First i request (again;) that you ignore my (probably) bad english..it's quiet a time i really had to use it :)
but i am training now

Because i was somehow unable to download the manual i decied to wrote some comments to make
start a bit easier for people wich miss the manual to...after i start writing i had to find out...that i can't
keeped my "mouth shout" and started adding toughts/advices^^..and it start growing to be more a
small starter guide then short Quickstartmanual...i hope it will be usefull at least for some people ;)

"Preamble" Creating your SC
The first step is creating your SC..take a deep breath, close your eyes and think carfully how you plan to play...
simply because..you can't change anything later on and a SC that doesn't work together with the party will be a pain.

You have 8 free skillpoints to shape your SC, all Skills have basevalue of 5 and can be reduced down to 1 or raised up to 10.

Tactics: Rolls on tactics are used in battlevents, mostly if the battle allready started(if you're ambushed,...) or is
about to start. Compared to other skills tactics is rarly used...but the consequenses of the rolls make
most the time a important difference...like..starting with 4 Followers- widespread...or 6 Followers
in a circle of defence.
-Every healthy Soldier in your party will add +2

Diplomacy: Used for all kind of Negotiations...from haggling with the merchants over prices for a Trap, getting a
better Reward for the Quest...or make some young, scared tribal warriors surrender..without any need to
shoot them down. Obviously if you plan to be a "real" conquistador...using fire&sword to
haggle&negotiate the usefullness of this skills is greatly reduced.
For some battlerelated situations Leadership is overlapping with Diplomacy.
-Every healthy Scholar will add add +2

Healing: With every added point your party will find a few more Herbs if you gather them while exploring or during
contextual Events, using a bit less medicine while curing the ill/healing the wounded.
The advantage per event is small but accumulate fast.
-Every Doctor in your party will add +2

Survival: With every added point the chance of success for several hunting Events is risen and you will get more
prey from successful hunting. Although some Events seem to have a fixed script for failure/sucsess..like...
having a sucess fishing the first time...and then fail two times... it's still a very usefull skill because
it's taken into account every time you camp. With a good survival skill and some "wild pigs" at the map
you rarly have to buy rations.
-Every Hunter in your party will add +2

Scouting: Every point in scouting will give you're party one movment point additionally scouting is "rolled"
for many "Encounter-Events"...like...did you're party notice the warparty waiting in ambush, are you able to
lay an ambush yourself or retreating without being noticed,...
-The Skill is bugged imo and will reset to 5 points, independent if you raised or lowered it.
-The movmentbonus is small and you're rarly in a hurry...there some timed Quests but they can be done
successfuly without any Points distributed to scouting...scouting has however a big impact at
Encounters...giving you the chance to avoid some of them completely, giving you the chance to prepare
an area with traps..or laying ambushes yourself,...
-surprisingly...every scout in your party will add +2 ;)

Leadership: The score of this skills is equivalent to the max. morale and starting morale value of your followers furthermore the skill is checked for some battle related events like "rally your shaken party", holding a inspireing speech and for some Events...persuading one of your followers...to carry out your orders without losing
morale.
The First half of your debut at Hispanola you will curse yourself if you didn't raised the skill because
you will have several dialogue-events with your followers...wich each has a chance to raise/lower the
moral and because 5 points are smal pool with little freedom for action...considered that you can get
up to -3 per decision at Sidequests/Events..or more if its really important thing(rare)
but in the long term ...after you gathered some ep to promote sergants and officer...you will curse
every point you "wasted" to raise this skill because
-Every partymember with Rank 3 (Veteran) will add +1, every Sergeant(2 max) will add +3 and your
Lieutenant will add +5

Preamble II forming your party

After you shaped your SC, you now have to recruit 10 followers that will form your party, you can change the party-configuration after your debut at Hispanola but you should try to build an expedition where the Strenghts complement each others Classes/Skills.

Aside from the pure skillvalues...take a carefull look at the personality traits...your followers are really narrowminded fanatics as it comes to situations related to this traits and the consequences are accumulative...If one of your followers is a pious and aggressive racist for example...he might lose 3 times the moralvalue(mostly 1) linked to the event if you're going to start a peacefull chat about herbs with a pagan shamen instead of slaying this unholy thing outright.

