III.Q: What happened to my money? I have two money amounts, and they're different!
III.A: Now money is separated into two different things: the party's money, and your personal wealth. The former is what you're used to; you use it to buy and sell things (ships, cargo, items, etc.). The latter is your personal wealth, used to determine how famous you are, which is helpful for recruiting crew and eventually courting a wife (note that you can donate from your personal wealth into the party fund if the party fund is running low). The Build also introduces a new concept, one familiar if you've played Pirating games before: dividing the plunder. You can choose to either pay your crew (and your officers, and yourself) salaries like normal, or you can choose to pay your crew, your officers, and yourself in shares of the plunder. You can change modes by talking to a `tavern-hired` officer and choosing either to Sign Articles (switch to DP mode) or Pay a Salary (switch to salary mode). Only one will appear at a time, and you can only switch back to salary mode right after you divide the plunder. Note that some of your crew may desert if you switch modes! In the first mode, once a month you pay everyone a salary. You are paid (5 + Rank) x 100 gp, as are other captains in your party. Officers are paid (5 + Rank) x 40 gp. All salaries are modified by Difficulty Level: at higher difficulty your officers and crew (and you!) are paid more. In the second mode, you can choose at any time to divide the plunder. Doing so will take 10% and save it to start the next expedition; take anywhere from 5% to 20% to pay you (and your officers and other captains, if you have any), and split the remainder equally among the crew. Note that officers' and other captains' shares are modified by the amount of the expedition during which they served; if they only were captains half the time, they get half their share. These two methods are the only two by which you can directly increase your wealth; if you've been awarded land by a governor, however, that land will give you a daily profit in gp that will increase your wealth. Lastly, note that if you are in DP mode, the crew will, as time goes by, get anxious for the plunder to be divided and morale will sink; once your expedition length goes too far the crew may mutiny!
IV.Q: If I pay my crew salary, can I still divide the plunder?
IV.A: No. You can either sail as a privateer, or as a normal captain. You can switch modes by talking to an officer and choosing to sign articles (go to DP mode) or tell him you'll now pay a salary (go back to nomral mode). Furthermore, you can only switch /back/ to a normal captain directly after dividing the plunder; if you wait, your crew will demand you divide the plunder again first. Note that officers too are paid salaries in normal mode and draw shares in DP mode.
