No hablo espanol
No but seriously, Im so early in the game I don't even know what those units are.
Ok. So early on, I’d focus on establishing a basic skill set for combat. Like, focus on one operative way to fight, probably best to prioritize open field combat as 99% of early game is in a flat terrain with enemies blindly charging.
Tournaments - you can get baller equipment, renown, and cash. No risk AT ALL. That means if your in a town and you don’t participate your basically passing up the chance to get gear you won’t see for 10-20 hours of gameplay w/o the tournament. Even if you don’t use it, you can sometimes sell this gear for 5k-10k and that bump can make you financially stable early on.
Inventory management - It may feel tempting at first to sell horses, and if your negative in cash it can make sense, but every horse in your inventory increases max weight carry. So if you intend to fight and loot you’re going to want some horses. This will help later too when you want mounted units.
For game strategy early, your mostly fighting bandits. Most bandits will charge you. The most dangerous bandits are steppe bandits because they’re mounted archers, so if your really early on they might be difficult to manage. For most other bandits, having 3-5 archers to soften them up before your infantry clashes will help you A LOT. You should have 1 skill, either bow, throwing, or crossbow to contribute to this.
quests are key early. You won’t really have plentiful money until later in the game, but the quests will help you gain renown, and maintain a positive balance. I really like the ones that promise combat like caravan ambush, bandit quests, hideouts etc. the thing is your guaranteed a battle which gives money and renown, PLUS any quest benefits. so you’re really just getting paid to do what you’d already do.
Companions - try to hire a companion with high stewardship or medical skill. Medical is huge because it prevents your troops from dying, they’ll be more likely to get “wounded” so you can maintain a higher skill army; and spend less money training them again. The steward can help with party size. A good steward can give you 70-100 extra units in party size. Start looking early. That good steward and some excess cash can be enough to get you to a size where you can take on enemy lords with 40-70 troops - and once you can do that, you’ll really start to gain momentum in the game.
Does that help a bit?
