eneral options:
Once you have started the game and the loading screen finally disappeared, you have several options to choose. Most of them are quite self-complaining like “Start a new game”. The first option though is “Play Tutorial” and if you have never played Mount and Blade before you should probably get started here to keep frustration levels low once you have started the game. Keep in mind though, that you are not “training” your main character here, so it doesn’t give you any advantage once you start the real game. The tutorial is just to learn how to ride or fight. There are other options like “Custom battle” and Multiplayer” but since this is a guide into the storyline or sandbox mode I won’t stress you on those. “Custom battle” though is quite a good start to try out formations, if you don’t want to do this in game. In “Options” you can adjust the controls, video and sound to your likings. If you are a complete beginner in this game I would recommend to put all settings to the easiest and toggle “show banner on friendly troops” on. Otherwise you might kill friendly troops especially if you are not an expert in the battle formations. You can change those options during gameplay once you press “ESC” and choose “Options”, easy, isn’t it?
So press “Start a New Game” and we can continue. After some more loading a new screen will appear where you can choose from a few options. On the left side you can choose between the storyline or sandbox mode. On the right you can choose between some more difficulty options which are explained once you move the courser over them. You can still change those options in the “camp menu”/”game options” during game play. So choose whatever suits you and continue. After a short introduction into the time you are playing in, we now get to create our in game character.