Here's what to know for beginners.

[fadhlanida]

Hello matey,

I'm not a good pirate...

I've been reading the forums alot and hella messy there...
Alot of title but none suite me with my problems.
Instead I try to find a solution myself.
Here's what to know about the game.
This is gona be long... So be patient and understand =)

Alright,

''About Character.''

Your gona be confuse at first. I know I did.
Who to choose, Which is better to start the game with?

There are 3 characters in the game.

PeterBlood(StoryLine)

Peter is a Docter and a Corsair, He is the Main Character of the Game as I should say,
Choosing him will start your first day of his storyline.
It's Quite short actually. But hard if you don't know where to go.
It's Very Hard indeed to play this guy, even on Sailor difficulty.
But it's Quite an Amusement to me, Alot of challenge ahead =)
I'm still moving on strong!
There is a walkthrough about this. So i'll post a Proper walk through later on.
Here is you get to know what the system and how to solve every problem you may face as I did.

DiegoEspinoza(I don't know yet, Haven't Touch busy with peter)
All I know is he starts as an Adventurer type, But you can change it as well.
You start of in a ship where you get to use with your Stats and how to fight as well.
While on Peter, You have to fight figuring out HOW to.
As you progress as Diego,
You learn alot of information how to get inside enemy territory,
Smuggling activity,
Stealing,
And so on.
Your crew will tell you.

JanStance(Same, haven't touch him yet, busy with peter)

This character starts of as a merchant type, But you can change it as well.
Same as Diego, You start on a ship where you get used to status and fighting.
A crew will talk to you like Diego.

'' Glitches At Start of Game.''

Ok. When you start the game. There might be some glitches here.
When you start as peter, Jeremy Pitt wont be there to greet you.
And you can't process through the game. I'll get back to the solution after some explanation.

As for Diego, You are moving around the ship, Non of your crew came out to teach you something.

As for Jan, Same above as Diego.

Solution. Quit the game, And start a new game. Hope this helps.

'' Understanding The Game ''

Alright, press F2 you see your Status screen.
Maximum stats is 100.
Capabilities Skill maximum of 10 stats each but they can only be Distributed by a certain points given.
So plan well.
To gain more stats you have to do some something that relate to the stats except for capabilities.

Power,
Strength to carry more item, More Health, Can put a deadly hit to enemies, Can make you easily use Medium and heavy weapons.

Insight,
Your accuracy with a Gun and Ship Cannon firing, May include stealth to sneak in enemy country or base.

Reaction,
High reaction mean more energy and fast reflexes with fighting. Low reactoin will make you fight slow and drain energy quite quickly.

Authority,
The way you talk to other people, Shops, Shiyards, and so on. High Authority can make your a better person with many follower as Officers. And discount at the Store.

Talent,
This is most important for leveling. The more you have, the faster you gain level up and exp with other stats.

Endurance,
Increases Health, defence and the way you repair yourship on your own.

Success,
This is luck, you will need them to run away from Bounty hunter in Town as they approach you. Either fight or Trick them into a Lie that they are mistaken.
It's useful that you need this to get into an enemy country by stealth hiding as a representative of Enemies Ally country through port with a Trade Contract ofcourse.

Leadership,
The way you treat your crew and officers.

Light Weapon,
As you fight using light weapon it increase depending on your talent rate.

Medium Weapon,
As you fight using medium weapon it increase depending on your talent rate.

Heavy Weapon,
As you fight using heavy weapon it increase depending on your talent rate.

Pistols,
Increases depending on Your talent rate and how often you use them.

Luck,
Don't know how, But it's raise as often when you least expect.

Stealth,
Needed to sneak into a country successfully from behind or front.

Navigation,
This is needed to use certain Rank of Ships.

Accuracy,
Depending on the cannon shot hits and misses.

Cannons,
The way you use and reload.

Defence,
The more damage you get from enemy shots. The more thick your hull become.

Repair,
The way you repair your ship effectively.

Trade,
The way you trade amongst Local Trader, Store Keeper, Smugglers, and Merchant ships.

Well that's cover most all the stats.

''Ships''

On the Ship menu, You might find it confusing.
here you see your cargo hold what item and so on.
Here you can pay your crew to increase their morale.
The higher the morale. The faster they will become SeaDogs depending on each situation.
Well that's all the button you can see and click.
But for begginner's Yes. but for Advance player.

On the Bottom Middle Screen. There are the stats of you ships. Speed, Manuevarabilty, Point of sail and so on.
There below, Max Weapon. for instance 12 Lbs / 16

it means. You can only use a 12 Lbs Cannon / Culvariens only. and can carry up to 16 cannons on the ship. have more. they will only be useless in the cargo hold. You can only shoot up to 16 cannon.

