redCorsair
Sailor
Mechanics, moving:
Moving around takes a while to get used to.Small annoying things like the camera autoswitching when close to doors/entrances.
Played only on corsair dificulty, Peter Blood character.
-------------------Attention below things contain starting spoilers !!!!!!------------------------------------
Walktrough to get you started as Peter Blood.
When first on the plantation choose PIRATES skills wisely - see below SKILLS.
Chests generaly have random content with the upper level of items depending on your level but with lower level
items always enabled.Chests content is decided when you enter the area they are into , corect me if I'm wrong.
Traps on chest are randomly decided when you try to open the chest, and are not enabled on all chests - are enabled especialy in populated areas - towns,shops,tavern.
Corpses content is randomly decided when you open them - except for quest related fellows. Upper level item depends on your level , small level always appearing.
Help with Peter Blood start:
At first , Barbados Plantation and island - any weapon you take from houses before the fight with plantation militia will be taken from you.Do take the killing for Hathorpe , not the other version,the killing version will be more usefull.
1.How to kill the fellow for Hathorpe quest - if he's to hard for you , when you go at the meeting and you enter "exit to jungle" he will try to talk with you, to address you.Draw weapon and avoid him, make him follow you for a bit then , weapon drawn, jump on him and hit him till you see red numbers for a while.Do not kill him yet.Speak with him after.Now it's easy to kill him.Was a very hard one for a lvl 1-2 character.Get body content always , to complete quest.Continue after by going to the fort first, not to the town, from the "exit to jungle" area and find fort chest by going down the stairs - store looted weapons there - they will stay there (militia won't take them from there) for the cave and spaniards fight, avoid getting them in town till the spaniards fight.
2.Get 1-2 levels before proceeding with the quest and a few useful lower lvl wpns/artefacts . Once Hathorpe quest completed you can go out in the jungle by the entrance where you meet the step 1 fellow(you can insert his name here ) proceed further in the jungle up to cave entrance and then inside cave .In the cave , find the spawn point (white thing howling and suspendend into the air). Kill a few skeletons.Exit and reenter and repeat.Watch your health.Stay in health as much as possible while keeping your hp pots for later.When you enter the cave a 2nd and maybe a 3rd time I think they get harder to kill - it's maybe like a protection against grinding.Also watch the clock you will fail the escape quest (= game over) past 17.00 hour if you are not solved with all the 3 men quest (speaking with them too) , weapons for freedomquest and Jeremy after discussion by then (17.00 o'clock) . So at 16.00 try to be with weapons bundle (for freedom - the quest) already got and 3 men quest fully solved , to be on plantation speaking with Jeremy.
3.Done killing militia on the plantation and talking with Jeremy.Enter the town, keep attack mode off, sword off and head to the "exit to jungle" area from house to house.Spaniards try to attack you , enter house.Aproach the exit by doing that.Once you're out town go get your things from the fort. The gun is useful in fighting spaniards.
Militia/spaniards/skeletons fighting - stealth,sneaking and crowd control (divide et impera - divide/split and conquer/master) is the key.Save a lot.Draw them one by one as you're low lvl and kill them and loot them.
4.When done killing spaniards in town and killing/looting the fellow spy(If the spy is to hard do this: shoot,off atack mode,enter house - repeat) - the hard one- go near shipyard and enter water and swim to left to meet your friends.Board the big ship.When boarding I found useful this - when attacking, just before they notice you start by running to your right on the ship deck.Up the stairs.There's only one spaniard there kill that one and carefuly help your men.This way you'll be safer and most of your men will get to fight instead of just running around without getting to the enemy ( like when the fight is taking place on the boarding stairs, right where you enter the ship).Loot spaniards corpses.
5.Kill the ship captain , a tough one - found this useful- shoot him and step aside to avoid his shoot,then run around the room till your gun recharges, shoot again ,repeat all till he has very litle hp then sword kill him.( Diablo like killing tactic <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ).Get content from cabin and go out of cabin to meet your friends - I hope for you Ned Ogle is still alive or maybe you need to load a save.Get your friends as officers of the ship.Give ((accuracy and pistol) artifact - low level) if you got it from cave to Ned. As soon as you go out on sea you will be attacked by 2 small ships.You have 2 strategies - empty your ships content , keep the cannons !!! and the food , and hope to sail away faster then your followers.OR keep anything you got and sunk them , they are small , you can do it with a bit of attention.Destroy their sails after that use bombs.You can't take over any of those 2 ships as you have to small crew.Sunk them and loot the goods floating.
Now you're a free man.You should head NW , I think, on the map to a french port.Anything else is not as safe as that.
After this - keep the ship and it's cannons.As soon as you get to french port gather ASAP a crew as big as possible.Do jewel quest for merchant or moneylender.Get a loan as big as possible.Keep your frigate.Maybe get a treasurer officer.All this while waiting in the tavern for your health to be full recovered( to improve).
Get on sea,find some parties fighting - english and pirates is good, french and pirates is good too.Get involved , be ware not to shoot anything else than pirates with cannons.Board pirate ship as soon as you can, having bigger crew then them.Keep the ship.Go back to port ASAP.
Now.You're in town , you have at least 2 ships - the frigate and the captured one(as big as possible).Go shipyard choose a free ship slot on the left and buy a war tartane/tartane there - ~2.5k money.Go ship screen , choose tartane and double click it - swap ships.
