if you got the knowhow to start out in that game, id appreciate some advice. i mean they kind of throw you into the game morrowind style "hey there's a ton of shit to do AND WE ARENT TELLING YOU HOW TO DO ANY OF IT", making starting out, even character creation kind of hard.
My first suggestion: you can go through the game 2 main ways, killing everything in sight, or making money by trading and shit, and running the fuck away except when necessary (you can get EXP for helping towns out and shit).
The first way is VASTLY easier.
you need to be relatively good at fighting, because unless you select a certain thing in the character creation, you usually don't have much money to start out. And enemies rarely come in groups of less than 5 or so.
Try to never fight dismounted. your horse does damage by charging enemies, gives you a speed advantage, absorbs a lot of damage, and lets you hit the enemy before they can hit you.
Archers are your worst enemy. They can do some good damage to you, so if you see a group of archers early game and you don't have many people, you might want to try to avoid them.
The path finding skill is REALLY USEFUL. It gives a small boost in movement speed, which can sometimes mean the difference between running away from a fucking huge army (like, 150 men to your, say, 20) and getting seriously mangled in battle.
Making money is a bit hard at first. But there are certain trade routes you can figure out (it helps when you have a hero in your party who talks about their homeland when you get near it, if you pay attention you can sometimes learn about what things are usually cheap there and such.) You should take advantage of those whenever possible at the beginning, because winning battles initially doesn't make much money and most of the low level equipment sells for fuck all. That's where the loot skill comes in handy. That (as far as I can tell) increases the level of the items you loot off enemies (right now I'm looting armor that has like, 20 body def + 7 leg def, helms with like, 30+ def, and various weapons and shields and crap).
Also, if you talk to a king, you can ask them to basically give you a contract of service and join in their war efforts. When you do that, you are required to respond to any summons quickly, raise troops occasionally, and in general follow orders from the king (few and far between) and can participate in battles against whoever they are at war with. It's a lot easier to win battles when your fighting a lord with say, 50+ troops and you've only got 25 or 30, when a friendly lord with like, 50 or 70 or whatever troops joins in. And you can make some damn good cash/get some good loot that way.
My main character is level 20 now, and has like, 30+ party members, something like 10 of which are heroes (hired in taverns, sometimes for a fee ranging from 100 to like, 300 or 400 dinars).
Heroes can't be killed, but if you are captured and they don't like things, they'll leave, or you may escape without them.
Some heroes don't get along well. For example, having a bunch of warrior types in your party and recruiting the trader hero may end up with the trader leaving if you don't manage things well. Basically, every hero has their likes and dislikes.
