In this little guide i will try to help you in every way possible. This game is not easy! It is also very slow so you need to have patience. This game is not as good as warband (my opinion not a fact) but nonetheless it still is good, it just takes forever :D Anyway I will try to help you from begining to end. Which will take a very long time but be patient! :D

After your nice tutorial you meet a somewhat important character (depends on the faction you join) Anyway ignore him for now and go to the nearby village zamboyshe. There you talk to the elder and find out whats going on. Do ALL his quests, brining them supplies is the quest that isnt very needed but can help you. Now in this game persuasion (skill) is actually very useful, if you happen to upgrade it right off the bat, you can save some money. When you take the quest where you need to lower taxes, you must go to the town "Smolensk" and lords hall. There you can talk to him, now he will demand you pay there taxes, if you have persuasion there is a chance you can lower the amount you pay, but be careful, there is a chance you can make him make you pay even more. Save before you attempt!!!! After that you can do the bandit quest, by now you have noticed firearms are in this game, and trust me, there pretty much BS. Now when you fight these bandits you should be ok since you got free cannon fodder scythe wielders. However if you ever fight a group of bandits and somehow your alone, ride AROUND them at a distance, and let them waste ALL there ammo, now if your bold/crazy, you can attempt to make a slash by and slash one of the gunners on the outskirts of the group, try to do this right after they all shoot/most of them. Combat is definitely not easy as warband. Also dont bother getting scythe wielders, they are useless in this game sadly, dont bother getting volunteers from villages. You need troops? The new top thing is mercenary camps, go there and hire about 10-30 calvalry ONLY CALVALRY! Why? the more units you have slows you down, but if ther eon horses it isnt affected as much. and trust me you need that speed. Now your probably wondering "wtf do i do now?"

A lot of things have changed. The saddest is there are no more tournaments! "How do i get easy money now? ;-;" Well they added a new thing! Caravans! When you go to a new town, you must talk to the mayor, and ask him about trade then ask to send a caravan. NOTE: Before you do this try to visit multiple towns and "asses local prices" in the market! After that if the town has enoguh supplies you can buy different sized caravans of goods which automatically go to the destination without you. Each caravan size is by 5, Small caravan: 5 goods Medium caravan: 10 goods large caravan: 15 Grand caravan: 20 goods. how to check how large u can get something, go into the marketplace, and check goods, and if you see A LOT of 1 thing, you can send it in a caravan!. For maximum profit, do the largest caravan possible, even if its a lower tier item (20 beer can make more then 5 tools) and only hire 2 troops to defend it "why only 2? it wil be plundered easily! no more money!" Thats where YOU come in, follow the caravan to the destination, and when it gets there you get your profit, you can check the prices, and you can send a caravan from there to a new place to make more money! this game is mostly a caravan simulator... Now you could raid villages, but that makes you go to war with a faction, and trust me you dont want that AT ALL! stick to this nice route and you can make some good money!

A Popular area i like to use is over by Warsaw Lviv and Koenisberg, its a great place! jsut about everything you send to warsaw will make you profit! But to get that achievement for gain 3000 in profit from 1 caravan. I got it down by akkerman, sending salt to kiev. Over multiple playthroughs i believe it stays the relative same so Akkerman is also a great place to trade! Now also Riga and Reval can sell smoked fish as low as 7 thaler per piece and pskov will even buy them for around 73! which Riga and Reval both produce loads of fish so this is also a great place! These are my personal top 3 trade areas, i am aware there are others and im not saying to use these only! But i found these hort distanced, good profit, and easy to escort.


Warning: This is basically half the game.

Now your probably wondering about akk the new weapons and armors etc. There is also a weapon/armor master in some towns, and later when you own a castle or town you also can hire them. These guys will take exorbitant amounts of money for the best armor and weapons in the game.

For the most expensive helmet, called "Armet" it costs 81000 thaler. JUST BY IT SELF. Now for hand crafted black armor its 108000 thaler! Just for the best cuirass and helmet, it takes 189000 thaler! And that isnt even including gloves and boots! Now Assuming you want a 2 handed sword, the best is 54000! And the best of all best firearms/pistols, the might double barreled dutch pistol is 126000!!!

THATS SO MUCH MONEY HOW DO I GET ALL OF IT!? Well dont forget there is also a horse master where you can get a thoroughbred horse for 90000!

