Hello everyone. There are many guides that explain character creation. I want to focus on actual gameplay. This will be singleplayer guide, I will later make multiplayer guide.

After you created desired character and passed part where you have been ambushed in a town, everything is up to you. What to do, where to go.

First of all, you should talk to some lords and villages, pass few easier quests (deliver messages, kill some villains, bring food, etc.) to get some money and improve your relation with lords and villages. While doing those quests, you can kill some looter parties, since they are weak and you already have horse (probably, depends on character creation).

After getting some money, buy some weapon and armour and start recruiting villagers. I recomend you to spend character points on trainer skill at the beginning, since it is fast way to level up soldiers without losing them in fights.

When you obtain about 10-20 soldiers, start fighting bandits on map (if you can catch them :P).

Now you have a decent party to protect you, but no money to pay their salaries? Well, don't worry.

Troop upkeep can be pain in the a*s if you don't have any sort of income. Quests money are usually not enough. Now, there can be multiple solutions to this problem, but I will explain the one I like the most.

The easiest way to get money is to participate on tournaments. Just go to town arena, see where are tournaments held and go take your prize. It can buy you good weapons and armours.

Now it is the time to choose sides, to choose which faction you want to join. See who their enemies are, then start plundering their villages, but try not to be caught! Then sell goods you've looted in nearby towns. Or you can find the best prices, but that is up to you. This way, you will get a decent amount of money. You can spend it for better weapon, horse, armour. But I would recommend you to spend it on land. Yes, you can buy land, isn't that awesome?! But to do that, you must have good relation with town owner. So go to towns of lords who you have good relations. Then speak with guildmaster and buy land. Buy the most profitable land and you will start earning money. Do that in several towns and you will become rich.

Over the time, your party will grow and you will need more money to pay wages and food. This way will ensure you enough money to pay wages and food for some time, but not forever. This way is effective for middle-sized party. But don't worry, there are other ways to gain money, such as fiefs, which will be covered in the next sections.

The next step is to join some faction. My recommendation for beginners is to join Nords or Rhodoks.

-Nords have strong infantry, you can think of them as Vikings. They have strong infantry with big round shields and heavy axes and javelins, good archers but weak cavalry.

-Rhodoks are, in my opinion, the strongest faction in the game. Their armies are mostly based on heavy infantry and excellent crossbowmen.They also lack cavalry, but they don't even need it. They have excellent infantry equiped with huge shields (kinda like roman shields) and tick armours.

-Swadians are pretty good choice for beginners too, but their army is kinda more expensive than previous two. They have the best cavalry unit in game: Swadian Knights, really difficult to train. They look like Teutonic knights from Medieval times. Their infantry is also good. Swordsmen with long two handed swords, Spearmen with medium sized spears. Both well armoured. And ofcourse, they also have crossbowmen (pretty deadly in early game if you are at war with them).

-Vaegirs aren't my favourites, never liked them. They have good archers. Solid infantry with heavy axes, but somehow they are lightly armoured than other factions. Their cav is also good, but not so good compared to Khergits for example.

-Khergit Khanate is faction based on Mongolian or Hun armies.Their whole army is consistant of cavalry. They have the fastest cavalry in the game. Their lancers are equiped with long lances. They have lightly armoured horse archers. They are excellent for "hit and run" tactic, pretty vulnerable if you don't get troops out of battle and charge again. And also, it is so hard to fight against Rhodoks using just Khergit troops, especially in original M&B.

-The last faction is Sarranid Sultanate. They can be linked to middle-eastern armies from times of Crusades lets say. They have light armoured infantry and archers, medium cavalry equiped with lances. They are easy to upgrade, so you can get pretty deadly force. Altough, other lords aren't that strong, mostly because their armies consist of light infantry.

It is time to join faction. Pick the one you like and let's get started. You can join faction by talking to the faction leader or by quest (faction lords will ask you if you want to be their mercenary army). Beware that you must have helped faction you want to join before they allow you to join (by raiding their enemies villages, attacking caravans, lords, etc.).

When you join faction, your relations with other factions are lowered. Your new faction enemies become your enemies. Try to evade battles when you are alone at first. Help other lords, attack smaller parties etc.

"Words reaches you that your faction Marshal requires your attention". You can accept this quest or reject it. Rejection will decrease your relation with that lord. By accepting it, you get quest to meet with Marshal and bring some troops along. After that, you should just follow him. Marshal is a faction lord who is in charge of war planning. You can also be elected for Marshal. Almost every other lord will follow him, which results with a massive army ready to conquer. Along the campaign, he will give you few tasks (scout some cities, castles or villages, join siege, find some food, some cattle etc.). Result is always the same, he will siege castle or town and you can decide whether or not to join assault. As you participate in war efforts over time, faction leader will give you a reward: a fief. You will mostly get villages as fiefs. There is a small chance to get castles or towns, but rarely. The only way to get castles and towns is to besiege them and conquer them by yourself then ask faction leader that castle or town is given to you. He will in most cases accept that.

Fiefs get you money. Higher prosperity gets higher amount of money. You can build certain buildings in villages, castles and towns. Also if your village is plundered few times, its prosperity will decrease and while being looted, you won't get money at all. So it is important to protect your villages.

Castles and town get you higher amount of money but they need to be guarded with lots of troops. You have to fill them with troops in case enemies decide to besiege your town or castle. You will pay half wages to soldiers in castles and towns. With 1 town, 3 or 4 castles and 4 or 5 villages,you will get really great sum of money.

Fiefs, combining with other 2 methods I described before will get you enormous amount of money.

Now you have strong economy, steady income and good army. What will you do next is up to you.

This was just beginners guide, I hope my tactics will make your game easier. The most imporant thing is to set up good economy to gather a lot of money for next part of the journey.