I've found that often during a sea battle if I'm in a bit of trouble or I don't really feel like fighting (if I'm escorting a small ship etc) if I talk to the enemy ships, select the "offer gold" option but then select no - they often change their status to white/neutral anyway and I can go back to the map.
Also very bizarrely - I currently have 2 Warships and a Ship of the Line and they seem to accumulate sailcloth daily... and I mean thousands-millions of units (so the ships are overstocked something like this 453356631/4235. I can sell this at stores each day and get around 30000-40000 coins, but occaisionally I find a store that can also be overstocked and when I sell him sailcloth at 5 or 6 coins a unit I can get upto 450000 coins in one transaction, go to the tavern for the night and repeat. It's a bit annoying cos I loved making a good profit by smuggling, and now I dont have to <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />
Also very bizarrely - I currently have 2 Warships and a Ship of the Line and they seem to accumulate sailcloth daily... and I mean thousands-millions of units (so the ships are overstocked something like this 453356631/4235. I can sell this at stores each day and get around 30000-40000 coins, but occaisionally I find a store that can also be overstocked and when I sell him sailcloth at 5 or 6 coins a unit I can get upto 450000 coins in one transaction, go to the tavern for the night and repeat. It's a bit annoying cos I loved making a good profit by smuggling, and now I dont have to <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
