Several newbie questions

[No idea]

I have tried the demo of MB: Warband and it fancies me. However, I have a several questions:

1. I read I don´t need to buy MB to play Warband, however, do I "lose" content if I buy Warband and not both?

2. Is there any kind of manual? I don´t even know how to change weapons. I had to guess controls on my own. I have checked wikia but I didn´t find which are the controls.

3. Which would be your tips for a starter? weapons to use, strategies to follow, things to do...

Thank you

[Von Hilficker]

1. Warband has the map set up differently and the overpowered Black knights bandit group do not appear in Warband. There may also be a few missions that got removed but I'm not sure of that. Warband adds the Sarranid faction, the ability to marry, the ability to set up a legitimate kingdom of your own and probably a few other thing that I cannot remember.

Although as I think about it, there are a number of popular M&B mods that were never converted to Warband. Those might be the real content loss.

2. Controls are found in your settings and are customizable. Escape key, select options, key controls. You might want to take a look at the tutorial and see if that helps.

3. Really depends on your play style and how difficult a game you want to play. I'd suggest doing the quests for the merchant you meet at the start of the game. ~150 easy denar profit between the two and a couple relatively easy fights.

As for weapons you should have some sort of melee weapon equipped at pretty much all times. I prefer weapons with a decent reach, much easier to use on horseback and not bad on foot either. A couched lance gives the highest amount of damage but usually does not allow you to defend yourself from the sides and is difficult to learn. A two handed weapon usually had good reach but prevents you from using a shield. A bastard sword is really my favorite weapon as it can be used one handed (which allows a shield) but also has good reach. Drawback is that it is usually expensive and hard to find.

As for ranged weapons, bows and crossbows have very good range and remarkably good accuracy, plus they usually carry more ammo than throwing weapons even if you factor in that a bow and arrows takes two weapons slots. Disadvantage is that you pretty much have to be stationary to use them on foot and even a bow takes longer to reload than a throwing weapon. Throwing weapons tend to be less accurate, but they can be (temporarily) converted to melee weapons, just press "x".

As for armor, get some. Light if you want to keep high mobility, heavy if you are bad at defending yourself.

[No idea]

Thanks, Von Hilficker.

Hitting anything with a melee weapon while on horseback is really difficult. How do you "aim" properly?

[Von Hilficker]

Practice. I'd suggest using a large (or long range in other words) weapon and move slowly or perhaps even start out stationary.

[Beelz]

Hitting anything with a melee weapon while on horseback is really difficult. How do you "aim" properly?

I find bardiches and other polearms are best. If you keep the enemy to your right and ride at full gallop you can swing when you're about 2-4 feet from the enemy and you usually get a hit.

[DoctorPlague]

Thanks, Von Hilficker.

Hitting anything with a melee weapon while on horseback is really difficult. How do you "aim" properly?

Yes it is. Damn hard to hit things. I would practice it using slow speed and slashing down side towards footmen. Sometimes you get speed bonus that kill them off instantly when horse is moving, but this takes practice. Dont let horse go too fast when doing this. The timing needs to be perfect. If you horse is halted (which often happens) you can also fight the footmen or other horsemen by hacking down on their heads, but then your at a disadvantage, especially if they have some long glaives or axes, and archers fire at you. Its very dangerous to stop horse, and its annoying when it happens, but slow speed is cool for fighting from horse. (unless enemy horseman is behind you)

With practice you can kill faster this way using long swords, rather than using lances. Because lances need to be set up for full speed charge, and require much more riding around all over.

Personally i like having some throwing spears to throw point blank range, slowing down, before i start chopping, or if enemy is moving away. Like when you collide with another horseman, its cool to throw him a spear in the face.
Throwing spears on the other hand is limited to only 4 or 5, so dont rely on just them.

I find the arenas in towns the best practice places. You will learn many weapons and setups there. Training grounds is very limited imo. But it gives more xp i think.

Don't expect to defeat some big time experienced knight lord in the beginning. Take some time practicing, take on some looters and bandits, do quests for guild masters and farmers. They can sometimes be hard in the beginning also, but most of them does not require you have a big army.