How to get the first ship in Bannerlord War Sails. “Inquire at Ostican” or the longest tutorial of my life

Mount and Blade Bannerlord War Sails was released a couple of hours ago and many fans already give this DLC great reviews. I have to wait a little bit longer with my opinion, as I managed only to finish the tutorial. However, it is not the short one that we know from the vanilla game… no, no, no. It is a long adventure, with cutscenes, shoutout, chase, stealth and many, many battles. TaleWorlds Entertainment wanted to do something epic with this, but not all players will like it.

• Inquire at Ostican
• The new tutorial is “mandatory”
• Not all people will like it, though

Inquire at Ostican

The story begins with the new main quest called Inquire at Ostican. We can go there on foot, playing more or less as we used to in the vanilla game, or just jump to it straight away from a pop-up window at the beginning of the new campaign. Of course, many players will pick the latter, as we want our ships as soon as possible, right? To be honest, even if you want to walk the whole playthrough and ships don’t interest you, I recommend completing the tutorial anyway.

The new tutorial is “mandatory”

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - War Sails, developer: TaleWorlds Entertainment

We all know the first boring hours of Bannerlord gameplay (at least they are tedious for me). We hire a few recruits and need to turn them into an army. Of course, we also struggle with money and poor equipment. Our team needs to slowly kill groups of bandits to climb the ladder. However, the new tutorial completely skips this phase of the game.

Inquire at Ostican is the first of many missions that you will have to complete. However, during them, you will get dozens of warriors under your command and multiple ships. Of course, most of it will disappear after a given mission, however, XP, gear and money will stay with you even when you finish the story. Moreover, at the end of tutorial, after you rescue your sister (yes, once again a member of your family is in trouble), you will get 20 experience warriors and a ship for free. The tutorial skips the first phase of the game entirely.

Not all people will like it, though

However, it is long. Those people who would like to start the sandbox section of the game as soon as possible might be a little bit disappointed. It is still much faster than gathering all the resources, money and people on your own (I have finished the tutorial with almost 17k denars), but it can be tiring at some points.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - War Sails, developer: TaleWorlds Entertainment

The good thing is that you can restart all missions after failure and there are even checkpoints during the last quest (and it is a good thing because it contains a stealth phase, a chase phase and later a big naval battle with multiple ships).

Of course, you can stop at any time, and return later, but let’s be honest, probably for many of us, it is hard to interrupt the quest in the middle. The good thing is that all tutorial locations are more or less close to the city, you won’t have to travel through the whole map and the game will give you all money/people/ships you need (the only thing you will have to buy is food).

I really recommend completing all missions. You will learn new mechanics and boost your character at least a few hours into the future.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

October 25, 2022

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• DLC and expansions
• Mount & Blade (franchise)
• ships