Now you have no more penalties to your skills.Go ship screen again and select the conquered ship, the one you boarded, double click it's cannons on the ship description and take them off.Speak with shipyard owner - "need ship cannons" - sell those for money.Keep frigate intact.Do repairs if you have time(see below 1t of month - pay time).Sell the new conquered ship for more monney .Always being captain on your tartane.Buy food , hire officers,look for artefacts-totems/weapons/spyglasses at the street merchants and shop in town everyday once and rest.
If you go out on sea - swap ships to frigate and sell tartane at shipyard.Buy it again when in town and swap to it before doing any other operation - penalties affect your trade skill , all your skills and your luck too, so in town stay on tartane.
You must do that before the 1st of the second month of your freedom.If you escaped from barbados on 1(?),2(?) april , you must do that before 1st of may.If you have time repeat the ship boarding (and sell in town) thing as many times as possible.
On 30st of the month stay on your tartane full time and stay in town till your crew demands payment.If the town has quantities large of food at the store you might even dismiss full crew on 30 of the month, you'll pay less.
It's important that you stay on a ship of your level or your navigator level ( right click navigation ability to see more) when you're doing trade operations or operations that have to do with your fighting / luck abilities.Exception - at the start , at sea , when you put Jeremy as navigator (important - or you will have even bigger penalties) and you as captain of frigate in order to board ships and make starting money.
Stay around friendly ports, try to give naval battles there cause the fort will rip your enemies off , mostly helping you.
So you've sold a couple of ships , you can pay your crew salary. you paid your debts to the money lender and you still got smth like 100-200 k in money , you own big nice frigate - cingo liagas - and a small tartane - that you keep selling when going on sea (to use the companion as officer on frigate) and buying back, the first thing to do when in town.
What now ? The rest is kind of stategy.Even if you'll manage without it.
SKILLS - rpg system.
Power
Insight
Reaction
Authority
Talent
Endurance
Success
those are the basic skills , the center of your capacities.They directly influence progression speed on your secondary skills - personal (like light wpns ) and ship related (like navigation and gunnery ) and , by that, the speed at which you gain perks like (the shootist).
Specials of basic skills:
- Talent - the higher - faster evolution in every ability of every class, faster perk gain too.
- Power - starting health, weight carried (it's important enough believe me), melee wpn damage, overall health rate(!!)
- Endurance - health gain per level , maybe weight amount too, definently overall health rate.
- Reaction - stamina and it's regeneration rate for melee fights - you can't hit without havin' the energy required for it.
- Authority - number of ships and officers comanded
- Insight - danger sense when you see red flashes near your picture (? is it ?)
- Succes - overall "luck" maybe the quality of the loot, maybe if it's a trap or not, maybe also npc reactions.
The sistem works a bit like Morrowind one.I will try to explain it here.
First, you gain nothing if you do nothing of importance - in order to evolve you have to fight,sell, navigate around.Only by using them will your capacities develop.
For basic skills you're stuck with what you have choosen at first, mostly.
How the system works.You fight and you use your talent and (power/reaction/insight - depending on the weapon used) and you hit your enemy.As you hit the enemy your secondary skill (for the used weapon) will improve.Each improvement point in a secondary skill will also net you a point toward choosing a perk (special ability like "the shootist" or "basic comerce") in the same class.Personal skills for personal perks, ship related skills for ship related perks.
The speed at which your secondary skills evolve is directly related to 2 factors.
1.Right click & hold the secondary skill - you will see what main skills are the basis for it and how much the basic skills influence it - ie for heavy weapons to increase fast - you need big Power and ,to a much lesser extent, big Endurance.
2.Big Talent=faster improvement - talented people learn fast - that's how it is.
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How ship secondary skills (like Navigation) work (with officers too).
Case 1:
You have no navigator - you sail with the Navigation skill that you have (ex. 10) + the amount displayed near it in parantheses coming from arthefacts you have on you - so it's (skill + green bonus) - and that's all (success is on for everything but forget that now).
Case 2:
Jeremy is your navigator, he has navigation of 52 and a green bonus of 10 displayed near (coming from some artefact I never found <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ) .That's a total of 62 - that's all it is. On your character screen , as a captain, you will see :
- your personal skill in Navigation in gray - like 10
- a green (+52) bonus coming from ((Jeremy+his artefact) minus your own skill).
and the navigation used is 62 - own skill + ((officer+officer artefacts)-own skill) bonus.
It's sad that when you evolve and get 11 to navigation the bonus will decrease to (+51) green on you character screen - that means you have personaly improved but not enough to count in that area.So you will still be navigating around with a skill of 62.Jeremy should improve for the improvement to count , to affect your game play.Or you should become better then him(>52), in which case I think you'll get no bonus from him but navigate with your full gray skill + the artefact taken from him and used on you.
So who has the highest skills for that position (navigator, bosun , ... - right click on empty position to see the secondary skills needed) should be apointed in that position for you to get a bonus (his skill minus your skill).Give relevant artefact to him.If you're better at that specific area keep relevant artefacts on you(!!??) - you don't specificaly need him in that position but doesn't hurt you if you apoint him there (perks!). ( to do check if the artefact bonus applies in case you have an officer with lower skill apointed and you keep artefact on you ).