Lets take a look at the Traits...
For most traits the ingameinfotext will give you some clear hints...and naturaly..for all things that raise the moral
the opposite behavior may cause loose

Aggressive Well everything said...nevers spare a possibility to fight, even just advancing to a better position or
laying a ambush instead of a "Head on"-attack can cause a morale decrease.
This trait can be a real pain if you're not the "Head on" type

Adventurous Following your curiosity, questing and some exploration Events will cause a morale gain...

Altruistic These followers don't only believe in donations to the poor but although in providing help without
asking for a reward and fair Trade

Cautios If there's even the smallest chance you might...just might evade a dangerous Situation
take it...or they will loose moral..even at Situation where the chance to evade(or flee) the danger
is really small and the consequences for a failed retreat are much worse then to stand an fight

Courageous It's similar to aggressive but not so focused on (Head-On)battle's and most the time
morale losses for "cowardly" tactics will balance themselves with morale gains
for being victorious in the Encounter/Event

Greedy (posted by Garran)
These guys want to get rich (the quicker, the better) and will generally approve of anything that serves that goal while getting mighty upset if you pass up an opportunity to exploit a situation for personal gain or outright give resources away. Event responses that involve a trade may or may not upset them, depending on how hard a bargain you drive (which makes Diplomacy a valuable skill for keeping them happy).

Narcisstic A Narcisstic follower looses morale everytime some else is promoted to a Rang above his own Rang,
so..if you're Narcisstic Soldier is a Sergeant(Rang 3) you can promote all other to Rang 3 to without
problems. Other Situations linked to Narcisstic are rare, making the possible morale losses through
this trait easy manageable

Openminded Asside from gaining morale if you recruit people from other races these followers are interested
in the culture and the Lore of the New World...and without Pious it might even touch the more "occult"
Areas.

Peaceful Similar to Cautios but more battelrelated and you can act more freely if you're the defending party

Proud Aside from winning morale if the party is victorious against an enemy, the gain morale from being
promoted, being put in charge in some Events or being "decorated" in some dialogues...

Pious There's a clear tendency towards fanatical christian Crusader..."Burn them all...god will find the innocent"^^
creating some...hmm..intersting contradictory Combinations with others Traits...like the Scholar Mercedes...

Racist Followers with this Trait believe in a natural superiority of the European people in general and
spanish superiority in particular they may not only loose moral if you recruit followers from other
"races" but every time you fail to threat those savage "halfanimals" in the right way

After you'vre taken a close look at the available pool...you will notice..that you can form a "Fire&Sword"-Expedition
wich have very few "flaws" but there's no way forming groups for other Maingoals without having at least 2-3 "difficult" followers.

The Equipment
Before we're talking about the classes...a word to the equipment because it's easier to explain it first.
Every weapon has 3 Upgrade stages with 3/4/3 substages..every subupgrade add a damagebonus, reaching a new stage will change the appearance during tactical battles.
Armor has 4 Upgrade Stages (Clotharmor, light, heavy, Toledo) with 5 substages each subupgrade add a 1% damage reduction.

Each follower start with "special" Set of Weapons [i]other or additional weapons can only be added though wasting one of the abbility-points followers get for each promotion...so..think about the configuration.
[/i]
We have following Weapons available for your "Core"-followers

Daggers: Low Damage, has a small bonus for Crit.modifier...but still nothing i would use if i have something else
Swords: medicore in every way..but used together with a shild wich gives you a 25% to reduce damage by 25%,
Polearms:High base damage, has a small Malus for the Crit.mod

Bows: medium damage, Bows have the best accuracy at medium and longe Range but most battle maps are
to small to really make it important
Arquebus: High damage, losing accuracy fast at longer Range..but..as i said..most maps are small

The Followerskills
Annd..a word to the skills of your followers..again..as a "prelude" because it's easier to explain those things first
Every Core-Follower has a Mainskill with a starting value of 6 and 2-3 secondary skills with a starting value from 2-4.
Every Point in a skill raises the chance of success and/or improves the possible outcame if the follower is put in charge for dutys related to this skill.
Wich skills are the Main/Secoundary skills is defined through the class

There are 5 skills

Guarding: Guarding raises the Campsecurity up to 95%, reducing the chance of surprise attacks, theft, robbery
and thinks like this. Some Events are unavoidable but if your Expedition lacks camp securitiy it
will cause a constant Stream of bad Minievents.