Alright, from here most of you think, It's a glitch. Oh NO! My cannon fall off. Better buy a new one. when you bought the new gun. it still glow red near you wind direction screen. You try buying more and more. till you get poor. no this is not the solution.

Solution,
go to ship screen. F2.
Press Cannons / Culvariens under weapon ship.
From here. a list of cannon available for you ship will appear.
Press the certain type of cannon or culverians.
Press Fix All.

There. Solved.

There are certain ships that you might get confused with.
Alot of people ask. Guys why are my stats all (Negative).
Well the ship you use is too much for you to handle thus giving negative stats to ALL your stats.
Either sell the ship or keep using it until you gain enough navigational skill.
There's a Number on your Ship Picture. It means the Ship rank your using.
Here's a List of rank with Navigational skill needed.

Rank 7 ( Don't need Any )
Rank 6 ( You need 1 Navigation skill )
Rank 5 ( You need 25 Navigation skill )
Rank 4 ( You need 40 Navigation Skill )
Rank 3 ( You need 65 Navigation Skill )
Rank 2 ( You need 80 Navigation skill )
Rank 1 ( You need 95 Navigation Skill )

Fail to meet the skill needed will cause a negative effect on all your status.

Well that's pretty much it. Hope it helps... Mahn i hate reading but this will be useful.

 

[Keero]

TY 2ndmate, that was really helpful

I just started playing this game and it is rather confusing at start. I've played POTC new horizons for a long time so I thought this would be easier

I've played about 6 hours now and I'm getting used to the basics. While I thought POTC fighting system was too simple, this system still confuses
me, although I practised about an hour at the beginning. I find blocking, evading and hitting easy as it's almost the same than in POTC, but timing the parry I
find quite hard. I have no idea how to do the feint thingy. The tutorial said it's possible to fight 2 people at once, but I haven't managed to survive any 2 vs 1. Any tips for a noob?

 

[fadhlanida]

Yeah,

It's very easy to fight 2 on 1.
Simple really.
I manage 5 on 1. ( Swing Sword Helps with a Mortar or Double Barrel or Forth Barrel Gun Helps too )
But fighting enemies stronger than you.
That's impossible for me though.
You can beat them. But they can kill you in a single power blow.

The enemy strenght is based on your ship crew.
If your enemy crew have more than you.
Let's say your is 1/4 of your crew and the enemy have a full crew.
They got the advantage over you because they are 4times stronger than you.

To lessen the enemy crew you need Pellet Shot. ( The tiny cannon balls i should say )
becareful, the range is close range few feets away.
Circle around the ship while keeping in range is difficult.
They can out menuever you and aboard your ship.
So for me, I just run away from enemy beyond my limits.

'' Ship fighting ''

If you have a full crew, and fighting 5 enemy ships,
You can win against them.
You need strategy.
Pirates are the easiest.
While military are the hardest as they have sometimes Frigates even on an early stage.

if your being chased. you want to out run your enemy but you cant.
1 of their ship is faster than you while the other are slower than you.
Focus on the ship that's keeping up with you.
Use the Chain Shot. ( The one that look like a double chain cannon ball )

get it down at least almost half of the bar.
Then run away.
Beware, If your sail get hit too.
Your done for.
Keep in far distance range.
Always hide your sail if the enemy turn their side on you to prevent sail damage.

'' Land Fight ''

If you want to parry, You can just spam parry and drain their energy fast. I was fighting stronger enemy than me.
Chances are, fighting 4 on 1, spamming your parry. 67% most likely they will miss. 33% will likely to hit.

Another way to feint attack, Shift + the middle mouse button for scrolling if you have it.
You will swing your sword in the air. The enemy attack, They miss and your feint attack.

Swing sword, Shift + Left Mouse button.
This is rather useful for 3-4 on 1 fight. Block often.
If you need to damage everyone fast. Spam Swing Block.
Then block and wait for your energy to gain back.

Potion helps. It both heals and add a little boost to the energy bar.
If your going to die. Use potion and spam parry.
Your energy won't drain if you parry but the enemy miss and will get tired easy.

If you want to win, try slowing the game down.
And react fast before the enemy strike you.

My strategy is.

When you are outnumberred.
Find a corner, This way you can fight 3-4 of them.
If your standing at the middle of the deck.
Most likely your surrounded to 6-7...
Best thing to do is block or spam parry and drain them out of their energy.
Swing Sword until I lost all my energy and block.

From here. You just block. as they regain energy. all they do is normal attack.
They won't wait for their energy to come back and give you a full power blow.

And this is your chance to take them down 1 by 1 or keep swinging that sword of yours.
I prefer 1 on 1. because the other at the back that can't reach you still have their energy that give you a power blow.

So from here of you prefer to take them 1 on 1. even your outnumberred to 4.
Ignore those have no energy at all. focus the 1 with the full energy.