Side note: not having enough navigation(you+bonus from navigator officer) for a ship under your direct comand (not under a companion) will give you imense penalties and you'll feel the most the effect of that at:
- fighting abilities (energy)
- trade operations
- wages paid
so use tartane trick if you want to keep higher level ships for later.
Ship perks - applying to your own ship - the full set of perks ( yours + the officer apointed for the position in question ) are used.
Ex: Jeremy is a Navigator and has ship perks : Increased naval speed, Super sails , Basic Comerce
You have : Increased naval manevrability,Super Sails
then :
a)Basic comerce from Jeremy won't be used cause he's a Navigator ( put him as trader if you want to make use of his basic comerce perk).
b) for navigation the set of : (Increased Naval Speed x 1) + (Super Sails x 1) + (Increased Naval Manevrability x 1) will be used - nothing more
So any perks the specific officer has (as long his in the right position for those perks to count) + your perks - taken only once.
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The speed at which you gain perks relates too :
1.Each improvement for a secondary skill in the one class will net you a point versus a perk in the same class(personals like wpnry for personal perks like cuirass , ship related for ship perks like advanced comerce).
2.Talent influences how many points in a class you need to learn a perk - big talent less points required.
Right click the secondary skill to see what main skills governs it.
Click the secondary skill and whatch experience under your figure, at the very bottom center of the character screen , to see how you're progressing toward improving (in fractional) it or look at the percentage displayed on it's row.
Click the rank and watch experience at the bottom center to see how much you need to evolve in rank - that's your overall level - related to items you find in shops/chests/bodies - to their up most level.
Clik personal/ship abilities (perk) tabs and watch experience (bottom center) to see how you're doing in fractional, how many points you still need for a perk of that class.
For officers and your self there is a 3rd factor and this applies to the whole party :
- you
- your officers in command on your ship
- companions - officers leading ship you gave them
- passangers - officers not used as officers or companions , that you keep around , might also be people you carry from a place to another.
The 3rd factor is experience sharing.Every time someone improves the whole party improves in that specific area but to a much lesser extent.
The order the xp sharing goes is smth like this :
1.First usual experience gained is increased a bit above normal ( the bit scales with party size, maybe also with active party size too) - make the total party bonus bigger by taking personal perk - "Experience exchange"
2.Everyone related to you receives a share to some extent, ex. from your actions - officers evolve more, companions less then officers,passangers even less - and you the most , of course.Form officers acting - they come first, you , other officers, companions, passangers.
Develop your self:
Undeveloped abilities evolve faster than already higher ones and every point gained gets you closer to a perk.Try to keep balanced weapon skills (ex: all at 40, then all at 50 ) that will net you many personal perks faster than any other approach.And you'll get cuiras and others that will make it even easier to evolve.Put everybody as passangers/companions to get the most of it and storm dungeons. Alone is better for crowd control.Crowd control is the key.Switch wpn class for balanced / faster evolution.Wait 3 days at least between raids for recovery and for cooling down the monsters inside.It's like an arena the more times you do it the harder it is , i think, and needs a cool down time to become easier again.
Overall health rate:
One day you get hit a lot.The next day you'll see health has become worse.And your basic skills down - you 're ill.Maybe(!!!!) you'll fully recover if you don't fight.You'll not always fully recover, no matter how much time you wait without a fight.And this will end your career cause you don't want to play with your abilities down.So you better avoid getting hit.I even advise choosing defensive personal perks first.And the perk for fast health recovery(Iron constitution ?).But most of all avoid getting hit lots of times past 20%.Load that save if you couldn't avoid that.If you value your carrer.I do thing 20% damage , like at most 3 times , in a full dungeon storm like the one in Martinique is the most you can take without consequences for the future of your gameplay (full recover that is ).
Choose good officers - criteria order:
- same reputation class with what you intend to accomplish in the game and with your party ( from good to evil ) -this influence loyalty
- talented ( talent at 10)
- big basic skills related to the position you appoint them - right click empty position see what secondary skills are required - right click on those secondary skills and see what basic skills are required - you need a talented officer with those basic skills big too - that one will make a good officer for that position ,at least in time , cause it has great potential for that
- lots of perks for the position you appoint them - rather hard to find
- nice basic skills - I could find officers with 4 basic skills at 10 (including talent) - those are realy fast learners - talented childs with very good overall development.
- nice fighting basic skills - endurance for health, reaction for energy, power for damage - those you can evolve on the personal side by taking them in fights
- low wpnry skills if possible - that will net some personal perks fast - use them as fighters on a very small cave (use 4 vs 4 formula ) (realy small , only 4 skels in cave, that's all) to get nice personal perks for them - like multitasking or fighter perks ( the perks YOU WANT for them)
Develop your officers in a balanced way - have at least a rank more then them always , level to that if you don't have it:
- having (gained) higher rank then them you can force them to switch wpn classes - the will develop faster on their personal side, dismiss from curent position and get them as fighters, change place - they will be there , position yourself in front of them and hit enter and choose trade give them other class weapon and take the old wpn.
