Question About Early Game Play

[jeffkohut]

I have a low level guy and noticed now that his main traits are -2 to -5 across the board and personal traits are all negative. I don't have negative items in my inventory like that shoe or statue and keep all the items that improve luck and commerce. I am curious what I can do to get my stats back to 0 and what I am doing incorrectly that causes my guys traits to go down by 2 to 5. All I have been doing is sailing the seas and attacking pirates and taking their boat if its better than mine.

 

[rbray14]

sailing a ship of a class higher than your nav skill will allow you to sail
negatively effects your stats,like say you have 38 nav,well you can only sail
class 5's and above till you get 2 more points,then you could sail a class 4,but if you sail a class
4 any ways all your stats will have a minus 2 on them till your nav hits 40.
hope you could understand that and hope it helps.

 

[jeffkohut]

Awesome thanks! So that means I need to get a poorer boat! Navigation points are gained through sailing around?

 

[rbray14]

the best way early on to get nav points is to do trading missions for merchants,or by
attacking every ship you see like a deranged chihuahua :will and certain other
missions are good for raising nav too.but the merchant missions raise it quicker than anything else
and they good source of money at 1st.

 

[rbray14]

want to add,you can see how much nav ya need for each class by right clicking the nav deal on
the right in the character menu when you press f2.

 

[jeffkohut]

want to add,you can see how much nav ya need for each class by right clicking the nav deal on
the right in the character menu when you press f2.

yah, I checked it out and aligned my boat to that. Now I am kicking butt. How do you remove people from your crew permanently if their skills are too low>?

 

[rbray14]

you mean officers? just talk to them and choose you're fired,crew well good luck finding
really experienced crew at taverns,you might find awesome cannoners or great,sailors
or piratetastic soldiers but you'll never find all 3 combined, which can be annoying
if ya have trouble keeping crew alive.


almost forgot,if you have a biggish ship you can find
non fighters in the something something cabin lol
sorry forgot name but you'll know if ya have it by if ya have a cannon deck or not.

 

[Fred Bob]

Port de France usually be a havin' some purty good crew! When ye finds a Tavern whar de crew has better experience in one o' de areas, ye kin fire 'bout a 1/3 or half, then hire de same number back, which be resultin' in yer crew stats evenin' out a bit more!

 

[Handel]

you mean officers? just talk to them and choose you're fired,crew well good luck finding
really experienced crew at taverns,you might find awesome cannoners or great,sailors
or piratetastic soldiers but you'll never find all 3 combined, which can be annoying
if ya have trouble keeping crew alive.


almost forgot,if you have a biggish ship you can find
non fighters in the something something cabin lol
sorry forgot name but you'll know if ya have it by if ya have a cannon deck or not.

Actually you can really find great officers but this is when you are over lvl 35. But it is impossible to level up an officers with all the ships perks.
Extreme important rule:
You must plan in advance how you will develop your officers AND your main char. It is impossible to develop all your ship perks so you WILL ALWAYS need officers. But you will need officers for your fleets too so don't get too attached to your ship officers. You will have to dump them and to look for fully developed ships officers later when you are at lvl 35+. At the same time you will have to use your bodyguard as ships officers too. Therefore you must plan which perks you will miss and to develop your to-be-missing perks in your bodyguards.

 

[Luke159]

Try to get officer's who can multi task at the start by that i mean hold more than 1 role, if your lucky you could have few as 3 officer's filling all 6 positions 2 positions each, this helps develope those officer's a little quicker and cuts down on costs at such a critical moment in the game when costs are a big problem. As for which officer's are the most important, it will depend on your style of play. For example if your into capturing ships and selling them, then a good cannoneer is important as is loyal officer's. If trading is your main aim then an officer who has good trading skills will be important. Nav skill really helps here to since you will perhaps be trying to run rather than fight so having an officer with high nav skill will really help increase the speed at which the ship can sail at.

Doctors and carpeters are important of course but in the early stages they are not as important as the 3 positions stated already above, however having a doctor will help reduce the amount of casualties you have and the carpeter will help keep your ship afloat for as long as he/she can.

 

[Scrogdog]

Port de France usually be a havin' some purty good crew! When ye finds a Tavern whar de crew has better experience in one o' de areas, ye kin fire 'bout a 1/3 or half, then hire de same number back, which be resultin' in yer crew stats evenin' out a bit more!

In addition to Fred Bob's advice, keep in mind that different nationalities specialize in different crew skills. The English are great sailors, the French are great cannoneers and the Spanish and pirates are great fighters. Not sure what the Dutch are.

 

[Handel]

In addition to Fred Bob's advice, keep in mind that different nationalities specialize in different crew skills. The English are great sailors, the French are great cannoneers and the Spanish and pirates are great fighters. Not sure what the Dutch are.

The Dutch get twice the salary

 

[Scrogdog]