Smugglin-why do patrols always show up?

[Monolito]

Thn for explaining, Handel. It was explained how to edit the merchant character but there was no information on how to edit ur current game. I can edit the PRG file but I have to start a new game. Guess I won't edit the RPG file coz it will ruin the fun.

 

[Sordid]

the easiest way to obtain a rat got figure is to finish a quest given by one of pearl divers leaders , something about Sharps informer that u find around midnight at san juan del norte beach i think,

I found mine via the prostitute treasure quest. Sleep with a prostitute several times in a row (don't leave town or she might disappear) and talk to her afterwards, eventually she'll tell you where to find a buried treasure. The rat god totem will be there.

 

[HorrorOfThe7Seas!]

heh sordid plays pimp style mb he have a mow filled with bitches) as crew 900 1350 with overload

 

[Monolito]

Sordid-seems like far future for me...I only have 20k in my wallet

 

[El-Capitan]

Did anybody here cheat their stats f.e. by editing the RPG file? Or do ya guys play honest? :>

And why the hell you need to cheat? You need talent to be put to 10 and that's all. All the other stats doesn't really matter. What they provide is faster advance of the skills... which advance faster enough without any cheats...

As for the autority stat - only your authority matters. But you will need not more then 7 officers - which means 4 authority. Providing you can increse it with 1 point you can put it at the min (3). As a matter of fact the only stat which are worth increasing so later in the game (this is the end of Ascold quest and you will be probably 40+ lvl) are authority from 3 to 4 or REACTION for energy.

BTW - it seems you can use more officers then the autority allows if they are NPC captains or quest officers. And I mean "use" - not just hire and keep them as passengers.

Well I play with the skill advance slider just a 1/2 click above the min. so skill doesnt advance so fast. Makes the game a little more balanced so I'm not at sea for 6 months and got 100 everything. So the other PIRATES attributes do come into play if I want to advance at any skills.

 

[Handel]

Well I play with the skill advance slider just a 1/2 click above the min. so skill doesnt advance so fast. Makes the game a little more balanced so I'm not at sea for 6 months and got 100 everything. So the other PIRATES attributes do come into play if I want to advance at any skills.

The fastest (and the funniest) way to raise your 4 battle skills is to enter enemy towns during the night. The only limitation is your health decline. So it doesn't really matter if the skills are supposed to raise fast or slow - they will raise fast anyway. Only be carefull after lvl 30 - the dead soldiers respawn isntantly (captain difficulty).

 

[Monolito]

I'm a bit confused with the personal/ship perks. Which are the best to choose early?

 

[Handel]

I'm a bit confused with the personal/ship perks. Which are the best to choose early?

It is really confusing untill you played a lot - but that's why the forum exists:
So personal perks are for your personal battles and ship perks are for your ship battles.
You can take all the personal perks but cannot take all the ship perks so you will depend on officers till the end of the game.
1. Ships perks:
At the beginning:
Even if you take some ship perks they will not be very usefull because your skills will be very low. So probably the best is to take change flag perk first. If you are spaniard take french flag, if you are dutch take english flag, if you are english take dutch flag, if you are french take spanish flag. So with this single perk you will be able to enter all the port in the map. But to use this perk you will need high stealth skill. It can be done either with trinkets of through the expoit (written somewhere in the post). If you didn't find some stealth trinkets and don't want to use the exploit then maybe it is better to take the flag perk later.
Then the best is to take both trade perks. You probably will have some trade trinkets and the trade skill raises quickly so taking those 2 perks will allow you to switch one officer where he is more needed.
After that it is up to you and depends on the officers you have. A good idea is to start taking the navigation perks. Yuo probably will not find officer with the "old sea dog" perk early in the game so concentrating on navigation will allow you to take the perk relitively early and you be able to evade most of the unwanted encounters.
2. Personal perks:
They are intended for hand-to-hand battles only (besides leadership - I am not quite sure how usefull is this skill)
I think it is better to take at first the perk which gives +1 increase in the stamina. Some people think the perk +1 life is better. But I think having more stamina is better; anyway the difference is not that big. You need 2 perks for the stamina and 3 perks for the life. Probably some people will argue they don't matter much - those are usually the players which cheated and put their stats on 10 or use god mode (if you use god mode I don't see why you need any perks at all).
After that it is good to go for elite fencing. It is tempting to take cuirasse too so it is up to you which one you will take first. The elite fencing gives 30% reduction of the damage and the cuirasse gives only 25% (spanish cuirasse) untill late in the game - but you need just 1 perk for the cuirasse and 2 perks for the elite fencing. But you need to take both of course- this will give you the wooping 75% reduction of the damage and even 85% later in the game). Berserk is very handy too especially against many enemies. It increases the damage dealt 300% (or 350%) but for 10 seconds only.
Which perks you will take after that is up to you.
I advise to take quickly iron constitution too. Without it you will spend much time in the taverns until healed.
When going to Coas it is good to have the perk which allows more weight to be carried as well as the perk wich increases the damage of the sweeping blow. I think the perks for double-barreled and four-barreled pistols are not that useful and those perks are not top priority (making 4 shots from the pistol lasts forever and you are defenceless during the shooting).

