot of tactical mistakes both inside and outside the battle that you will regret if you picked "Realistic!".
I only picked hard and "Realistic! no quiting without saving" to prove the techniques I used are good.

1:40 - 4:20 The In-Game Tutorial.

In-Game Tutorial: That only teaches you how to fight, not everything else, there's a lot more to WFAS.

4:20 - 6:40 Getting the 3 Quests from Zamoshye, Completing the 1st Quest.

1st Zamoshye Quest: If you're new to the game it's advised to go to nearby villages to recruit more units before attacking the bandits.

6:40 - 9:10 The Inventory after a fight, Level Up, Completing the 2nd Quest, Buying Powder.

Powder Trade: Powder is the best item you can make trade with, you can find it around 250-300 thalers and sell it with >500 thalers, it's a good way to make a lot of money early game.

9:10 - 15:40 Looking for Salt in the Marketplace to complete the 3rd Zamoshye Quest.

Looking for Salt in Russia: The Russian cities are very close to each other and close to your starting point as well, it's a good location to start looking for salt. Needless to say, I wasn't very lucky, you can usually find Salt in Russian cities, if not keep searching at the Cossacks because their cities are even closer to each other than the Russians' cities.

15:40 - 17:40 Attacking a group of looters, Upgraded a Unit.

Looters don't have ranged weapons: So if you have a horse and at least 1 ranged weapon you can kill them all by yourself in no time without ever being in danger of getting killed, bandits on the other hand have ranged weapons, deserters are more powerful than bandits, so be careful.

17:40 - 20:40 Still looking for Salt in the Marketplace to complete the 3rd Zamoshye Quest.

20:00 - 21:10 Found a good Companion, Found a good quest from a Lord, Got a good New Armor.

You can manage the inventory of every companion you recruit, you also get to pick their skills when they level up: Karlsson is a good companion not because of his skills, but because his armor costs more than the money you have to give him to hire him in the party, thus you can simply hire him and then take his armor, an armor that would have normally costed a lot more than the price you pay to hire him. Another companion with a very good armor on him that you can take is Victor De La Buscador. http://mountandblade.wikia.com/wiki/Heroes_(With_Fire_%26_Sword)

The 'Collect debt from lord' Quest: You can get this quest from any lord, not only a cossack lord. You won't get this quest everytime you ask a lord for quests, there are various quests you can get, this one is just one of them. The reason I said that quest was good it's because you can go to the lord that has the debt, ask him to pay the debt, and then never give the money back to the lord who asked you to return his debt. Profit! Once you complete a quest it has no expiration date, so you can complete that quest by speaking with the lord with the debt, and after you take the debt never end the quest by speaking about the money with the lord who gave you the quest. By doing this you won't lose relation with either of them, and you can still talk with the lord who gave you the quest without having him ask you for money. You can use the money to invest and maybe give the money back to the lord when you want to, or never give them back, your choice.

21:10 - 25:00 Found Salt, Found a new Companion, Got the debt from that Lord.

Found Salt: The 3rd and last Zamoshye was finished, have money, I have a good army, now I'm going back to Zamoshye to collect my rewards.

25:00 - 26:10 Trying to go back from Sich to Zamoshye.

26:10 - 30:00 Attacked by more parties of Tatar Riders, Pay for Free Passage.

Pay/Defeat: Sometimes it's better to pay and to live to fight another day. If you choose to fight instead and lose they'll take you prisoner, after a while you'll escape but you'll lose your whole company and an item.

30:00 - 32:00 Attacked by more parties of Tatar Riders again, Recruit Prisoners, Vagon Cart.

Recruting prisoners: Can be useful, but there is a chance they will desert and run after a few minutes, they won't fight you so you won't have casualties, they will only run. However in this case, whether they were the type to run away or not, they didn't had time because I was engaged by Tatars as soon as I freed them. Also, not all of them may accept your offer to set them free if they fight for you.

The Vagon Cart: is useful for extra protection when you're being attacked, if you have a lot of ranged units saying inside the vagon cart will keep them protected from cavalry melee charge, especially if the cavalry has polearms, cavarly can still get inside through the back, but it's far from the same as being in an open field, this can often make the difference between victory and defeat. You can still move while using the vagon cart on the open-world, but it's not very practical because you're very slow. They're mostly useful when you're being attacked and want to defend. Other parties can also use vagon carts, caravans usually have vagon carts.

32:00 - 34:10 Getting my reward for completing the quests, and then going for Warsaw.

Thank you for reading, I hope this helps, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. Also if you want me to continue making a new video on what to do next (although the game is open-world, so you can do a lot things next) don't hesitate to say so.