Patrolling Patrolling raises the chance for positive Events like finding a small treasure, a "field" full of medical
herbs ready for harvest and improves the outcome of a Event.
The worst that happend to me without patrols...was that nothing happend...there seem to be no
bad events caused by the absence of Patrolls..but..because getting stuff for free is allways nice
at least one follower should be on patrol.

Hunting Raises the chance of success for the "daily" foraging and some related Events/Contexttual Events,
again improves the outcome of a success and every Point allows the follower to preserve one
unit foraged, creating a ration.

Herbalism Allows the Follower to make medicine from Herbs and gather those Herbs if they are present

Tinkering This skill allows your follower to research some Inventions for your Party and to build
traps,barricades and stuff like this. Despite the Skilldescription i didn't noticed any difference
for the ammount of needed ressources...my Scholar with 10 Points in thinkering still need the
same ammount he needed with tinkering 6...
A high value is only really needed for the advanced research.

The Follower Ranks
All Core Follower start as recruits (Rang 1) and can be upgraded up to Rank 5(Lieutenant).
You can promote as many follower as you wish ( and you're able to ;) to Rank 2 or 3,
2 Followers can be Rank 4 and only 1 can be Rank 5 at a given time...as there is no way to demote followers you should plan ahead.

Every Promotion gives the Follower some passive battlerelated benefits like better basedefence/ranged accuracy/...
1 active abillity (linked to the class for Rang 2 and 3 and linked to the Rang for 4/5), 1 abillitypoint to learn a passive abillity, 3 Skillpoints and Rang 2&3 unlock the possibility upgrade the Equipment further(if allowed for this class).

Independent from Rank/Class all Followers have the active Abbilitys
Tactical Movment: abandon your Attack this turn for the abillity to move without triggering attacks of opportunity
Spot "for Traps" : Move with half speed but discover Traps at adjacent Hexes

Additional all Followers with ranged Weapons have the ability to "Interrupt" and shot if the enemy closes up to 6 Hexes or closer as..long...as they neither attacked the same Turn nor "runned"

For a unkown reason it's eating away my "edits" the 3. time :(
I will try to add the Rest at a new Post, if it will still eat away my Post... ...

(Edit: It wasn't in the initial post, but since this is a longer description, I'll leave this here.)

One trait not listed above is "Greedy". These guys want to get rich (the quicker, the better) and will generally approve of anything that serves that goal while getting mighty upset if you pass up an opportunity to exploit a situation for personal gain or outright give resources away. Event responses that involve a trade may or may not upset them, depending on how hard a bargain you drive (which makes Diplomacy a valuable skill for keeping them happy).

Öhm :) Youre a to fast...im still writing ;)

..So..starting a fourth time..hope it will work at a new Post

The Classes

The Doctor
The Mainskill is Herbalism, secondary Skills are tinkering(4) and hunting(2)
They start with a dagger, a ranged weapon and Combatstates that are weak altogether.
Promoting a Doctor to Rang 3 will unlock all weapon Upgrades but they can't wear more then Clotharmor

During Combat a doctor has 6 Movementpoints.

The active Skils are
Rank1 Restore: Healing a wounded, the amount is based on the Rank
Rank 2 Cure: Remove negative Effects and heal a small amount based on the Rank
Rank 3 Revive: "Wake up" a unconscious partymember and heal a small amount based on the Rank

Aside from this a doctor can treat wounds/cure illnesses during Rests and make medical examination and surgery during Events. Your SC can treat wounds/cure illnesses during Rest to..but can't act like a doctor in Events.
A Doctor can't heal itself!