 

[Monolito]

I'm planning to start a new game. Talen is gonna be 10. What bout the other capabilities? How high should I make em?

 

[mobucks]

The personal skill leadership is important for lowering monthly crew payment. Officers i used to be paying 3-5k a month now cost about 750. There are quite a few trinkets that raise this skill so its up to you wether or not you want more authority.

Also helps in finding crew at taverns. Some places have 750-1000 guys willing to join in one shot.

 

[Handel]

I'm planning to start a new game. Talen is gonna be 10. What bout the other capabilities? How high should I make em?

You will battle a lot so your main concern should be the health/stamina related stats:
Power - how much you can carry and at lesser degree your HP
Endurance - your HP and to lesser degree how much you can carry
Reaction - your stamina - you get (30 + 10xReaction) stamina
Everything else doesn't really matter - it is just using the skills (and you will have to use them a lot anyway) so put them at the min (3)
When choosing keep in mind:
-If you put the authority at 3 (min) you will be able to hire only 6 officers (your need 7 max) but later you will be able to increase it with 1 point if you desire; besides it seems the quest officers don't count so you actually can use more officers even with authority at 3
-You can get a perk which increase the the weight carried with 30 lbs so maybe it is good idea to put the endurance slightly higher then the power (health over weigth carried). But at the same time you can quicky take a perk which gives +1 HP per level (which equals of +1 endurance healthwise)
-You can quickly take a perk wich increases the stamina with +1 per level. It may seem not a big deal but at lvl 30+ you will have 30+ stamina which is equal to +3 Reaction (and you surelly will go over lvl 30)
I am using Power 8, Reaction 7 and Endurance 8
Also you may consider putting talent to 9. You still will be able to gain all the personal perks without much difficulty. You will need only 31 skill points per perk instead of 30 which means 20 skill points more for all the personal perks.


Edit: Just forgot - one personal perk you *must* take early is "experience exchange". But it is usefull only if you have good officers - which you plan to keep for a long time. If you have no officers or just hired some temporary officers you may delay this perk and still get +1 stamina and +1 health before it.

Edit: Basicly - your criterion for *good* officers is officers which have good stats for fighters plus 8+ points in talent. It is not needed they to be "fighters" in the beginning. Even better if they are not and have some ship abilities. This way you can make them good fighters and they will fill the holes you have in your ships perks. It is impossible to develop an officer to become "universal" companion - even with talent 10 they still will not be able to learn all the needed ship perks. So you have to dump all the non-fighters officers later in the game and free spots to hire "ready-made" companions.

 

[Sordid]

-If you put the authority at 3 (min) you will be able to hire only 6 officers (your need 7 max) but later you will be able to increase it with 1 point if you desire; besides it seems the quest officers don't count so you actually can use more officers even with authority at 3

Which is yet another reason to play Blood, since he gets two quest officers that the others can't get right at the start of the game.

 

[Monolito]

Handel-You really helped me alot time to start a new game. I was really gettin pissed coz my Diego was a total newb when it came to fighting and I usually got whooped BTW: Your nickname sounds polish. Are You?

Sordid->Blood got way too long storyline for me to bother. Diego is a nice guy and he can be dutch (hate english, dont care bout spanish, hate french).

 

[Handel]

Handel-You really helped me alot time to start a new game. I was really gettin pissed coz my Diego was a total newb when it came to fighting and I usually got whooped BTW: Your nickname sounds polish. Are You?