- take them as fighter ,no matter their original position, to dungeon sorming but watch out cause they go berserk mad after enemies no matter their health/energy level and they die
- take them defensive perks
- watch out - if they have good skills (and good talent) they will evolve faster than you and you want at least one level over them in order to shape them , put them as passangers as soon as they lvl to much for you in order for them to gain less xp, while you and other officers grind in the dungeon
- supply them with hp pots,antidotes and bullets(they tend to realy waste bullets shooting often through walls)
- move more experienced as passangers/companions and the litle one as fighters so they could reach you and others
Check the stores/street merchants every day:
- very usefull +20 to ability totems randomly appear
- as your level improves - better wpn,cuiras,spyglasses
- stock up hp pots and antidotes for dungeon grinding
Possible ship abilities (navigation especialy) grinding - never tried it , gonna do it:
- go port, ship
- sail a bit , give companion orders - sail away,defend me, repeat - without being in battle of course( you do that in sea view,not map view - hit enter and you see options for your ship like moor , cabin ... hit down arrow to see orders for the next ship , up for your ship ...)
Dismis your crew if town(at the barkeeper) has good food supplies and medicine supplies so that you won't have to pay them - when taking time to develop yourself and your officers.Why food supplies because when needing crew , you get one part of the crew you want and you still have to wait for the rest , but the ones you have will consume food until that and disease will kill them without medicines.
Grind for a couple of months - then play at will , game will still be chalenging.Start quests now if you want.Stuck with the frigate till your JEremy gets the navigation for it - it's a good ship , above other frigates you could then buy.The swap ship with tartane will do the trick enough.Get useful low lvl artefacts from dungeon killed skeletons (Martinique has big dungeon - the trap near store exit , between store and the house at its right as you look at the store from outside ), get them first for you then for your officers.
For every ship you intend to sell - sell cannons first.Repairing it before selling will net you xp too (carpenter skill only? ) and a small bit of monney (for the time waited).
Fighting melee:
- 3 wpn classes - ranging from (less dmg but faster to swing and less energy consumption per hit ) to ( mor dmg, slower to swing,more energy consumption) - from light to heavy.
- which is better for you - balance them as strategy - but see (right click) the skills governing the wpn class and you'll find the class you're born ( <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ) for.
Hits:
- avoid them at all cost , see overall health rate
- 3 classes
a)fastest & less dmg ( mouse left click - default keys)
b)medium fast and medium dmg (mouse right click)
c)very slow and big dmg , maybe lethal - the from above hit (mouse middle btn) - don't try it unless oponent is sleeping <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
- space default key for defending, parying
class c type hits could kill you, pay attention , when opponent hand goes up preparing for it interrupt him with a very fast hit,
class a type , there's no other way to avoid that hit (will go through defense) except the step back but it will cost you the same energy.
if you get an (class a) type hit to land and facing a single oponent keep him in a fast a type hits row(keep clicking left mouse btn) until he dies or until you have energy left for only one more class a hit and then strike space (defend) , stay defensive till you recover energy, if during that oponent tries to do a (class c) hit (that will break your defense) quickly hit them with (class a) and defend again.
Enemies tend to have pattern in sword fighting like (2 normal/fast hits or 2 feints) ( here you should be defending) , followed by a slow and hard hit (here you should start your fast hit row if enemy is the only one that could hit you , or you should step back enough and fire gun).
Also , when crowd controling , consider this - you have 2 oponents and only one can directly fight melee with you the other one has path blocked.But ... if the one that can't get to you will fire it's gun it will disrupt for a bit your actions ( defense or attack ) and sometimes also it's colegue actions - even if the shot misses - gun shots have a way of making you tremble( how to say that? ) , disrupt your actions for a bit.In those cases recover quickly.The thing is finish them off quickly or fight them one by one as much as possible.
Critical hit = (damage for the type of hit used X 3)
Gun skills:
Rather disapointing cause the animation required is x the number of shots you want to fire - ie to shoot twice : draw gun , shoot, put gun off & draw sword (this is forced!!!) , draw gun , shoot , put gun off , draw sword - so it takes to much and you get hit.Combine this with the fact that the more barrels a gun has the less damage it can do per shot.I'll still take gun skills for reload time and accuracy but i'd use mortar rather than 2 or 4 barrels guns.
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Officers loyalty - aside from being on the same side on the good->evil scale , i think their loyalty can be improved by fighting along side them , toghether, in dungeons for example - and by giving them items for that - wpns/artefacts.
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Small hint - right mouse click almost everywhere on info screens(character,nations,ships) - you'll get info about game mechanics as a big reward, right click on items too (obvious).
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Damage health numbers - you hit somebody and you see damage numbers - numbers color is related to their hp level , green , yellow,orange, red ( full hp -> very litle hp left ).
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That's pretty much how I play.Hope that helped.
I'm adding my latest char, just for fun <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />.It's a simple char .All officers were passengers/companions cause I was lvling myself - that's why I have no bonuses on ship skills.
high res pic:
<a href="http://img197.imageshack.us/my.php?image=piratesk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/7066/piratesk.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
low res pic:
<a href="http://img191.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pirateslowres.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1245/pirateslowres.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
and a wonder child officer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> :
<a href="http://img191.imageshack.us/my.php?image=talentedlowres.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2012/talentedlowres.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
LE: came up as a sort of guide , I do not know how to rename it more apropriately, maybe it will help players by answering some questions they might have.Any user of the forum may use the opinions expressed here in any sort of guide to the game he wants.
