MBW is the full medieval experience. You are a denizen of Calradia, a single continent surrounded on one side by water and the others by impassable mountains (for now ...). Your destiny is truly yours. Forget questing your way to the top and linear story telling.

As a player, you must gather an army around you and fight your way to the top. Earn money through trade, conquest, or politics. Build armies through recruiting, purchase, or persuading your enemies to switch sides. Swear your sword to a king of the realm and earn fiefs, towns, or castles to rule of your own ...or earn the right to rule as a king or queen for yourself. Wander the world as a mercenary or take up the cause of others who claim to be rightful heirs to the various kingdoms ....the choice is truly yours.


In the open ended, sandbox world of Calradia the character creation screen is literally where it all starts. Don't expect to play this game from beginning to end within a single sessin or even a single month. Instead, kick off your greaves, hang your helmet, and have a seat next to the hearth in your stone keep. This is the start of your medieval career.

Mount and Blade is extremely, and I mean extremely, immersive. Character looks are limited, but all of them have a very crude and medieval feel to them. Nothing you create will hold up to the modern standard of beauty ...and that's the beauty of it!

You can also choose your background and while the options early on may seem almost unimportant, the things you choose will shape how you are viewed in Calradia throughout the whole of the game. So choose a story that you're interested in exploring. On that note, choosing a woman as your character effectively puts the game on hard-mode. The game is built on medieval values and the world will react to you accordingly. If you've ever wanted to know what that must have been like MBW offers a very unique opportunity for you to explore it.


Do not skip the combat tutorials. In fact, take the time during your early hours of gameplay to really find some comfort in the controls. They take some getting used to, but the basic mechanics of moving around and fighting are very simple and non-complex. Left-click swings, right click blocks. Holding down the W key will take you from a walk to a run, a canter to a gallop while holding the A key will do the reverse. There is no targetting; you will hit whatever is in front of you and within range. You will be hit by anything in front of you or within range. Very simple.

Take the time to get a firm grasp on combat. While it's possible to play the game without actually participating in each individual battle, you will save yourself lots of time, money, and energy by just learning how to fight.


The game is played in both 2D and 3D. Hand to hand combat, as well as questing and interaction take place in 3D while map travel takes place in 2D. The game alternates between the two.

The overworld map gives a literal view of the current state of affairs. You can view the borders of each kingdom and get a wider sense of the political state of the game.


The game has day and night cycles. As night falls, map visibility decreases.

When you first start out you'll have a little beginner quest. Do the whole thing. It will introduce you to:

• how to interact/talk with NPCs;
  
• how to enter and exit towns/castles;
  
• basic combat experience;
  
• how to recruit soldiers;
  
• how to track and find parties;
  
• and the importance of trade to survival.

All of these lessons should not be skipped! It will just lead you to frustratrion trying to figure out how to get these simple things done. Once you're past that, now you're ready for the real game. It's cold, cruel world out there. Plan accordingly.

You earn levels through the course of gameplay. At each level you're given skill and attribute points to build your character with. This cannot be undone.

Keep it simple and focused. Have a clear goal of how you want to play the game before you distribute your points. For example, if you want to build a massive army and travel the map with it conquering castles and kingdoms, Charisma and Leadership will be important attributes. If you're more of a Robin Hood character, excellent in combat but rove with a small band of fighters, Strength and Tracking might be valuable attributes.

In all cases, try to keep a good balance of useful stats. You're not likely to dump everyone point into just 2 or 3 narrow characteristics: it's more likely you'll have 2 primary attributes and anywhere from 4-7 skills which will be very important to you. Prioritize them and distribute them accordingly.

Again, this cannot be undone. I don't want to discourage experimentation because you can always make another character and play them simultaneously or game the system through clever saving. But choices have such long range impacts on gameplay that it's worth doing a bit of planning as you go along.

The margin for error isn't very punishing, so there's that.


Think of these as outline of your characters shape. How you invest in these areas will determine how strong your skills and weapon proficiencies are. It's safe to say that a Strength build will favor the player who enjoys mounted and/or melee combat while a Charisma focused build will favor a career as a ruler.

Attributes (courtesy of Strategy Wiki):[strategywiki.org]

• Strength: Each point towards Strength increases a character's maximum hit points by 1 (this can be boosted further by increasing the Ironflesh skill). Strength also provides a damage bonus and affects the arc and speed of archery and thrown weapons. Some weapons and armor have a minimum Strength requirement for use.
  
• Agility: Each point to Agility speeds up a character's attacks by 0.5%, running speed by a small amount, and adds 5 weapon proficiency points.
  
• Intelligence: Putting a point into Intelligence automatically grants an additional skill point.
  
• Charisma: Each point towards Charisma increases your maximum party size by 1 point (increasing your Renown will also affect your party size).

Skills[strategywiki.org] allow you to specialize in specific talents. There are lots of skills, too many to really cover in an introductory guide. Suffice it to say, you can specialize every facet of your character through skill allocations. Choose carefully, but also don't be afraid to experiment a little.