You will have to learn how to execute the evade move too Ctrl+RMB. Early in the game you often will be killed with just one everhead hit if you don't evade it. Besides evading you can try to disrupt it with LMB attack - but ths needs very good timing. Unfortunately the evade move has very annoyng bug - or I guess it is not bug but one of the limitations of the game which is impossible to be fixed... the problem is if you press CTRL+RMB simultaneously (or almost simulatneously) instead of the evade move the game executes just RMB attack. And this attack is slow so it doesn't even have a chance to disrupt the enemy hit. That's why you to execute the CTRL+RMB move you must to press and keep CTRL and after a distinct pause (very small, just a part of the second - but still distinct) to press the RMB. You probably noticed how when you fast-travel with the ship to some port how the ankor icon appears with some delay (part of the second indeed but noticeable) - I guess such delay is needed when you use CTRL+RMB combo too. So the best is to train in the taverns when you have little gold collected. Juts take an officer with you, give him all of your money and keep only 100 golds with you. This is the min amount you need the correct dialogue to appear. You must leave the rest of you money with an officer (the easiest option) because there is a big chance you will get drunk and a random amount up to 5000 golds from your money will be stolen. So with this trick you will lose only 100 golds; and if the option for fight appears you will lose almost nothing - but will have the possibility of good training.

 

[Monolito]

I'm slowly progressing with my fights-I chalenge lv1 noobs who don't have guns and it's easy to chop em. I've read somewhere u can train combat skills on dungeon skeletons. I've tried it but they come in a pack of 4 and usually got at least 1 gun with em. I'm lv 2 now. Shall I even bother fighting them? I gotta say fights are easier now since I set up my Diego the way You advised,Handel

 

[Handel]

I'm slowly progressing with my fights-I chalenge lv1 noobs who don't have guns and it's easy to chop em. I've read somewhere u can train combat skills on dungeon skeletons. I've tried it but they come in a pack of 4 and usually got at least 1 gun with em. I'm lv 2 now. Shall I even bother fighting them? I gotta say fights are easier now since I set up my Diego the way You advised,Handel

Up to lvl 10 it is very easy to train swordfighting in the enemy towns. Go with your ship to some shore close to the town and enter it after 23.00 hours. Stay close to the gates and kill the soldiers one by one. Run through the gates if more then one attacks you (don'tr forget you must sheathe your weapon to be able to get out). Up to lvl 10 the solders respawn very slowly so you can manage alone.


PS - forget about the skeletons. I don't see any reason to use then for training.

 

[mobucks]

yeah what i do for 2 nights after a new game is go to a shor near an enemy port as stated above, go inside, get "caught" by a soldier, kill him, then run outside, fast forward so that time advances 5 mins, then go inside and repeat. the reason i wait the 5 game mins is to reset the suspicion in town, so that i can go in and have to be "caught" again (meaning when i go in town all guards arent immediately hostile). Doing this will raise stealth almost as fast as weapons/pistols.

So you end up training 3 skills (a weapon, pistols, and stealth) instead of just the 2 combat skills. Was able to procure the +1 stamina/level perk this way by lvl 3,

 

[HorrorOfThe7Seas!]

beleve it or not still did n0t find acold tablet so no +1 on stats 4 me , ill play coas and uninstal

was kinda nice game but again its 2short 4 my taste . i go w8 4 new gothic or elderscrols or diablo3 ;p good luck all u been a of much help

 

[Monolito]

I tried the leveling on enemy soldiers method and I'm very happy So far I've managed to get rank 5 and noth stamina perks. Medium weps at 45. Switched to heavy when the exp was going up too slow. I have to say I'm VERY disapointed with fights in AoP 2. I chop and slash the foe and suddenly he pulls off the overhead attack. Here comes the stupid part-overhead attacks are hardly avoidable. The game gives ya parts of seconds to time a counter or just dash. Sometimes the enemy lands that hit most of the times which is frustraing. I tried to dash and strafe and the mofo always hits me :/ When I somehow avoid the overheads they pull out a pistol and rip my guts out on the ground :/ How very nice :[ Anyway I cut 'em like pigs and it's quite funny :>

 

[Scrogdog]

I have to say I'm VERY disapointed with fights in AoP 2. I chop and slash the foe and suddenly he pulls off the overhead attack. Here comes the stupid part-overhead attacks are hardly avoidable.

Swordfighting is very much a game of rock, scissors, paper.

In addition, way too many people, in my opinion, become enamored with high damage heavy weapons. These weapons are SLOW and take a lot of stamina to wield.

Also, which weapon is best depends on situation.

Think of it, two people going at it with cutlasses aren't exactly "fencing" are they?

I consider light weapons with stamina perks to be the best overall. In some cases you will need the high damage the heavies provide but more often you won't. I just about never run out of stamina. And if you are hitting your opponent quickly and frequently, often all they can do is BE hit without response.

In the open, overhead slash is a stupid tactic. It's slow to develop and easy to get away from. Open areas are the best situation for light weapons. You can be very flexible between offense and defense.

However, in close quarters heavy weapons can be devastating. It is far less easy to run around and avoid.