Smugglin-why do patrols always show up?

[Luke159]

Also if you plan to trade make the bordel mini-quest to get a rad god totem (you will need to spend 5-6k golds on this)

Ok, I'm curious as to how you got this done for that amount of money.

The cheapest lady I've ever found (at the cheapest brothel I've found; Bridgetown) cost $1500 per, uh... session.

So, if you get her to talk in the minimum time (5 tries) that's $7500. It may take more than that.

Did you find a cheaper place? Do tell!

Oh you randy devil.:

I keep meaning to do this and stop those blasted rats from eating my cannon balls and food, weapons, and medical supplies. Perhaps we should use the rats as cannon balls, it will do two things for us, a) reduce the amont of rats we have onboard and B) it would be nice to see the faces of our enemies as they get splattered by rats.

On a more series note however how many Rat god totem thingies do i need per ship?

 

[Scrogdog]

You only need one per ship.

However, you will also find about 15k in the chest along with some other sellables so the money you spent on women is made up for.

 

[Handel]

I've seen whore for less then 1500 but even 1500 is relatively nothing - it is only 2500 more then 5000 - just find 1-2 jewels for the money-lender and voila.

 

[Monolito]

Handel, I would also like to know where are the cheap ladies and what's the quest about I'd love to get the rat god totem because reloading the game everytime they eat something is a bit irritating :/ BTW I can afford a Caravel now! 3000 storage, lots of guns- I won't have to take sh*t from most of those bastards who like to chase me. When I travel there are always some jerks following me (max encounter possible). I was chased by 3 pirate ships recently 0_0 As for perks I took the Improved Speed perk for my ship. I've decided to get the Old Sea Dog perk. Commerce perks are filled by my officers. I was really surprised about the Jak of all trades perk!! I have 3 officers and most officer positions taken, except fighters. That's really something I'm trying to make a "hyena" ship-run to allied ports and make 'em kill those who chase me. I'm going to invest in cannons, some crew and I already got a canoneer. Is the caravel a good choice for such purpose? It's got a big cargo, nice amount of decent caliber cannons and I do trade a lot for now.

 

[Luke159]

Handel, I would also like to know where are the cheap ladies and what's the quest about I'd love to get the rat god totem because reloading the game everytime they eat something is a bit irritating :/ BTW I can afford a Caravel now! 3000 storage, lots of guns- I won't have to take sh*t from most of those bastards who like to chase me. When I travel there are always some jerks following me (max encounter possible). I was chased by 3 pirate ships recently 0_0 As for perks I took the Improved Speed perk for my ship. I've decided to get the Old Sea Dog perk. Commerce perks are filled by my officers. I was really surprised about the Jak of all trades perk!! I have 3 officers and most officer positions taken, except fighters. That's really something I'm trying to make a "hyena" ship-run to allied ports and make 'em kill those who chase me. I'm going to invest in cannons, some crew and I already got a canoneer. Is the caravel a good choice for such purpose? It's got a big cargo, nice amount of decent caliber cannons and I do trade a lot for now.

Ship choices are more of a personal choice but for me i like fast ships, the Caravel, it does have a nice sized cargo hold and it does have a nice amount of canons but that ship won't scare your persuers away you'll need a big ship like the man of war for that or so i'm lead to believe the man of war scares most ships away. I like the Constitution (from a mod) the ship can hold just under 4000 units of cargo and has a speed of 19 knots aswell as a hull strength of 7000 oh and she has over 50 42 pounder cannons, this however is a fully upgraded Constitution, to upgrade the ships head to Bermuda Island and go to the pirate settlement, speak with the shipyard guy and you will be given a list of things he will upgrade on your ship, warning you have to pay him so much upfront and you have to buy the goods yourself like sandlewood, sail cloth etc etc which are all used to modify your ships capablities etc.

A good way to make money would be to build your trade skill as fast as you can and get all the trade perks, higher a officer with high trade skills and put him incharge of your trade, then buy gold cheap and in bulk amounts, about 400 to 4500 piasters should be fine and sell for high around 500 to 600 piasters, you will soon make a furtune, if you need to take a loan from the money lender, the other way to make money apart from smugling is to hunt for pirates and capture there ships and sell them at the nearest friendly shipyards, restock and go out again and do this till you get bored, i went down the path of buying gold cheap and selling high, my route was Saint John's to Charlestown then Port Royal to Basse - Terre, as soon as i had restocked i would make sure my crew was happy if not i would pay to bring there level of contemptment up to hero and place all remaining cash in the moneylenders hands this gave me some interest (not much at the start) but as soon as i was starting to put millions away i started withdrawing all the small amounts i had scarted here and there and putting down larger cash amounts, now i have next to 50 million saved up and i carry 2 million on me at all times just in case i come across another nice bulky stockpile of gold or silver going dirt cheap.