Because Healing is highly incresed through the Rank...the doctor is getting the biggest "performance Update" through promotion

Form my Point of view you should have at least one doctor with you because a doctor can keep your party healthy in every respect and there is no way to replace his healing skill at the battlefield or during some Events.
A second Doctor is rarly needed because Herbs doesn't spoil, the SC can cure the ill/treat the wounded during Camp to and since you're outnumbered at most battles anyway you have to think carfully about if you really need a 2. doctor.

A Warning with a small Spoiler:
During your debut at Hispanola you can "hire" the Shaman(the tribal Version of a Doctor) Atl to support you.
Don't invest any EP to promote him because he will leave you if you leave Hispanola expect you force him...
but..does it seems a good idea to force someone and then let him treat the wounded and cure the ill? ;)

The Hunter
The Mainskill is understandably Hunting, the secondary skills are Guarding/Patrol/Tinkering(all 2)
They start with a dagger, a ranged weapon, a weak defence but a high accuracy Bonus.
Promoting a Hunter to Rang 3 will unlock all weapon Upgrades and light armor.

During Combat a Hunter has 6 Movementpoints.

The active skills are
Rank 1 Rebuke: A hearty kick, knocking the enemy 1 Hex back
Rank 2 Quickshot: You're accuracy is lowered by 30 but you get additional
Rank 3 Aimed Shot: Loose the movmentpoints this turn but reduce range penaltys by 50%

Aside from the "normal hunting during Rest" my Hunters seem to trigger hunting Events every few days...from common Events like additional prey through god luck during the hunt(adding 10+ Meat) to rare Events like catching the King of all Boars and giving the SC a chance to celebrate a feast(+1 Moral for all followers)

How many Hunters you hire is mostly a question how you plan to play.
Apart from being a good unit for ranged support during fights, 2-3 hunters combined with a good survival skill can
make your party self-sufficient as far as it concern food but if you plan to conquer/maraud and suppresses you might get the stuff for free anyway ;)

The Scholar
The Mainskill is Tinkering, the secondary skills are Herbalism(4) and Hunting(2)
They start with a dagger, a ranged weapon and overall weak combat skill.
Promoting a Scholar to Rang 3 will unluck all Weapon Upgrades but he can only wear Clotharmor.

During Combat a Scholar has 4 Movement Points.
Every Scholar has the additional passive abillity to reduce the enemy armor by 10 with his ranged attacks

The active skills are
Rank 1 Logistic: Give any ally a movment Bonus(dependent at the Scholars Rank)
Rank 2 Coordinate: All allys get a+10% damagebonus for one Turn
Rank 3 Distraction: All enemys get a -20% damage debuff for one Turn

Furthermore a Scholar can trigger some Lorebased Events/Dialoges.

Having one Scholar is usefull to have easy&early access to T3 Research and to unlock possibly Events.
Beyond that...it's even hard to make allways a reasonable use of one Scholar :) because every follower can craft stuff with at least 1 point and to be usefull at the battlefield a Scholar has to be Rang 3..but still...taking a scholar instead of a follower with good fighting performance..only slows down easy fights and at the fights where you fight 4 against 10 or things like this you rarly have a spare place for a Scholar.
But..it might be completly different for you're style of Play ;)

The Scout
The Mainskill is patrolling, the secondary skills are guarding(4) and hunting(2)
They start with a dagger and a second Melee weapon, they have a weak defence but get a high damagebonus for melee. A scout with a sword has a higher Basedamage as a Soldier with a Polearm.
Promoting a Scout to Rank 3 unlocks all Weaponupgrades and light armor.

During Combat a Scout has 8 Movementpoints.

The active skills are
Rank 1 Feint The Scout moves "though" the enemy and attack him from the rear
Rank 2 Sneak Loosing 50% Movment, ignoring Traps,attacks of opportunity or Interrupts, still able to attack
Rank 3 Throwing Knife A short Range attack

In any case you should have 1-2 scouts to "catch" the free stuff from the patrols and they are really great to finish easy fights fast butl I'm still doubtfull how to "rate" the scout for difficult fights.
If you can make really use of his strenghts and flank or penetrate the enemy line and aim for the Healers/Supporters Scouts can have a devastating damageoutput but..during the "2 or 3 enemys against 1 your follower-fights" they die quick if they leave "the line" and if you use them as a "eggshell fighter", holding them back, praying for a lucky opportunity..you will often find that you wasted combat effectiveness compared to a additional Soldier or a Hunter+Barricades.