Now add all of this up, its 459000 thaler for the best/most expensive gear! In warband it was like 60k (which was pretty easy) Alas, getting money from fiefs is A LOT better now :) a very poor village can make around 2k in 1 week. Just think about a moderate or rich TOWN! However getting to control these is also a lot harder then before. Now you obviously shouldnt just have starter gear and wait till you can make the money for the hand crafted gear! A nice cool armor i recommend to get is the Black armor. I found mine up in riga/reval in sweden! Now the coolest looking armor is the winged hussar armor with wings, however in battle the wings can block your view and be a huge pain! I originally got it thinking i looked uber awesome, but then shooting and fighting was a bit more difficult, now if you play in first person then go right ahead and use it :) Now a easy way to get decent armor that can last, is look for a man in taverns named "Karlsson" You can hire him for 300 thaler, and take his armor! which is worth more then 300! And you can tell him to go away or keep him whatever :D Now the bulk of how your going to get this money is by caravans OR by your fiefs! No matter which way i try to do or research, your not getting this stuff easily.

Now the best troops in this game are the Reiters and the awesome looking Winged Hussar. Now your probably wondering how to get these boss troops? well luckily you dont need to train them, you can buy them! Where? When you become a vassal you can get access to a "commander" in big towns! Now for example if you become a vassal of the Polish commonwealth, you can go to Lviv for a commander! There you talk to him and you can hire winged hussars, polish reiters, german infantry/musketeer scottish troops WHATEVER! Now your probably wondering what it means by "and 4 coppers" coppers means days, so if it says 4 coppers, that means you need to come back in 4+ days to receive those troops. Now when they are ready it will say what troops ar edone at the top, to add them to your party click "i'd like to recruit some men" now you will notice the dialogue disappeared and there in your party!!! And you can even hire another batch! this is nice when your going to do stuff!

Now another marvelous new feature, is the "merchant guild" or what is mostly called, the bank. Here you can deposit as much as you want and over 1 month it will go up by 14% for example, if you put in 5000 thaler, in 1 month you will have 5700. However if you happen to OWN the fief it goes up to 20% instead of 14% which is very very nice! Now this is obviously the mroe you deposit the better, but you should always keep a decent chunk of money on you! I would say always keep around 2,000 thaler on you at all times! This is always enough for all caravans so you can make even more money!!!

This stuff is the slow, long time ways, A great quick and easy troop, would be the mercenary camps! There you can hire infantry musketeer and calvalry. You can even change there armor and weapons! I have not yet decided if hiring them and upgrading them is better then hiring Reiters and hussars. Now my personal army is mostly made up of:
Winged Hussars
Reiters
German Musketeers
Scottish Swordsman
Polish Mercenaries
Now obviously I am a vassal of the Polish Commonwealth. Each faction is different but all factions have reiters (Moscow Reiter, Swedish Reiter etc) The reason I have so many melee styled troops is the Reiters carry OP pistols :D which is just about better then musketeers since there heavily armored, great at melee fighting, and have a fast strong pistol for range!!!

Now you have also realized, there is a storyline. There are 3 main storylines, Polish Commonwealth "The Deluge" Which is basically focused on the war against sweden. "False Dmitry" For the Muscovite Tsardom. "The Black Mace" For the Cossack Hetmanate. These storylines mostly consist of conquering, defending, and capturing, and there incredibly long and difficult!
For example near the start of the "The Deluge" You have to defend a village from a swedish army! Which is around 300 swedish troops vs your army. Now thats hard!!! However if you have a decent army and you can kill pretty good yourself, your fine. I personally was a scaredy cat and didnt start any storylines till after i got black armor from Riga/Reval. I wanted to be able to take more then 1 bullet before i died xD
Anyway The storylines mostly end in you becoming king!!! You get to own one of the 3 main kingdoms! Now sadly if you capture a castle or town and your not a vassal, you capture it but your considered "---" Rebels So if you take Lviv from the Polish, Your considered "Polish Rebels" You cant name your own kingdom anymore :C At least you can own the others! :D
And lastly if you manage to own a town, It is amazing!!! I took akkerman (spoiler alert so i cant say why :P) and the rent was amazing! Yes there were maintenance fees, but every week it made 30k+!!!! I could afford anything pretty fast :D So i reccomend trying to get a town like Akkerman when you can! And just wait till you have the money you need :D I also like Akkerman because you can sell salt to kiev or sich for over 3k in profit! And its the last name of one of my favorite anime chracters ;)

This guide IS short. There is more i would like to put in which i will over time, after all im still learning a few things myself, i want to master them before i put them in this guide, i will provide edits over time, which will most likely happen every few days or at least 1 time a week, it will almost always be a new section. Please be patient with me this game is very slow and kind of boring to me.



Anyway Good luck and please enjoy this guide! Comment what section you want next and it may be in the next edit!


Sincerely,
Robek

1st Edit: Added weapons and armor section, Added Troops and bank section
2nd Edit: Added Storylines section