Greetings. I am from Russia, so excuse me my bad engrish :p This beginner's guide is only for our new players to PK at middle levels. Many of the following advices are pretty cheap and dirt tactics, but i think this is the easiest and fastest way to learn how to PK in CF :)


1. DO NOT LEVEL UP TO HERO.
It is much harder to do well at hero than at mid levels. The % of super expierenced players at hero is much higher. They will kill you so fast that you will not even have the chance to learn anything after 1 or 2 round battle.

2. DO NOT PLAY ANY MAGE.
Mages are the only exception here (they do better at hero), but mages work well only for very expierenced players. Obviously you will need to play different mages too when you get comfortable with melee classes.

3. DO NOT PLAY THIEF.
More than half players of CF will try to spam-kill and full-loot every thief they can (without even speaking with the thief). Thief class is very important part of CF because it balances super-strong mages to some degreee (at least in theory). Playing thief in the future is also an interesting expierence in CF :)

4. CHOOSE AN EASY CLASS.
Assassins and warriors are the easiest. Druids, paladins and shamans are pretty easy too, but obviously they demand a lot of rp skills. Druids and shamans are pretty "tricky" and unique classes. Orcs are harder to play, but still pretty much doable at the middle levels.

Bards and healers are "support" classes. It's important to play at least one in your CF career, but it's pretty boring. HOWEVER SOME PEOPLE LEARN CF THIS WAY - THEY PLAY SUPPORT CLASSES AND LEARN FROM THE PEOPLE THEY WALK WITH. It's very important to look who (what cabal, what people) at hero usually play the same time as you before you make the character. You need as many allies as possible if you decide to make the support character. Level up to hero and join your allies as fast as possible if you decide to go this way.

5. TRY NOT TO PLAY HIGH EXP PENALTY RACES.
31 level dark-elf assassin can fight 40 level human warrior. Never forget about EXP penalty when you make the character. I like the human race most of all to pk at middle levels, but many people prefer arials (sounds logical if you plan to join the Battle cabal for example).

6. USE THE ADVANTAGES OF THE CLASS YOU ARE CURRENTLY PLAYING.
Arial warrior dagger spec and arial warrior sword spec are 2 very different characters, their tactics in battle are totally different. Orc berserker and giant warrior axe spec are 2 totally different characters, their advantages and vulnerabilities are very different. It is VERY important to realize the difference and act accordingly. To be fair it takes many years to really realize this.

7. FIND THE "SWEET" LEVEL AND DO NOT LEVEL UP BEFORE DISTENTION FORCES YOU TO OR BEFORE YOU CON-DIE.
I don't see any logical reason why dex-based human warrior sword-spec should gain 21 level before distention forces him to. The same about human assassin gaining 37 level. There will be never easier situation for you to pk. It doesn't matter if you con-die five characters at middle levels. You will be proud of your sixth character if you have enough time and patience.

8. JOIN THE CABAL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
The only way to learn is to be as active as possible. The cabal system is very important part of CF. Scions of Eternal Night is the hardest cabal to join. Empire and Nexus are the easiest cabals to join. Read cabal rules very carefully or you will be uninducted.
The Village of Battleragers (Battle) cabal offers no doubt best powers for not too expierenced players, but it will take some time and rp skills to join this cabal.

9. "RP" OR SPEAK WITH ALLIES AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.
Try to make as many allies as possible. Offer them your help, ask them for help. Offer them your money, ask them to get cursed sword for you. Walk with them, kiss them, love them. Use your imagination. Some people call it RP and you can actually do VERY MUCH by just speaking with other players. Obviously it's much better to spend as much time as possible pk-ing to learn how to PK well, but RP is no doubt large part of CF.

10. SPEAK WITH ENEMIES CORRECTLY AFTER THEY KILLED YOU.
Never tell someone how much they really suck after they killed you (even if they killed you in the group of 10 drunk imperials). Tell them "well done" or something like it instead, it will make them love you. They will not loot you much and may even tell you anything useful for you of how to fight them next time. Usually it's your mistake when you die anyway.

11. RESPECT YOUR ENEMIES AFTER YOU KILLED THEM, DON'T BE GREED.
There is no reason to tell someone how weak they are if you already killed them. There is no reason to take more than coins and few things from the corpse of the dead enemy. You can kill them later again and take few more things :) It can become really very hard to kill someone if they decide not to die to you again for whatever reason. RNG likes active people and sometimes you may even kill someone in super-crazy-elite eq. Don't forget that owners of such eq are often super-crazy-elite pkillers who can probably kill you even in regear EQ next time.

12. EQ IS VERY IMPORTANT, EVEN MORE IMPORTANT AT MIDDLE LEVELS.
There are many different ways to get good EQ at middle levels. You can wait on the east road for heroes to fight and rob the corpse of the fallen. You can follow your hero cabal mates and loot the corpses of they people they killed (if they don't mind it). You can ask your allies to give you eq if you do something for them. You can find a lot of coins somewhere and buy eq from heroes. There are usually a lot of things in the cabal pits. There are usually a lot of eq during big cabal raids. You can wait for someone who stands at the pit as ghost and steal the things from the pit. You can make big group with few allies and even kill some hero mobs. You can make striptease if they give you wide copper bracelet. Use your imagination. Use all possible ways to get eq what aren't against your RP. Use the information from the qhcf.net to find stats of the most eq so you don't full loot people just to identify their eq.

13. ANALYZE EVERYTHING, READ AND POST THE LOGS ON THE QHCF.NET.
Analyze your and other people's actions. Try to understand that (for example) when you trip someone you: do almost no damage to them, can do nothing for the next 2 rounds, make your enemy unable to do anything for the next 2 rounds, give your enemy the chance to make 1 action before you can do your next action. And basically there is no point to trip them if they win the battle when you both do nothing. Read the logs on qhcf.net, post your logs there and ask for suggestions. Most of the CF playerbase will be happy to help you with their suggestions.

14. DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS BETTER THAN YOU.
You should be able to fight well enough against 95% of the characters in your pk range if you follow the above 13 advices and have a lot of time and patience. But you will meet really crazy-good people even at level 11 sometimes and you will die. Don't get discouraged and don't give up, use them while they use you. Analyze their actions very carefully and think what can you do against it or why can't you simply do the same?

15. IF NOTHING ELSE WORKS.
Sometimes you will meet stupid monkeys who kill you again and again no matter what with just 1 skill/spell/commune and there is really nothing you can do. You know, you can do it as well as that monkey. Just make the same class/race and spam that 1 skill/spell/commune too. Analyze everything what's going on very carefully. It will take you only 2 or 3 characters to finally understand that there is no perfect class in CF :)


P.S. Anybody who finds this information useful is welcome to remove all the spelling errors.

And the engrish just adds charm to the whole post.