The Soldier
The Mainskill is guarding, the secondary skills are Patrolling(4) and Hunting(2)
Soldiers start with a dagger, a second Melee weapon, a ranged weapon, a strong defence, a good melee skill and a weak accuracy.
Promoting a Soldier to Rang 3 unlocks all Weapon&Armor-Upgrades.

During Combat Soldiers have 4 Movement Points

The active skills are
Rank 1 Flawless defence: Forfeit attacking this Turn to add the Meleedamage to defence for 1 Turn
Rank 2 Stun: Make a attack with reduced damage that Stun for 1 Turn
Rank 3 Guard. All adjacent allys get the same defence like the Soldier

To maintain only a medium Campsecurity you need at least 2 Soldiers, 3-4 for good or High security.
Apart from standing Watch over your Camp... Soldiers are a slow but versatile and die hard combat unit
that can be put to good use at most fights.

Small Spoiler
You can hire two more Soldiers during your debut at Hispanola

Soo..you shaped your SC, hired you followers and after your first confrontation with the authority
in Hispanola youre now ready to start adevnturing&exploring.

Many things are now explained through the tutorials..so i will only add a few comments.

Exploration,Camping and the Map

You will notice that the starting city has a big green circle around it.
Within this circle you can't make camp but you can move without using movement points.
Every Settlement has such a sircle.

Your abillity to change the cameraview is limited and most most obstacles provide full cover
to ressources, Questmarker,...so..make regular use of the "highlight"-button (Alt by default)

During your Exploration wou will find Important Places and Questrelated things, these will have a rotating fleur-de-lis above it, medical herbs will be highlighted green, animals red, ressources (Wood, Metal, Rope and Oil) blue, treasure yellow and landmarks for charting maps are shown as odd Stonepiles.
Other parties traveling the Map can have different colors or no color at all.

To gather herbs, ressources, treasures and hunt the animals just klick at them.
Herbs, ressources and animals might respawn after some days.

Investigating a landmark will give you a small ammount of EXP and start a quest to chart the related area.
Charting is done through finding all related landmarks, after you found all Landmarks you get a new
Contextual Option at your Campingscreen at the lower right where you can choose someone to chart the map
giving you the accumulated EXP again.

If you see something that look intersting...but isn't useable...make a camp and take a look at the lower right screen,
the game has many Contextual Campaction from fishin, gathering Herb..to robbing graves ;)

During your frist days traveling..take the time to keep an eye at your travelingspeed and open the campmenü if you enter a new terrain.
You will notice that every terrain has a different Setting for Movementspeed , Guarding/Patrolling- and Hunting-difficulty during Camp based at the skills of your SC and the terrain itself.


Ressources,Crafting and Traps
If you trade with the Settlements you have the possibility to buy barricades&Traps..or the ressources and craft them by yourself...most the time the finished Items are as cheap(or expensive) as the parts...still you should buy the parts at least one time because you normally get the blueprints together with the ressources and getting the blueprints allow you to craft the stuff with foraged ressources

Considering the Debut at Hispanola you can find a good amount of Wood, a decent ammount of Metal, some Ropes
and few Oil.

All Traps and Barricades placed during a battle are lost, independent if they are triggered..or..at the case of Barricades damaged/destroyed.

During you're Debut you can learn to craft
Barricades
Obstacles that block a Hex at the Battlefield and have 100 Endurance, Ranged Units can shoot freely over Barricades if standing next to them...otherwise they have to take a cover penalty to their attacks.

Caltrops
Reduce the remaining movment of the triggering Unit by 2

Latern
Illuminate the area they are thrown, reducing accuracypenalties for darkness, cause Low direct damage
if thrown at enemys and can emblaze them to cause damage over time

Net-Trap
Ends the Turn of the triggering Unit

Spiketrap
Causing high damage to the triggering Unit, 2 Spiketraps are enough to kill Units with low ore medium defence

Followers
If you allot double rations to a follower during camping there's small chance to raise his moral by 1 point per Night, up to the maximum, the chance is calculated depending at the current morale, rising it if the current morale is "dwindleing down".

