Probably spent a solid 6 hours straight on this game last night. I started in the blue kingdom (the Val-something or anothers) and spent the first few hours doing quests and recruiting solely in that location, but after discovering the Mongol-esque kingdom, I wish I'd started there.
Outside of the
repetitive "deliver a letter to so-and-so" quests - which are actually pretty handy when you first begin to help you explore the map and learn the controls - I've found a lot of the quests to be pretty well done and sometimes even
fun, which is unusual for this type of game.
The combat is a hell of a lot of fun, the best medieval combat engine I've played. As a mounted steppe archer I've slowly been improving, both by way of skill upgrades AND practice, my horseback archery, but with just 30 shots and my still sucky accuracy I usually wind up drawing my sword anyhow.
It wasn't until I helped an ally in combat and watched what he did that I realised you can position your different troops and command different unit types at once. I only wish there was a "point and click" interface for this, rather than having to move your character to a point and hitting "hold this position". Still, it sure beats my early strategy of "charge!" and having all my units just sprint in to combat.
As far as earning cash goes, quests (particularily those from the Guild - I got $12,000 in my 2nd ever Guild Quest last night) are a great way to do it, but the problem is that FINISHING these quests often involves paying off characters, which in itself is expensive. I tried trading which, if you have a high trade rating in your party, works, but is risky due to the distances you have to travel. By far the best way I've found to make money at the moment is to target the villages of the kingdoms we are at war with and demand their supplies. Every 3 or 4 villages I hit nets me around $1,000. Maybe this will come back to bite me later in the game, I'm not sure.
Overall I'm loving this game, especially for $7.50! An absolute steal.