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strategy-early-game.md

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Early Game Strategy (Clan Tier 0-2)

First Steps After Spawning

  1. Check position and nearest town: settlement/list_settlements { type: "town", nearPlayer: true, limit: 5 }
  2. Travel to the nearest town: party/move_to_settlement + party/wait_for_arrival
  3. Recruit troops from notables: party/recruit_all
  4. Buy diverse food (grain, fish, meat, cheese) to maximize morale: inventory/buy_item
  5. Check for available quests from NPCs in town

Building Wealth

Tournaments (Earliest Money)

Note: Tournaments require manual 3D combat — AI agents cannot participate directly. This info is included for context when advising human players or when battle tools are extended.

  • Check towns for active tournaments: settlement/get_settlement → hasTournament
  • Tournaments award high-tier gear and renown with zero risk to your party
  • Wager on yourself for bonus gold each round

Livestock Trading (Fast Early Cash)

  • Buy hogs and sheep from village markets
  • Butcher them (inventory), sell meats and hides back to the town
  • Can earn up to 4,000 denars in the first few days

Trade Routes

  • Use supply and demand — buy cheap goods where they're produced, sell where scarce
  • Even grain can be sold at profit if a town is starving
  • Check market prices: settlement/get_market_prices
  • Keep pack animals (horses, mules) for carrying capacity

Weapon Smelting

Smithing is available to AI agents via the UI tools. Enter the smithy from town menu, use get_viewmodel_property with dot-notation paths to read item names and materials. Buttons respect disabled state — if you lack materials, the action button will refuse to click.

Smithing workflow:

  1. Buy Hardwood and cheap weapons from the town market
  2. Enter smithy: menu.select_option (index for "Enter smithy")
  3. Refine (Hardwood → Charcoal): Click RefinementCategoryButton, select a recipe via call_viewmodel_method_at_index on Refinement.AvailableRefinementActions, click MainActionButtonWidget
  4. Smelt (Weapon → Materials): Click SmeltingCategoryButton, read items via Smelting.SmeltableItemList, select with ExecuteSelection, click MainActionButtonWidget
  5. Forge (Materials → Weapon): Click CraftingCategoryButton, configure parts, click MainActionButtonWidget
  6. Check materials: get_viewmodel_property { propertyName: "PlayerCurrentMaterials", subProperties: "ResourceName,ResourceAmount" }

Smelting cheap weapons (daggers, hatchets) is a fast way to level smithing and accumulate crafting materials for profitable high-tier weapon forging.

Recruiting and Army Composition

Troop Quality Over Quantity

  • A few high-tier troops beat many low-tier ones
  • Focus on upgrading troops consistently — don't recruit more than you can feed
  • Mounted troops increase party speed on the campaign map, critical for catching/escaping

Early Targets

Note: AI agents cannot play 3D battles. All combat is handled via auto-resolve. This means troop quality and numbers matter even more — you can't compensate with player skill.

  • Fight looters (3-15 units) — safe XP and loot
  • Fight deserters and other hostile non-kingdom parties for loot and renown
  • Avoid sea raiders and mountain bandits early — they're much tougher
  • Sell captured bandits for ransom or recruit them
  • Sell looted equipment at towns for gold — battle loot is a major early income source
  • As a mercenary, earn gold per enemy party defeated (see Mercenary Service below)

Companion Recruitment

  • Visit taverns in major towns to find companions
  • Priority roles: Surgeon (medicine skill), Scout (scouting), Quartermaster (steward)
  • Assign companion roles in party screen for skill-based bonuses

Building Renown

Renown increases clan tier, which unlocks everything:

Clan Tier Renown Unlocks
0 0 Starting tier
1 50 Mercenary contracts, marriage
2 150 Vassalage
3 350 Create armies
4 900 Kingdom creation

Renown sources:

  • Winning battles (proportional to enemy strength)
  • Completing quests
  • Tournament victories (requires manual combat — not available to AI agents)
  • Ransoming/releasing prisoners

Mercenary Service (Tier 1)

Becoming a mercenary is the safest early progression path:

  1. Reach Clan Tier 1 (50 renown)
  2. Find any lord of the target kingdom: hero/list_heroes { faction: "Northern Empire", limit: 5 }
  3. Start conversation and choose: "I would like to enter the service of [ruler name]"
  4. Select: "My sword is yours. For the right sum."
  5. Accept the offer

Benefits: Daily gold income per enemy party defeated, access to kingdom territory, war participation for renown.

See mercenary-contract.md for full dialogue walkthrough.

Quests from NPCs

Talk to notables in settlements to get quests:

  1. Enter a settlement: party/enter_settlement
  2. Start conversation with a notable: conversation/start { nameOrId: "notable_name" }
  3. Ask: "Is there anything I can do for you?" or similar
  4. Completing quests builds relation with notables, unlocking better recruits

Fleeing from Threats

Traveling without troops is extremely dangerous — bandits attack constantly. Use these tools to avoid combat:

  1. Detect threats before they catch you: party/detect_threats { range: 20 }
    • Returns nearby hostile parties with distance and speed comparison
    • If canOutrun: true, you can flee; if false, you'll be caught
  2. Flee to nearest safe settlement: party/flee_to_safety
    • Considers ALL nearby threats — combines direction vectors so you don't flee from one bandit into another
    • Picks a friendly town/castle in the safest direction (away from combined threat vector)
    • Closer threats have more influence on the flee direction
    • Returns isSafeDirection: true/false — if false, you may be surrounded
  3. When caught: If wait_for_arrival returns reason: "menu" with encounter_meeting:
    • Try "Leave" from the encounter menu (index 9) if enabled
    • Or select "Maybe we can work out something" → bribe via barter
    • Never auto-resolve ("Send troops") with fewer than 10 trained troops
  4. After escaping: detect_threats again before resuming travel

Horses increase map speed — carry extra horses in inventory to outrun bandit parties.

Key Mistakes to Avoid

  • Don't travel without troops — bandits attack constantly, you WILL be captured
  • Don't over-recruit — more troops = more food cost = bankruptcy
  • Don't pick fights with lords — even small noble parties have elite troops
  • Don't ignore food diversity — same food type reduces morale bonus
  • Don't sell your horses — they increase map speed and carrying capacity
  • Don't rush vassalage — mercenary service is safer for building wealth first
  • Don't auto-resolve with raw recruits — you will lose and get captured