Moving around takes a while to get used to.Small annoying things like the camera autoswitching when close to doors/entrances.
Played only on corsair dificulty, Peter Blood character.
-------------------Attention below things contain starting spoilers !!!!!!------------------------------------
Walktrough to get you started as Peter Blood.
When first on the plantation choose PIRATES skills wisely - see below SKILLS.
Chests generaly have random content with the upper level of items depending on your level but with lower level
items always enabled.Chests content is decided when you enter the area they are into , corect me if I'm wrong.
Traps on chest are randomly decided when you try to open the chest, and are not enabled on all chests - are enabled especialy in populated areas - towns,shops,tavern.
Corpses content is randomly decided when you open them - except for quest related fellows. Upper level item depends on your level , small level always appearing.
Help with Peter Blood start:
At first , Barbados Plantation and island - any weapon you take from houses before the fight with plantation militia will be taken from you.Do take the killing for Hathorpe , not the other version,the killing version will be more usefull.
1.How to kill the fellow for Hathorpe quest - if he's to hard for you , when you go at the meeting and you enter "exit to jungle" he will try to talk with you, to address you.Draw weapon and avoid him, make him follow you for a bit then , weapon drawn, jump on him and hit him till you see red numbers for a while.Do not kill him yet.Speak with him after.Now it's easy to kill him.Was a very hard one for a lvl 1-2 character.Get body content always , to complete quest.Continue after by going to the fort first, not to the town, from the "exit to jungle" area and find fort chest by going down the stairs - store looted weapons there - they will stay there (militia won't take them from there) for the cave and spaniards fight, avoid getting them in town till the spaniards fight.
2.Get 1-2 levels before proceeding with the quest and a few useful lower lvl wpns/artefacts . Once Hathorpe quest completed you can go out in the jungle by the entrance where you meet the step 1 fellow(you can insert his name here ) proceed further in the jungle up to cave entrance and then inside cave .In the cave , find the spawn point (white thing howling and suspendend into the air). Kill a few skeletons.Exit and reenter and repeat.Watch your health.Stay in health as much as possible while keeping your hp pots for later.When you enter the cave a 2nd and maybe a 3rd time I think they get harder to kill - it's maybe like a protection against grinding.Also watch the clock you will fail the escape quest (= game over) past 17.00 hour if you are not solved with all the 3 men quest (speaking with them too) , weapons for freedomquest and Jeremy after discussion by then (17.00 o'clock) . So at 16.00 try to be with weapons bundle (for freedom - the quest) already got and 3 men quest fully solved , to be on plantation speaking with Jeremy.
3.Done killing militia on the plantation and talking with Jeremy.Enter the town, keep attack mode off, sword off and head to the "exit to jungle" area from house to house.Spaniards try to attack you , enter house.Aproach the exit by doing that.Once you're out town go get your things from the fort. The gun is useful in fighting spaniards.
Militia/spaniards/skeletons fighting - stealth,sneaking and crowd control (divide et impera - divide/split and conquer/master) is the key.Save a lot.Draw them one by one as you're low lvl and kill them and loot them.
4.When done killing spaniards in town and killing/looting the fellow spy(If the spy is to hard do this: shoot,off atack mode,enter house - repeat) - the hard one- go near shipyard and enter water and swim to left to meet your friends.Board the big ship.When boarding I found useful this - when attacking, just before they notice you start by running to your right on the ship deck.Up the stairs.There's only one spaniard there kill that one and carefuly help your men.This way you'll be safer and most of your men will get to fight instead of just running around without getting to the enemy ( like when the fight is taking place on the boarding stairs, right where you enter the ship).Loot spaniards corpses.
5.Kill the ship captain , a tough one - found this useful- shoot him and step aside to avoid his shoot,then run around the room till your gun recharges, shoot again ,repeat all till he has very litle hp then sword kill him.( Diablo like killing tactic <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ).Get content from cabin and go out of cabin to meet your friends - I hope for you Ned Ogle is still alive or maybe you need to load a save.Get your friends as officers of the ship.Give ((accuracy and pistol) artifact - low level) if you got it from cave to Ned. As soon as you go out on sea you will be attacked by 2 small ships.You have 2 strategies - empty your ships content , keep the cannons !!! and the food , and hope to sail away faster then your followers.OR keep anything you got and sunk them , they are small , you can do it with a bit of attention.Destroy their sails after that use bombs.You can't take over any of those 2 ships as you have to small crew.Sunk them and loot the goods floating.Now you're a free man.You should head NW , I think, on the map to a french port.Anything else is not as safe as that.
After this - keep the ship and it's cannons.As soon as you get to french port gather ASAP a crew as big as possible.Do jewel quest for merchant or moneylender.Get a loan as big as possible.Keep your frigate.Maybe get a treasurer officer.All this while waiting in the tavern for your health to be full recovered( to improve).
Get on sea,find some parties fighting - english and pirates is good, french and pirates is good too.Get involved , be ware not to shoot anything else than pirates with cannons.Board pirate ship as soon as you can, having bigger crew then them.Keep the ship.Go back to port ASAP.
Now.You're in town , you have at least 2 ships - the frigate and the captured one(as big as possible).Go shipyard choose a free ship slot on the left and buy a war tartane/tartane there - ~2.5k money.Go ship screen , choose tartane and double click it - swap ships.
