This Wartales guide is meant to help you make it through the early game and well into the meat of this Early Access RPG, as well as to point out some things that the game might not make clear in the beginning.
It’s worth noting that this guide is written right after the release of Wartales community update #1, which has made a number of changes to the game, including the happiness mechanic, as well as some rebalancing.
Wartales Tips and Tricks Guide for the Early Game
Get One Class/Party Member With First Aid
One of our first Wartales tips and tricks deals with character customization. After answering a few questions on the new game screen you’ll find yourself at the character customization screen. If you haven’t checked out our basic class guide already, you can find it here to help you figure out what starting party composition might be better suited to your playstyle.
One of the new options with this current Wartales update is the ability to pick some of your starting party options, from weapon types to starting utility skills. I’d recommend to make sure that at least one of your party members has the first aid utility skill, if not two. Rangers, with their high mobility, make a great choice for this skill.
Keep the Current Level Cap in Mind When Creating Characters
Presently, Level 5 is the level cap when making your characters, with Shiro Games planning to increase the cap at the next milestone update sometime during Q1 2022. There are still lots of options when it comes to character skill choices, with each of the base classes having three specializations to choose from, granting a number of tactical choices for the battlefield.
Buy Skills From the Black Market
Skills can also be purchased from the Black Market bandit camp once it is found, allowing you another way to give your troops an edge in battle or to teach nonstarting troops skills like first aid. In my experience, I found the black market once leaving the starting county of the game, and skills cost 150 gold, so don’t bank on it as an early game cure-all.
Assign Professions Wisely
Additionally, there are eight professions to assign to your troops, and there are a few tips and tricks that you should know about them:
Tinkerer Miner Cook Fisherman Blacksmith Alchemist Thief Scholar
Each granting their own buffs to your characters. You can only have one profession assigned at a time but can swap whenever you want with the penalty of losing all gained experience in the profession. It’s wise to have some forethought when you assign.
For example, I would suggest assigning the Blacksmith profession to a brute class troop. It grants them a bonus to strength, which translates to more damage for their strength-based attacks and abilities.
Save Money Through DIY; Earn Coin Through Missions
In Wartale’s early game, coming by money can be a bit of a struggle. You’ll need to keep your party paid, fed, and equipped, which can get expensive fast. A good tip to keep as much coin as you can is to save money only for important things and make as much of your needed goods yourself.
If you’re in town, it’s much more cost-effective to heal your party at the town apothecary and to have the smith repair damaged armor than it is for you to use medicine and repair tools. Those items are best saved for field emergencies to ensure you can make it back to town safely.
Instead of buying potions, craft your own; you can do so after finding a town and learning the alchemist profession at the apothecary building. Slay beasts for their meat and leather, the latter of which can be used by your party blacksmith for forging your own weapons and armor in town.
Earn coin by taking on missions from the town tavern board or, by visiting the jail and buying shackles to take bandits captive and collect their bounties.
Upgrading Your Camp
Part of Wartale’s progression is upgrading your camp – the place where a lot of the management aspects take place. In the camp you feed, rest, and pay your troops, as well as handle a number of the crafting elements for the Cook, Tinkerer, and Scholar professions.
The Cook and Scholar require a cook pot and lectern respectively for their profession, which are items built by the Tinkerer on the camp workbench. The Tinkerer is the catalyst profession as they build items like the Thief’s lockpicks or the Fisherman’s hooks, but they also build camp amenities like the tent – which gives additional valor buffs to troops that sleep in it – as well as saddlebag upgrades for the party’s pony(ies) to increase carry weight.
While you can cook food on the campfire, it’s not as nutritious as the food made by the Cook profession and doesn’t provide as many buffs aside from keeping bellies full another day. The Scholar uses the lectern to study artifact fragments found in later areas of the game that then become artifact trinket items. In the present version of Wartales, these items have no use and aside from selling for money.
Hopefully, these Wartales tips and tricks help as you explore the war-torn countryside. This is certainly not a definitive list, as the game is still in development and subject to change. With the addition of help tooltips, much of the guesswork has been addressed by the developers when it comes to combat, progression, and profession minigames. But if you’re still looking for help, consider checking out our Wartales hub page!