From Time to time followers ask you toput them out of Duty because they have some kind of personal Goal...
a small treasure hunting Trip, a investigation of old Ruins, a old friend,...
I you allow them to go...they might die, they might desert if the morale is low...or..they might come back as they promised +/- a few days with the chance to trigger several Events based at the Event&their personality...they might have learned something, bring you a share of the treasure,...

[i]Hmm...i think i coverd all important thinks related to Hispanola that can be writen down without spoiling any storyrelated parts...if i missed something..or used a word by accident that isn't used in english please write a comment or send me IGM.
[/i]

@Garran
I wasn't able to anwser your Mail because you're IGM's&private Messages are blocked

Thanks for this! Will make the start of my game much smoother.

Thanks for making this :)

Excellent guide, thank you. I do have a question though:

Has anyone figured out how to get more food from hunting? It doesn't seem to matter how many people I send out to hunt, I can only bring back either 9 or 1 meat. My party is 12 members so I am losing at least 3 meat every day assuming I can't kill a boar. Is there any way to get more meat from hunting?

Yeah the 1.4.0 patch made hunting way more difficult. For reasons not entirely clear, the max amount of meat you could get from hunting was:

8 + survival/2 (rounded up)

That's YOUR survival only - not the total (!) - meaning no matter how many hunters you had, that formula would be based on the survival you chose at the start and nothing would improve it.

BUT!

Realising this doesn't make much sense, the devs have changed this in the new upcoming patch 1.4.5! Which is already available for those "steamy" people (damn them!), but hopefully should make its way to GOG/Gamersgate/etc. very soon! Well the exact quote is:

Okay the 1.4.5 patch is live now on Steam. If nothing explodes by tomorrow, the other platforms will follow soon. I'll update the first post in the thread with the change log.

That was posted on Thursday, so (fingers crossed) sometime Friday? If not then I'd say soon next week, unless someone finds a massive bug or something...

I am not sure how can you get more from hunting, but you can get a lot of meat from pigs on the world map :)

Very useful! I had a hard time getting into this game, but your starter guide will definitely help me. Thanks for putting it together.

Very nice guide, thought I'd throw in brief info on the native classes:

-Trapper: Hunter equivalent, uses Bow or Blowgun. Main skill is hunting.

Skills:
Rank 1: Quick Shot: Same as Hunter
Rank 2: Poison Sting: If it hits, gives a small damage over time effect to the target.
Rank 3: Hailstorm: Randomly hit 5 hexes in and around the target area. Has a reeeeally long target range.

-Shaman: Doctor equivalent, can only use dagger and only moves 4 Hexes.

Skills:
Rank 1: Restore: Same as Doctor
Rank 2: Curse: Lowers the target's attack and defense for three turns
Rank 3: Terrify: The target moves its maximum move away from the Shaman.

-Warrior: I don't actually remember whether you can recruit one of these guys, but I'm including him anyway. Cross between Soldier and Scout, lower defense higher movement.

Skills:
Rank 1: Sneak: Same as Scout
Rank 2: Taunt: The target moves three hexes towards the Warrior
Rank 3: Anticipate Opening: The Warrior's next attack will automatically crit

-Amazon: All-around fighter who can hit hard at any range. My personal favorite class. :P

Skills:
Rank 1: Acrobatic Strike: Attack an enemy in melee and then move one hex away without an attack of opportunity.
Rank 2: Poison Sting: Same as Trapper.
Rank 3: Deft Strike: Makes an attack that ignores the enemy's defense.

-Champion: Soldier equivalent. Higher damage, weaker defense.

Skills:
Rank 1: Stun: Same as Soldier.
Rank 2: Charge: Adds 5 damage for every hex moved before your attack this turn.
Rank 3: Swipe: Hit three adjacent spaces in front of you at once.

DF1871 this is a great starter guide, cheers!

So we can heal the Doctor if we have only one.