Here's a few tips.
- First, take your time. There's no penalties to clicking through a week to accumulate gold and food and supplies. Slaves gain XP from daily jobs too, so you can spam it if you want a few more stat points. Just keep Praising when they're ready to get that Loyalty higher!
- Foraging is a decent way to get food early game because the yield isn't stat-based, but hunting can also return supplies. As long as their Courage is good (45+) they can do okay hunting. Also supplies can be sold, but food can't.
- Remember, slaves can be awfully cheap, and the ones you buy from the guild come with a high obedience so you can put them straight to work. There's nothing wrong with packing your house with cheap slaves early on just to get some coin together, and it means you can send one or two to training and not have it wreck your income.
- PROTIP: if anyone's awareness ((Agility x 3) + (Wits / 10)) is higher than the encounter's (fixed value), you choose whether to fight or not. You might want to dedicate a party slot to a scout in early game just so you don't get bogged down in bandits.
- Most of the stats end up mattering a lot in combat, one way or the other. If anything, you can neglect Magic Affinity for a bit since most things that use it also cost mana. Its abilities are really powerful though, so you'll eventually want to raise it too.
- Try to always have a full party for combat; even if one or two aren't combat slaves, they'll sponge damage that will heal over time.
Cheers!