Starting Mount and Blade

Oh dear!
This game has completely taken over my life! I have had to restart a couple of times (pre-lvl 10) due to losing all my men and money (GUTTING!) but stayed up till 6am getting it all back
I have found that the first couple of quests from the guildmaster get you on your way nicely, however imo get too hard too quickly and for not enough money to pay my men.

Another way of making money quickly is to... rob trade caravans but if you are going to do this plan it, choose which factions caravans you are going to steal from, make sure you dont border with them as after about 3 or 4 have been nicked (from the same faction) the patrol leaders will look for you whilst they patrol and will chase you into enemy/neutral territory until they get you!
Also the guildmaster in your main capital is linked to all other capitals, so he could send you with a mission to the faction you have been robbing, it is still possible to do these missions as you get the option to disguise yourself and enter the town, but you have to get there!!
Another way to make money is to fight sea raiders (like wandering looters but ive only found them near coastal areas) as they are better equiped and there armour and weapons sell for more money than the peasant looters, they are very hard at lower levels, and i dont reccomend taking any groups on that have more men than you unless you have some hired mercenaries or your peasants have leveled up.
Another tip for beginers like myself is if you are in the arena practicing your fighting skills and have a weapon you dont like, you can pick up the weapon you want off a fallen foe, look down at the weapon and the option to pick it up will appear.
When you have a thousand or two in your pocket and presuming your faction relations are still relatively ok, go round all the big cities and recruit your companions, these are not like the hired mercenaries. These guys and gals have names and background stories and different skills to add to your party, they moan a bit but can be worth it. If you go to your party list and click on one of their names you get the option to talk to them, click that button and you can ask them to show you their equipment (que laughs), in here you can upgrade their weapons and armour, this took me a while to find out as i didnt want to talk to them! Using the talk button you can also choose where their skill points go when they level up.
Once you have a few of your companions and have leveled up a few of your troops it can be quite expensive to keep food in your inventory and surplus money in your pocket. You can only rob so many caravans and the jobs from the guildmaster pay nowhere near enough to keep you going! I found i made mass amounts of cash and character renown by looting and raising enemy villages (my faction was at war, its allowed ) about this time i also found that i could start to take on some of the enemy troops aswell, which also raised my renown, enough to enable me to become a vassal to my king ....
Who i will over throw one day

Im not sure if i will turn this into a guide oneday, it did start as a rant about how long i stayed up playing it, should anyone have anything to add in the mean time tho, please do!!

Nice one Martian thats a nice guide on the game. I've been eagerly looking forward to playing it since you described it to me. The concept of shooting bows while on horse back does sound exciting.