Now you have no more penalties to your skills.Go ship screen again and select the conquered ship, the one you boarded, double click it's cannons on the ship description and take them off.Speak with shipyard owner - "need ship cannons" - sell those for money.Keep frigate intact.Do repairs if you have time(see below 1t of month - pay time).Sell the new conquered ship for more monney .Always being captain on your tartane.Buy food , hire officers,look for artefacts-totems/weapons/spyglasses at the street merchants and shop in town everyday once and rest.
If you go out on sea - swap ships to frigate and sell tartane at shipyard.Buy it again when in town and swap to it before doing any other operation - penalties affect your trade skill , all your skills and your luck too, so in town stay on tartane.
You must do that before the 1st of the second month of your freedom.If you escaped from barbados on 1(?),2(?) april , you must do that before 1st of may.If you have time repeat the ship boarding (and sell in town) thing as many times as possible.
On 30st of the month stay on your tartane full time and stay in town till your crew demands payment.If the town has quantities large of food at the store you might even dismiss full crew on 30 of the month, you'll pay less.
It's important that you stay on a ship of your level or your navigator level ( right click navigation ability to see more) when you're doing trade operations or operations that have to do with your fighting / luck abilities.Exception - at the start , at sea , when you put Jeremy as navigator (important - or you will have even bigger penalties) and you as captain of frigate in order to board ships and make starting money.
Stay around friendly ports, try to give naval battles there cause the fort will rip your enemies off , mostly helping you.
So you've sold a couple of ships , you can pay your crew salary. you paid your debts to the money lender and you still got smth like 100-200 k in money , you own big nice frigate - cingo liagas - and a small tartane - that you keep selling when going on sea (to use the companion as officer on frigate) and buying back, the first thing to do when in town.
What now ? The rest is kind of stategy.Even if you'll manage without it.
SKILLS - rpg system.
Power
Insight
Reaction
Authority
Talent
Endurance
Success
those are the basic skills , the center of your capacities.They directly influence progression speed on your secondary skills - personal (like light wpns ) and ship related (like navigation and gunnery ) and , by that, the speed at which you gain perks like (the shootist).
Specials of basic skills:
- Talent - the higher - faster evolution in every ability of every class, faster perk gain too.
- Power - starting health, weight carried (it's important enough believe me), melee wpn damage, overall health rate(!!)
- Endurance - health gain per level , maybe weight amount too, definently overall health rate.
- Reaction - stamina and it's regeneration rate for melee fights - you can't hit without havin' the energy required for it.
- Authority - number of ships and officers comanded
- Insight - danger sense when you see red flashes near your picture (? is it ?)
- Succes - overall "luck" maybe the quality of the loot, maybe if it's a trap or not, maybe also npc reactions.
The sistem works a bit like Morrowind one.I will try to explain it here.
First, you gain nothing if you do nothing of importance - in order to evolve you have to fight,sell, navigate around.Only by using them will your capacities develop.
For basic skills you're stuck with what you have choosen at first, mostly.
How the system works.You fight and you use your talent and (power/reaction/insight - depending on the weapon used) and you hit your enemy.As you hit the enemy your secondary skill (for the used weapon) will improve.Each improvement point in a secondary skill will also net you a point toward choosing a perk (special ability like "the shootist" or "basic comerce") in the same class.Personal skills for personal perks, ship related skills for ship related perks.
The speed at which your secondary skills evolve is directly related to 2 factors.
1.Right click & hold the secondary skill - you will see what main skills are the basis for it and how much the basic skills influence it - ie for heavy weapons to increase fast - you need big Power and ,to a much lesser extent, big Endurance.
2.Big Talent=faster improvement - talented people learn fast - that's how it is.
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How ship secondary skills (like Navigation) work (with officers too).
Case 1:
You have no navigator - you sail with the Navigation skill that you have (ex. 10) + the amount displayed near it in parantheses coming from arthefacts you have on you - so it's (skill + green bonus) - and that's all (success is on for everything but forget that now).
Case 2:
Jeremy is your navigator, he has navigation of 52 and a green bonus of 10 displayed near (coming from some artefact I never found <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ) .That's a total of 62 - that's all it is. On your character screen , as a captain, you will see :- your personal skill in Navigation in gray - like 10
- a green (+52) bonus coming from ((Jeremy+his artefact) minus your own skill).
and the navigation used is 62 - own skill + ((officer+officer artefacts)-own skill) bonus.
It's sad that when you evolve and get 11 to navigation the bonus will decrease to (+51) green on you character screen - that means you have personaly improved but not enough to count in that area.So you will still be navigating around with a skill of 62.Jeremy should improve for the improvement to count , to affect your game play.Or you should become better then him(>52), in which case I think you'll get no bonus from him but navigate with your full gray skill + the artefact taken from him and used on you.
So who has the highest skills for that position (navigator, bosun , ... - right click on empty position to see the secondary skills needed) should be apointed in that position for you to get a bonus (his skill minus your skill).Give relevant artefact to him.If you're better at that specific area keep relevant artefacts on you(!!??) - you don't specificaly need him in that position but doesn't hurt you if you apoint him there (perks!). ( to do check if the artefact bonus applies in case you have an officer with lower skill apointed and you keep artefact on you ).