Quick Section Summary:

• Don't fail quests: You need reputation early on and that includes good relations with villages so you can recruit more easily.
  
• Setup Income: Set up trade routes and stack that cash. Shops are good too.
  
• Small veteran army: An army of about 35-45 veterans is a good force to make bandit chasing easy and lucrative.
  
• Skills: Pick up 1 inventory skill and 5 leadership early. You can delegate the trade skill to one of your heroes (recommended).
  
• Be a merc: It is much more profitable for skill, reputation, and money to be a mercenary early on because it significantly decreases your losses.

Managing Your Warband

One might imagine the complexity of managing a roaming band of mercenaries. They must be fed, sheltered, trained, paid, and appeased. The sole purpose of your warband is to fight. They won't do anything else in the game and they won't be happy about fleeing battles. Otherwise, they're quite a content bunch.

Learning how to support your army will make it much more powerful. An army with high morale, good relations, and who is paid regularly will be a superior combat force. First, consider keeping a moderate sized army early on, something in the range of ~45 trained soldiers. The larger your army, the more difficult it will be to catch bandits, because you will be a slow rider. The smaller your army, the fewer options you have of exploring all of the map (because you will become the hunted). No matter what anyone says, it is never better to NOT have an army; they simply make earning money too easy. Likewise, small army is cheaper to feed and pay. Find a balance between must-have veteran units and regular units. A couple of veterans can and will turn the tide of battle.

A small veteran warband is agile enough to chase down lucrative parties and strong enough to discourage vassals from picking on you. Keep a happy medium early on until you're strong enough to arm a larger force. The more vetted your early army is, the smaller it can be. Also, the size and type of army will vary by the starting area you wind up in. For example, if you end up in the Khergit region, you'll probably have more horsemen in your company ...and if you don't you had better get some. Khergits are very fast so it will be hard to face a faster enemy, or to catch a faster party.

Quick Summary:

• Train your soldiers early on at camps.
  
• Large armies are expensive; veteran armies are expensive.
  
• The larger your army, the larger the negative impact on morale.
  
• Morale bonuses can be gained from keeping good food variety and types.
  
• Don't gamble unnecessarily with the lives of your soldiers; it takes too much time to build up a veteran force.

Since you've done the first quest you already know how to recruit! The key now is to not get them killed and this requires training. There are training camps throughout the map in every kingdom. Use these to improve the skill of your army as well as yourself.

Next, vet them by going after small bands of Looters, then Bandits, then Raiders. Looters are the easiest. They are unarmored, poorly equipped peasants running around looting. Then there's bandits, who are armed and armored, but only little better than the looters. Sea Raiders can be dangerous, if only because they are pretty bold. They are well armed and put up a decent fight. Deserters ...they are the most dangerous as they are armed to the teeth (they left their former armies, that oughta give you a clue).

Always keep in mind the kinds of enemies you're fighting. Enemy horsemen? Keep a nice squad of spearmen or horsement of your own, and so forth. Also, upgrading your army means higher wages so the more veteran your army, the greater your sources of income should be.

Losing your army is painful. It is cheap to recruit, but expensive to equip and upkeep. It also takes time to build a veteran force. Don't throw the lives of your soldiers away on a gamble. Pick your battles wisely. There's no reset button and if you chose the autosave option, there is no going back once you have made a choice.

Finally, FOOD. Keeping variety improves morale. Different types of food grant their own passive morale bonuses, so there's that. Also, as your army gets larger food is a good way to counterbalance the negative morale gained from the size.

Quick Summary:

• Inter-faction trading is lucrative; buy in Khergit, sell in any other kingdom.
  
• Shops are a good source of steady weekly income.
  
• Use your profits to upgrade your equipment and army as much as possible.

There's a LOT of ways to make money in this game. The spoils of Calradia are practically falling out of the sky! But you'll need a strong bassinet on your head to catch it all.

The larger your army the greater your expenses. You should see to it that you have high incomes. Your own equipment won't be cheap and you'll rarely find fine armor and weapons from killing bandits in the woods.

Trade is simple and easy: buy low, sell high. You can find markets at any major town. There, you can see the market trends giving you access to what's selling best and worst at that location. From there just visit nearby villages which might sell you those goods and take them back to town. Each kingdom has speciality goods. For example, salt is easily acquired from the Nords for cheap. Spices are cheaper in the land of the Khergits. Grapes are plentiful in the Rhodoks. Buy at those locations and sell them to kingdoms which don't usually have those goods.

Establishing shops won't make you rich, but they provide a steady income and keep your costs down over the long run. Three shops early on will easily net you a steady income until you gain a fief or castle. For an army of ~40-60 regulars, 3 shops are ideal. Add a shop to your land holdings for every 30 soldiers you recruit. Double it for a veteran force. To buy a shop:

• You must have a favorable status with the town.
  
• Visit the Guild Master of the town.
  
• Pay them the required fee to open the shop you choose.