The reason i don't do smuggling (which is the quickest way to make money) is because it effects your reputation quickly and rightfully so, for me that is a good enough reason to dodge that methode, all slaves i take i add to my crew when needed rather than searching for crew members, all captured captains i release till i get a privateers liciense at which point i sell them to which ever governer i find my way to lol.

Hope this helps you out, i would strongly reqomend you install this mod, its easy but i believe you do need to start a new game (don't quote me on that) but you will love the new characters and ships.

COAS_Characters.zip
COAS_Ships.zip
COAS_combinedpic.zip

You can deirectly download them all from here. http://www.pyratesahoy.com/potc/CoAS_Mods/

 

[Scrogdog]

I too prefer fast ships that may not be optimal for trading; even though I DO trade.

My normal progression would be sloop/schooner/brigantine/corvette.

As for the Rat Totem;

Go to the brothel in Bridgetown (the cheapest I've found) and speak with the ladies inside. Tell them that they are the most beautiful creature that you've ever seen (or similar). If they tell you to stick to business, go to the next lady. If they like your compliment, remember the name.

Go to the Madame in the back room and tell her that you are interested in a specific girl, type in the name and hire her through the madame. Then go upstairs and CENSORED.

Now leave and go rest in the tavern until the next morning.

Go back to the brothel and do the same thing again. DO NOT leave town until you have the Rat God's location else the lady may leave town on you.

Beginning with the 5th, uh... session, talk to the girl afterward. This will take between 5 and 8 tries, but eventually she will say that she has fallen for you and has important information given to her by another client. She will then tell you the location of the chest. Write it down; this information will not go in to your log.

In all cases the location will be somewhat near Belize. Use Sordid's map to find the place (or ask here).

Since it is near Belize, I highly recommend going to Port Royale first and saving game there.

When you arrive at the location, look for a chest, Most tiimes it is on the beach but in one case it is in some caves near the beach. The Rat God is ALWAYS in a chest. If you find another item laying around outside of the chest, that's not it. Keep looking.

There is nothing to fight. Just find the chest, collect the loot and you're done.

 

[Luke159]

Bellow is my ship, its the Soliel Royal, as you can see she's perfect for trading due to her huge cargo hold and with 112 cannons she's not a ship to go down so easy but she is weak in speed although faster than any MOW i have seen she is weak to ships like the Corvette, Constitution, and other fast but powerful ships, only when used in the right way though. This ship has had speed and cargo hold upgrades done, the calibure and ships hull and crew members total hasn't been altered because i don't see them been important and to be honest i want to get most of the English questline complete i've just finished the second questine called, Curacao: A Violent Induction of Celebrity Pirates, not that hard and very boring although the Dutch and Spanish who both have bounties out looking for me after i looted there towns a few time lol. Anyway enjoy the pictures of this amazing ship, not my pride and joy though, that ships sitting at Port Of Spain away from any danger while i sell all the gold i find building up for little amounts.

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[Fred Bob]

As for the Rat Totem;

Go to the brothel ...

Arrr, Scrogdoggy!

Fred Bob found him de Rat God durin' de English Quest as mentioned in de follerin' link:

http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?/topic/13513-preparations-for-a-walkthrough/page__view__findpost__p__331711

Ye kin find dat thang on Trinidad whilst a doin' de "Celebrity Pirate Booty Hunt" part!

 

[Monolito]

I didin't install any mods and my Diego is too well trained to thru all of the guard cutting again. I'll just aim for bigger and badder ships FOr now I'm planning to get some cash-trades ain't a big profit and the merchant quests give 5-6k per quest.

 

[Handel]

Handel, I would also like to know where are the cheap ladies and what's the quest about I'd love to get the rat god totem because reloading the game everytime they eat something is a bit irritating :/

Go in any spanish brothel (You were a spanish, right?) talk with the babes and make compliments to find which one should buy it; then go and ask Madam about it; if it is too expensive for you talk with the others; if you don't find suitable babe board your ship and and disembark ASAP - there will be new babes in the house. When you find suitable babe sleep with her (without leaving the town) at least 5 times and each time after the seance talk to her (you can use the babes only once per day). You must sleep at least 5 times (but if you are not lucky you will need more "seances") untill she tells you some drunk trader boasted about a treasure. Ask where it is and you will get the place. It is random beach (from 4 possibilities) and the name is not exact - but it is still not hard to make an educated guess. Go to the beach is and look for a chest - the rad god totem and some more stuff are there - ripe for taking. And no skelies appear neither treasure hunters so it is completely safe (but you may have the common bandits on the beach).
As for the trade - the caravel is very slow indeed but there are couple of towns where you can trade between them using fast travel 90% of the time. This reduces the risk tremendously.
Besides you are already so-so fighter and if you have a ship with large enough crew you can try to capture the Blue Bird. It's very fast and has relatively big hold so it gives almost carefree trade.