Side note: not having enough navigation(you+bonus from navigator officer) for a ship under your direct comand (not under a companion) will give you imense penalties and you'll feel the most the effect of that at:
- fighting abilities (energy)
- trade operations
- wages paid
so use tartane trick if you want to keep higher level ships for later.
Ship perks - applying to your own ship - the full set of perks ( yours + the officer apointed for the position in question ) are used.
Ex: Jeremy is a Navigator and has ship perks : Increased naval speed, Super sails , Basic Comerce
You have : Increased naval manevrability,Super Sails
then :
a)Basic comerce from Jeremy won't be used cause he's a Navigator ( put him as trader if you want to make use of his basic comerce perk).
b) for navigation the set of : (Increased Naval Speed x 1) + (Super Sails x 1) + (Increased Naval Manevrability x 1) will be used - nothing more
So any perks the specific officer has (as long his in the right position for those perks to count) + your perks - taken only once.
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The speed at which you gain perks relates too :
1.Each improvement for a secondary skill in the one class will net you a point versus a perk in the same class(personals like wpnry for personal perks like cuirass , ship related for ship perks like advanced comerce).
2.Talent influences how many points in a class you need to learn a perk - big talent less points required.
Right click the secondary skill to see what main skills governs it.
Click the secondary skill and whatch experience under your figure, at the very bottom center of the character screen , to see how you're progressing toward improving (in fractional) it or look at the percentage displayed on it's row.
Click the rank and watch experience at the bottom center to see how much you need to evolve in rank - that's your overall level - related to items you find in shops/chests/bodies - to their up most level.
Clik personal/ship abilities (perk) tabs and watch experience (bottom center) to see how you're doing in fractional, how many points you still need for a perk of that class.
For officers and your self there is a 3rd factor and this applies to the whole party :
- you
- your officers in command on your ship
- companions - officers leading ship you gave them
- passangers - officers not used as officers or companions , that you keep around , might also be people you carry from a place to another.
The 3rd factor is experience sharing.Every time someone improves the whole party improves in that specific area but to a much lesser extent.
The order the xp sharing goes is smth like this :
1.First usual experience gained is increased a bit above normal ( the bit scales with party size, maybe also with active party size too) - make the total party bonus bigger by taking personal perk - "Experience exchange"
2.Everyone related to you receives a share to some extent, ex. from your actions - officers evolve more, companions less then officers,passangers even less - and you the most , of course.Form officers acting - they come first, you , other officers, companions, passangers.
Develop your self:
Undeveloped abilities evolve faster than already higher ones and every point gained gets you closer to a perk.Try to keep balanced weapon skills (ex: all at 40, then all at 50 ) that will net you many personal perks faster than any other approach.And you'll get cuiras and others that will make it even easier to evolve.Put everybody as passangers/companions to get the most of it and storm dungeons. Alone is better for crowd control.Crowd control is the key.Switch wpn class for balanced / faster evolution.Wait 3 days at least between raids for recovery and for cooling down the monsters inside.It's like an arena the more times you do it the harder it is , i think, and needs a cool down time to become easier again.
Overall health rate:
One day you get hit a lot.The next day you'll see health has become worse.And your basic skills down - you 're ill.Maybe(!!!!) you'll fully recover if you don't fight.You'll not always fully recover, no matter how much time you wait without a fight.And this will end your career cause you don't want to play with your abilities down.So you better avoid getting hit.I even advise choosing defensive personal perks first.And the perk for fast health recovery(Iron constitution ?).But most of all avoid getting hit lots of times past 20%.Load that save if you couldn't avoid that.If you value your carrer.I do thing 20% damage , like at most 3 times , in a full dungeon storm like the one in Martinique is the most you can take without consequences for the future of your gameplay (full recover that is ).
Choose good officers - criteria order:
- same reputation class with what you intend to accomplish in the game and with your party ( from good to evil ) -this influence loyalty
- talented ( talent at 10)
- big basic skills related to the position you appoint them - right click empty position see what secondary skills are required - right click on those secondary skills and see what basic skills are required - you need a talented officer with those basic skills big too - that one will make a good officer for that position ,at least in time , cause it has great potential for that
- lots of perks for the position you appoint them - rather hard to find
- nice basic skills - I could find officers with 4 basic skills at 10 (including talent) - those are realy fast learners - talented childs with very good overall development.
- nice fighting basic skills - endurance for health, reaction for energy, power for damage - those you can evolve on the personal side by taking them in fights
- low wpnry skills if possible - that will net some personal perks fast - use them as fighters on a very small cave (use 4 vs 4 formula ) (realy small , only 4 skels in cave, that's all) to get nice personal perks for them - like multitasking or fighter perks ( the perks YOU WANT for them)
Develop your officers in a balanced way - have at least a rank more then them always , level to that if you don't have it:
- having (gained) higher rank then them you can force them to switch wpn classes - the will develop faster on their personal side, dismiss from curent position and get them as fighters, change place - they will be there , position yourself in front of them and hit enter and choose trade give them other class weapon and take the old wpn.
