Well I started with the original after having watched the gog stream. It's a lot of fun so far. I like my party. It's pretty cool how I rescued a peasant woman and now she is a camper and will grow to be a huntress. I like those special kind of units. I kind of want to try warband now, but on the same hand I don't want to lose what I have built up in the original mount & blade.

Just tried out Warband. It's nice that it's more up to date but I can't hit ANYTHING. I can swing my axe or sword or hold it ready to strike, but nope, they just avoid you. So I can do two things:

1. Ram them with my horse
2. Try to strike while being on my horse but they evade me anyway.

Yes, long cutting weapons are quite deadly when you are on horseback : Sabers, long hafted axes... Shorter weapons (shortsword, dagger, cudgel) don't have the reach to strike a pedestrian from the saddle.

Also, when mounted, try to swing in the direction of your course, so that the speed of your horse and the speed of the weapon add up, i.e. a direct swing when the enemy is at your right, or a reverse swing when he is at your left. That way, your blade becomes a scythe that makes a wide arc. Overhead strikes (direct swings to the left and reverse swings to the right) almost never connect, because they go against the speed of your horse, and so strike slowly and at a very small area.

You say overhead strikes are swings to the left and right and they won't connect because it goes against the speed of the horse. But what is the difference between direct swings and overhead swings? Basically I try to swing with the right arm at an enemy that is to my right, but they just dodge which is really annoying. I didn't have this problem in the original mount & blade.

So you are saying I can ram them with my horse AND slash at the same time?

I tried this two handed axe and I thought I had a good reach, but I guess I didn't. I can deal with melee but horse combat is a lot tougher in warband somehow.

Also I have 4 slots for weapons. Does it matter if I have a sword equiped in slot 1,2,3 or 4? As in, does a sword in slot 1 make me left handed and slot 3 right handed? Just curious. Though it DOES seem like it.

Maybe it's because they are 10 veteran archers and I am with a bunch of idiots that can't do anything and I can't fight the enemy either.

Edit: Just won by myself. I'm only lvl 2 or 3. But I managed to slaughter them all. It was really tense and hard. But by dividing them and making them waste all their arrows, I managed to make the fight more 'fair' to me. Arrows are deadly, more so than melee weapons of theirs when you are on a horse.

I also leveled up twice at once.

You just have to time it more perfectly with overhead strikes. With as side swing that goes the same direction as your horse your weapon is dangerous all through the swing, not just the split second when it's low enough and the swing hasn't yet ended.

Also, do they dodge or block? Because decent enemies are real annoyingly good at blocking. Not exactly the same time. Horse knocks them down and you hit when they're getting up.

From horseback, spear or lance are also real nice. With lance, you don't necessarily strike (don't hit mouse button), just get enough speed (with slow horse or going uphill, probably not enough) and guide the lance in (if lance settings are on auto-something). Huge damage if you have a fast horse, enough to kill an armored opponent in one go.

Actually, most two-handed weapons in M&B have a quite short reach (100-110). Polearms and lances are generally longer (120-240) and more comfortable to use in mounted combat situation. Check the individual weapon reach stat for more info.

Doesn't matter at all. Only thing weapon slots affect is the order in which weapons are equipped and switched among (you always start a battle holding the weapon in slot 1, pressing the "next weapon" button equips the weapon in slot 2 and so on. Arrows and darts do not count as weapons).

Arrows are deadly to unarmored targets, esp if you're riding full speed toward the projectile. But once you get heavy armor you'll shrug off most hits like nothing. Wish it was the same for javelins...

I'm a bit further ahead and I am getting pretty good with my one handed weapon. The speed it strikes with is pretty nice. I also changed my horse to a horse with the best manouverability and that seems to work quite well. I often do great in battles now. But with tournaments it's tricky if they give me a bow and arrow. How on earth am I supposed to defend myself in a 1 on 1 situation with just a bow and arrow. Sure I can kick them, and it works ONCE, but they'll just rip you apart. You can't run away from them either...

If they have no shield, headshot them. They usually walk to you in a straight line, so it's not too hard, provided you have at least 100 archery skill. One or two hits will knock them out. If they get up close, switch to dagger and swing as fast as you can. Daggers are abysmal overall, but they have a huge advantage in speed over any other weapon. The opponent may land the first hit, but after that you should be able to stunlock him.
If they have a shield, aim to the legs to soften them up, and finish them in melee. Be sure to grab their weapon right after so you can fight in melee properly!

At day 60 now and I got 72 troops and about 5 heroes. I want to do something bigger but I don't know what to do. I beat quite a couple of tournaments. I kind of like the idea of supporting this lady to become a queen. Being a female character, this idea seems intriguing. However, I don't own any land, towns or anything. I don't know how to do it without pissing anyone off. I mean the lords don't want to give me anything because I'm a lady, so yeah. I guess I could marry someone but that will make me be under my husband's command, while I like to be in power. Women in power! :D I dunno, I like empowering women.

Helping a claimant requires a huge pile of cash. You'll need to be able to fight off armies of hundreds.
Two ways to make it a bit easier.

1. Invest in towns, find the.. uhm, what was it.. town mayor? Invest in the town, unless it's been changed weavery and dyeworks makes the most money. Investment of 10 000 returns a few hundred per week. Have these in every city and your finances are solid (but you can still run out, expensive stuff wielding mercenary armies).

2. First get yourself made a lord in the faction which leader you're about to usurp (if female, it requires marriage). If that's not cool, lords often hire mercenaries when the faction is in war. Then do missions for all the lords so they like you. Makes it a lot easier to get them switch allegiances that way. You can also do missions for the lords without becoming a lord.

3. Have a high persuasion skill. When helping a claimant, you basically run from lord to lord and try to make them switch to your side. Many wont, but with high skills more will.

You can also start your own faction by first getting in unfriendly terms with one faction and then conquering their town or castle. But that's hard as hell. The whole faction will attack you, and maybe other factions as well.

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Oh, also. If you choose to help a claimant, you cant be a lord in a faction, can't own land or castles. You can only serve one lord and so on.

Also. You'll most likely fail. At that point there's an option to give up helping the claimant, so it's not the end of everything.

Thanks for all these answers. I got another one. Those arrows, do they automatically replenish or do I need to keep checking if my companions ran out of arrows?

Arrows automatically replenish after each battle. In vanilla MnB, accessing your inventory via chest on the battlefield automatically replenished your ammo too.

I have a couple questions myself. I play vanilla from here, and I signed up with claimant. War is going good...but I don§t know, when I complete the takeover, will the kingdom remain in wars that previous ruler started?
And when-if ever-will the claimant leave my party?

First, I'm not sure I remember it correctly, but I think the claimants faction while fighting as rebels, doesn't inherit wars from the main faction, but does after the revolution is successful.

The civil war goes on as long as both sides have castles or towns left. Note you don't need to take them all yourself, as long as the other side loses it makes no difference if the one taking the castle is you, nords, swadians or whoever.

With no settlements left, the remaining lords abandon their side sooner or later. This can take a while, but after no lords are left on the other side, the claimant goes "whoopee, we won" and abandons your party.