Light weapon are useless. but they can drain energy quite a tiny bit portion. Swing sword as many as you want if you prefer a slow fight. The dmg is weak.
A medium weapon is useful. it takes a few of your energy. and give a decent dmg if you swing sword.
Heavy weapon drains quite alot of your energy when you swing sword. but kill fast with the help of a gun.

So I hope this helps. Kinda long... I like to give long respond.
Cause it's a habit =))

 

[Luke159]

Ship Types
Knowing what you can sail is very important because if you try to sail a ship that requires higher navaigation than you or a officer asigned as navigator has then you'll take negative hits towards all your skills and thats not good. I can't remember the navigation skills required for each class of ship but its something like class 6 = 4 or 5, class 5 = 25, class 4 = 40, class 3 = 65, class 2 = 80 and class 1 = 95. Thats all guessing work but you can press F2 and go to the character tab, right click on navaigation skill and it will tell you what each required level of navigation skills are for the class of ships. Early on your most likely looking for a trade ship or a ship with many guns, i don't care for either of them. Speed for me is key, if i can find a ship thats got good speed then i'm happy, a ship that can't escape from enemy ships is no good for making money. Later on when i can defend myself better i will happily use a slow trade ship and focus more on what the size of the cargohold is rather than speed. I only think of how many guns the ship can mount when i'm looking to attack ships as a pose to making money from trading. You should choose your ship type depending on the situation and your playing style, you can alway's have a companion use a trade ship while you use a Frigate for example but try to have a officer with good gunery skills and one with a navigation skill much better than yours as that will help you because the better the navigation skill the more speed you can get from the ship, just because a class 5 ship requires for example 25 points doesn't mean that having 25 nav skill points will let you sail at the maximum speed of the ships ability, as your nav skill increases and that of any officer asigned as navigator the more speed you will get from the ship.

Weather
Yep if playing with tactical battles on then wind speed and direction are important and some ships will sail better against the wind than other's. Take a Xebec for example, they will sail into the wind much easier due to the sail types than a Frigate with their big sails. The problem in the stock game their are so few ships and those that are able to sail into the wind such as the Sloop, Lugger are fine but the best of these ships is the Xebec which is called the Bluebird (you need to capture her by completing the merchant quest). In CMV3.2 you will have over 100 ships to play with and some Xebec's that aren't made available in quests only and the ship that you can only get from doing the Peter Blood storyline is available to purchase or capture too.

Ship battles
If your been chased and you can't escape because of them is keeping up with you switch to chain shot and lower your sails and turn to fire a broadside at the ship. Use the tab key to go into 1st person then aim using the small raget indicator till the target indicator turns red, that informs you will hit the ship. But its not the ship we want to hit so aim not much higher but a little higher, timing is key. As the ship approachses you your task is to hit as much of the sails as you can so hitting the ship as its coming towards you is one way because you chain shots will damafe more sails but if your gunnery skills are poor and you have a officer with poor gunnery skills asigned to the cannoner role then your going to find it hard to hit the ship. Getting up xlose and personal can be a problem because the last thing you need is to be boarded, tactics in naval battles are key to your success, keeping chainshot loaded let the enemy ship get closer, you can sail away if you feel the ship is getting to close now when the enemy ship fires a broadside they might turn so they can fire the other broadside this is your moment of glory. As soon as the enemy ship starts to turn rig your sails and turn to ready a broadside, watch the sails of the enemy ship, don't worry about watching the enemy ships hull and what thats doing your focus is on those sails and trying to get as much of it in the line opf fire as possible. When you think you can see most of the enemy ships sails flapping away fire your broadside of chain shots using manual aiming of course and remember when the indicator chages to red you need to im a little higher so you hit more of the sails. If after your broadside you only hit the sails in the mid to bottom of the mast then aim higher next time so you can damage the sails towards the top aswell. Don't be affraid to sail away once you feel you've done enough damage to the sails, if the enemy ship was only 0.01 to 0.05 faster than you then after a single broadside you most likely will have done enough damage and throwing unwanted goods overboard will help to increase your ships speed, the above tactic should only be used when all other tactics have failed such as thowing goods overboard.

Knowing your Guns
Yep guns and calibure of gun mounted is important, culverines have a larger radius so they can hit targets further away than the same cannon calibure. The down side is cannons even though they can't hit a target as far away as culverines they do offer other advantages in that they do more damage and reload faster aswell as they are lighter so don't take up so much room in your cargohold (these are seen more with CMV3.2 installed)

Shot Types
Each shot type has its role, in both the stock game and CMV3.2 the bombs samage all parts of the ships, sail, hull and crew but each shot type has its own unique stats. So the grapeshots will do more damage to the crew than the bombs and the knipple aka chainshots will damage the sails more than the bombs. The only differences is the bombs will damage the hulls more than the roundshot which doesn't make much sense to me because it basically puts roundshot as pointless ammo to carry. Saying that roundshot does have a distance of fire further than bombs which is the only advantage they offer.