- take them as fighter ,no matter their original position, to dungeon sorming but watch out cause they go berserk mad after enemies no matter their health/energy level and they die
- take them defensive perks
- watch out - if they have good skills (and good talent) they will evolve faster than you and you want at least one level over them in order to shape them , put them as passangers as soon as they lvl to much for you in order for them to gain less xp, while you and other officers grind in the dungeon
- supply them with hp pots,antidotes and bullets(they tend to realy waste bullets shooting often through walls)
- move more experienced as passangers/companions and the litle one as fighters so they could reach you and others
Check the stores/street merchants every day:
- very usefull +20 to ability totems randomly appear
- as your level improves - better wpn,cuiras,spyglasses
- stock up hp pots and antidotes for dungeon grinding
Possible ship abilities (navigation especialy) grinding - never tried it , gonna do it:
- go port, ship
- sail a bit , give companion orders - sail away,defend me, repeat - without being in battle of course( you do that in sea view,not map view - hit enter and you see options for your ship like moor , cabin ... hit down arrow to see orders for the next ship , up for your ship ...)
Dismis your crew if town(at the barkeeper) has good food supplies and medicine supplies so that you won't have to pay them - when taking time to develop yourself and your officers.Why food supplies because when needing crew , you get one part of the crew you want and you still have to wait for the rest , but the ones you have will consume food until that and disease will kill them without medicines.
Grind for a couple of months - then play at will , game will still be chalenging.Start quests now if you want.Stuck with the frigate till your JEremy gets the navigation for it - it's a good ship , above other frigates you could then buy.The swap ship with tartane will do the trick enough.Get useful low lvl artefacts from dungeon killed skeletons (Martinique has big dungeon - the trap near store exit , between store and the house at its right as you look at the store from outside ), get them first for you then for your officers.
For every ship you intend to sell - sell cannons first.Repairing it before selling will net you xp too (carpenter skill only? ) and a small bit of monney (for the time waited).
Fighting melee:
- 3 wpn classes - ranging from (less dmg but faster to swing and less energy consumption per hit ) to ( mor dmg, slower to swing,more energy consumption) - from light to heavy.
- which is better for you - balance them as strategy - but see (right click) the skills governing the wpn class and you'll find the class you're born ( <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> ) for.Hits:
- avoid them at all cost , see overall health rate
- 3 classes
a)fastest & less dmg ( mouse left click - default keys)
b)medium fast and medium dmg (mouse right click)
c)very slow and big dmg , maybe lethal - the from above hit (mouse middle btn) - don't try it unless oponent is sleeping <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />- space default key for defending, parying
class c type hits could kill you, pay attention , when opponent hand goes up preparing for it interrupt him with a very fast hit,
class a type , there's no other way to avoid that hit (will go through defense) except the step back but it will cost you the same energy.
if you get an (class a) type hit to land and facing a single oponent keep him in a fast a type hits row(keep clicking left mouse btn) until he dies or until you have energy left for only one more class a hit and then strike space (defend) , stay defensive till you recover energy, if during that oponent tries to do a (class c) hit (that will break your defense) quickly hit them with (class a) and defend again.
Enemies tend to have pattern in sword fighting like (2 normal/fast hits or 2 feints) ( here you should be defending) , followed by a slow and hard hit (here you should start your fast hit row if enemy is the only one that could hit you , or you should step back enough and fire gun).
Also , when crowd controling , consider this - you have 2 oponents and only one can directly fight melee with you the other one has path blocked.But ... if the one that can't get to you will fire it's gun it will disrupt for a bit your actions ( defense or attack ) and sometimes also it's colegue actions - even if the shot misses - gun shots have a way of making you tremble( how to say that? ) , disrupt your actions for a bit.In those cases recover quickly.The thing is finish them off quickly or fight them one by one as much as possible.
Critical hit = (damage for the type of hit used X 3)
Gun skills:
Rather disapointing cause the animation required is x the number of shots you want to fire - ie to shoot twice : draw gun , shoot, put gun off & draw sword (this is forced!!!) , draw gun , shoot , put gun off , draw sword - so it takes to much and you get hit.Combine this with the fact that the more barrels a gun has the less damage it can do per shot.I'll still take gun skills for reload time and accuracy but i'd use mortar rather than 2 or 4 barrels guns.
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Officers loyalty - aside from being on the same side on the good->evil scale , i think their loyalty can be improved by fighting along side them , toghether, in dungeons for example - and by giving them items for that - wpns/artefacts.
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Small hint - right mouse click almost everywhere on info screens(character,nations,ships) - you'll get info about game mechanics as a big reward, right click on items too (obvious).
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Damage health numbers - you hit somebody and you see damage numbers - numbers color is related to their hp level , green , yellow,orange, red ( full hp -> very litle hp left ).
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That's pretty much how I play.Hope that helped.
I'm adding my latest char, just for fun <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />.It's a simple char .All officers were passengers/companions cause I was lvling myself - that's why I have no bonuses on ship skills.high res pic:
<a href="http://img197.imageshack.us/my.php?image=piratesk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/7066/piratesk.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
low res pic:
<a href="http://img191.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pirateslowres.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1245/pirateslowres.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
and a wonder child officer <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> :<a href="http://img191.imageshack.us/my.php?image=talentedlowres.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2012/talentedlowres.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
LE: came up as a sort of guide , I do not know how to rename it more apropriately, maybe it will help players by answering some questions they might have.Any user of the forum may use the opinions expressed here in any sort of guide to the game he wants.