It will take a week or so for the shop to get up and running and you won't earn any income until then. Once it's up, you have the option of supplying it with goods or allowing it acquire it's own raw materials. Typically, choose the latter unless you find an exception deal on raw goods elsewhere that's sure to net you a higher profit. As you become more comfortable with the game you might find it better to supply raw materials.

Yes, you can recruit your very on heroes to your party! Up until now your entire warband has been nameless. Visiting taverns can introduce you to other mercenaries who are looking for a good leader to follow. Pay them a fee and they'll join your cause.

You should recruit 1 or 2 heroes early on if you find them based on the skills they offer. They'll tell you all about themselves so you'll know exactly where you can benefit from them. This allows you to spend your skill points in other areas early on, since the hero will boost up the skill of their specialty.

They are otherwise just like you. They gain levels and have attributes, skills, and weapon proficienty points you can assign to them. You can equip them with weapons and armor. They will also go on missions for you and someday, when you have your own kingdom, they can become your vassals. But that's all advanced stuff! What's key here is that when you gain a hero, they can specialize in certain skills for your party. This makes it even easier to max out the skills you need.

Everyone wants to be king. The six kingdoms are always fighting about this in one way or another. They're fighting to reclaim lands, fighting to reclaim ancient thrones, fighting because the weather is right ...the politics of Calradia are funny. Ultimately, they all want to restore the the ultimate throne: the king to rule them all. This is one way your adventure could end and for a new era to begin!

Once you've earned your meager place in the lands, have been vetted, and have set-up enough income you might start considering vassalage or even setting up your own kingdom. Here's some starter info on the various kingdoms to get you started:

• Nords: Easy -- Unless you hang around Wercheg, banditry is fairly minimal for the Nords. They are also easy because they offer the strongest melee units in the game, hands down. Laying siege with Huscarls is a sure win; besieging huscarls is a really bloody affair.
  
• Rhodoks: Easy -- Enough bandits to hunt and few enough to ride around relatively safely while learning the game.
  
• Swadians: Medium -- The difficult here lies in the great distance between their kingdom holdings. There are lots of bandits spread around, but they are mostly looters and other easy prey.
  
• Vaegirs: Medium -- Lots and lots of bandits and great loot. Sea raiders are relatively tough opponents, but nothing that can't be crushed with a small regular army (25-40 units). Arguably the best starter faction, as it offers quick an easy rewards and the baddies are numerous enough to give a steady stream of experience for leveling.
  
• Sarranids: Hard -- Mounted bandits are numerous as the desert sands. You will need a strong army early with anti-cavalry units or lots of cavalry units (these are expensive).
  
• Khergits: Hard -- Same as the Sarranids, but a little worse, especially around Ichamur. The swarming of bandits reminds one of a roach nest.

As a new personality in Calradia, all of the factions will initially be fair but untrusting of you. They won't hate you or love you. To improve your relations, just interact with them. Often the lords will have tasks they could use some help with. Doing them will help improve your own standings while earning you a few denars.

One very lucrative thing you can do is sign on to a faction during a period of war as a mercenary. You get all the benefits of being a vassal with none of the negatives. The Marshall will pay you each week, you'll have access to all the spoils of fighting enemy parties, and once it's over you don't owe anyone anything. You will have vetted your army and gained some money. It's a good deal.

There's a lot more to know about the game, but the info here is sufficient to help you make good decisions early on. The best thing you can do is start the game and get going. The exciting part of the game for me is reading dialogue and making choices first hand without using guides so I don't want to make any guide that intrudes too much on that experience.


First word of advice: All of your actions count. They will either help you or harm you. Here is a quick list of *some* things I am referring to:

• Not completing a task: Can harm your relations with the person who gave it and lower party morale.
  
• Courting a woman that another man likes (totally out of your control, but that is one way to significantly lower your rep with that guy).
  
• Taking royal prisoners: will harm your rep with that person AND the faction.
  
• Taking sides in a war: your stores can be sequestered by the enemy kingdom.

There are many more things that can harm you. On the contrary, you will be helped by doing honorable things:

• Helping local villages against bandits (or even royal looters).
  
• Releasing a defeated commander instead of taking him prisoner: you will increase your honor and reputation with him and his faction.
  
• Not accepting blood money for headhunter quests: increases your honor and faction.

That list goes on as well. If you can keep in mind that this game is a true role-player, then you will succeed on the terms in which you enjoy roleplaying. If you like playing the rebel, you will succeed on those terms and also suffer the drawbacks of it. If you enjoy playing the hero, you will succeed on those terms and also suffer the drawbacks of it. Simple enough? I know that’s very general, but if you can just rediscover what it means to immerse yourself in a fictional world and imagine yourself to be the avatar you created, you will quickly understand exactly what I mean.

Note on Rhodoks: The graphic with units is missing information about the progression of Rhodoks crossbowman. The missing units are: Trained Crossbowman > Sharpshooter

Note on Sarranids: The missing units are: Archer > Master Archer

For more information about Mercenary and Female unit progression, visit Mount & Blade Warband Wikia.[mountandblade.wikia.com]