Boarding fights
If your out numbered find a staircase to stand on and wait for the enemy to run to you, they will push you back as they try to move up the stairs towards you so try to stand as close to the bottom as you can before they reach you. Now start blocking (space bar) each time the enemy take a swing at you, if the enemy sward rised above their heads in a downwards swing either fire your pistal at him/her or hold shift and left or was it right click anyway this will swing your sward around damaging one or more enemy officer's. Once the enemy have pushed you towards the top of the stairs you know your time is almost up so you will need to be as aggressive as possible before they push you back that far. It ok if you've gone to the starn because most ships have a staircase on both the left and right side so you can run up one set and back down the other but if this ship is like a Sloop their's only one staircase at the rear and its a fight to the death on them. If their are another staircase on the other side wait till the enemy push you far enough up the stairs that they 2 are able to attack you then run for the stairs and head to the next staircase that also if possible has a set either side so you can use the same tactic again if you need to.. If their is no more places you can take to a corner and fight it out against as few as 2 enemies at a time, the key will be to let the one with the lowest amount of strength (blue bar) live and attack the ones with full strength as these will be the most dangerous. So if you have 2 officer's side by side attacking you, kill one of them but wait till both of them have used all their strength, don't kill the second because he's going to become a buffer to keep the enemy officers away. By letting only one in with full strength at a time your abale to handel the situation better and kill them much faster and easily. Don't forget to press X to use health potions as you need them, left click on the mouse will do low damaging swings while right cick will do the more heavily damaging overhead swing which is the better one to use when trying to kill enemy officer's fast but the overhead does use the strength faster than the normal left click. Stock up on potions and shots, having 20 shots and 10 to 15 potions is alway's a good idea.

Officer's
When you have the money look in the tavern and see if their are any officer's available. You can spend the night if you want by speaking with the bar tender, when a officer is their go to him and see what his skills are. You should look for a navigator early on because he could help you aviod battles. Some for trade is important but if your doing a lot of trading you'll soon have the skills to make profit from the goods so he's not so important, a fighter can be very important so don't turn these away so quick. When hiring officer's don't be affraid to turn down their offer, each time you tell them its to much they will either ignore you or lower it but at some point they will lower it a little at a time, keep telling them its to much and when you think its low enough accept the deal (i've never been able to get someone down to 0 or even a few hundered as it will take all night to do, good luck to anyone who tries) Press F2 and asign each officer a role, the fighters should be better at fighting so look for the officer's with high fighting skills and place each one into a fighter's role. Navigators should have high navigation and high doctor skill, so if the officers navigation skill is bellow your own then place him/her as the doctor.

Weapons
Starting out is tough enough buttrying to use a sward thats to heavy for you will drain you quickly of your strength, alway's search for better light weapons than the one you are using but don't move onto the medium or heavy weapons till your character is able to regain his/her strength faster. The heavier the weapon the more damage they will do to the enemy which is what will tempt many people to use them earlier than they should, doing a lot of fighting onboard ships and in caves etc will help improve your fighting skills with that weapon which in turn means higher levels of damage been inflicted. Even at rank 20 i still use the light swards, i personally like to max each weapon type out, if i move to the medium weapon before getting the light weapons skill maxed out at 100 i will never go back to light weapons. You don't need to play with the same play style as me, thats just my own house rule, but if you want to max your characters skills out you'll need to accept the time spent getting those skills done.

Making money
Money makes the workld to go around and this is the same for COAS, if you need money early on visit the money lender he'll lend you some but don'5t forget to pay him back otherwise he'll put a bounty on your head. The store owner is a good way to make money early on, speak with him and see if he has any merchant runs he needs doing. When your trading skills are high enough you will be able to look for goods yourself and make higher profit out of it but for now do merchant runs which will build your trade skill up aswell as give you a nice income. Getting the 2 merchant perks as soin as possible will help increase the amount of money you get for these merchant runs and how cheap you can buy goods yourself so get them as and when you can. Press F2 and go to character's tab to see if you have any bonus points you can spend on perks.

Saving
Thats right saving is important in this game, saving often i mean. I alway's save before leaving port so i have 2 save slots for this so i can rotate them as i save. I have 2 save slots for the world map again for ratotion more than anything. OI don't save the game twice in a row but what i do is save at port A and before exiting port B i will save on the second port save file this way i have port A and Port B saves. The reason for this is a save file can become currpt over time so having a save file to go back to that won'#t loose you much progress will be very important. Also the game isn't fully stable at least not the stock game, with CMV3.2 installed the game is more stable but can still crash, so saving often is very important.

Questions
If you have any feel free to ask away, their is alway's someone who can help out.