 

[Monolito]

I bought a caravle not knowing my navigation is at 40! I stormed into the shipyard and check what can I get in class 4 Luckily I had enough cash for a fleut! It's much "phatter" than the caravel, faster and deadlier I thought 6k for a trade mission is much and then I got an offer of...35k for a single deliver! That's really suprising! Got even 40k for a delivery from Port Au Prince to Bassa Terre! Guess it's the "phatness" of the ship decides what offer I can get. The only problem now is getting medicine!

Handel-I'm playing Diego and my nationality is dutch.
BTW What stats does the Bluebird have and where can I find it?

 

[Luke159]

I bought a caravle not knowing my navigation is at 40! I stormed into the shipyard and check what can I get in class 4 Luckily I had enough cash for a fleut! It's much "phatter" than the caravel, faster and deadlier I thought 6k for a trade mission is much and then I got an offer of...35k for a single deliver! That's really suprising! Got even 40k for a delivery from Port Au Prince to Bassa Terre! Guess it's the "phatness" of the ship decides what offer I can get. The only problem now is getting medicine!

Handel-I'm playing Diego and my nationality is dutch.
BTW What stats does the Bluebird have and where can I find it?

Cool, now you are making more piasters for your troubles, once your trade is up to 100% and you have all the traits for trade start to take not of the value of gold in each town and buy low sell high, you will soon be putting millions away into the bank with the added 6% interest rates. And once you have started doing all this you will start finding money not a problem, your problem will come from another part of the game, food is the common one but buy food and try to maintain at least 40 to 50 day's worth of food onboard at all times and you should be fine.

The Bluebird however is a unique ship so its stats are never the same, if you grapple with her you can keep loading the save up (thats if you have the option to save when grappling turned on) if you do then you can keep loading that save up till you get the stats you like the look of, she's a Xebec but with very impressive stats and easily can outrun most ships or catch them if you choose to. I find the Xebec is perfect for doing th govener's random quests, i try to only do the one where you have to find and either capture or sink the pirate ship preying on merchants in the area, the Xebec is a nice ship to have for that mission since she's so damn quick and packs a nice puntch from her guns. For the walkthrough on how to find the Bluebird see this topic. http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?/topic/13513-preparations-for-a-walkthrough/ good luck and try to have a ship thats capable of at least 16 knots and 16 guns or more before tempting to capture the Bluebird otherwise she'll just sail away from you.

 

[Monolito]

I've tried finding a source of gold but all I found are routes which are not profitable-buy price is higher by at least 100g from the sell price :/ I don't know how's the situation on the left part of the "world" since I've never been to the parts close to Fort Orange If I get a nice trading mission to get there-sure! Right nowI'm keeping a food level of more than 60 days on my Fleut. I love this ship Guess I'll train my Navigation up and get an even better or bother with upgrading my current vessel I bet it will be hard to get from 40 to 65 navigation thou. The upgrades themselves don't seem so expensive-almost 30k + some random cheap materials-I can afford that. As for now time to find me some girls who will lead me to the Rat God Totem
BTW Where is Santiago? A merchant gave asked me to deliver some goods to Santiago once. The problem is-I never sen it on any maps 0_0

 

[Luke159]

I don't use ingame maps, i use this map i just minimis the game when i want to find somewhere, saves carrying the maps around lol. http://www.maplib.net/fullmap.php?id=5942&legend=1

I have no idea about Santiago, perhaps you will ojnly see it on the old map and not the regular map which you will need to buy, i can't find it on the above link to the map i use.

You say its cheap to upgrade costing you only 30k at the moment + little amounts on meterals, oh how those day's was nice now i can spend easily 1 million just covering the cost of meterals just for one upgrade, the bigger the ship the more expensive it gets well thats not actually true its the class thats important i believe but it does become vert expensive in the end.

The thing with routes is the contraband i believe remains the same for each town, the prices however can differ from game to game due to been randomised, so i can't tell you how the prices are on the other side of the Carribean since but you should go and check the prices out when you get the chance you might find a very lucrative route.

 

[Monolito]

I can't minimize my game while I play because it crashes :/ I drew my own map on a piece of paper As for the prices-I know they differ from game to game and are never constant while u play. I didin't visit the other part of the world because it wouldn't be profitable when the missions payed 2k per delivery.

 

[Luke159]

I can't minimize my game while I play because it crashes :/ I drew my own map on a piece of paper As for the prices-I know they differ from game to game and are never constant while u play. I didin't visit the other part of the world because it wouldn't be profitable when the missions payed 2k per delivery.

Well here's the way to stop the game from crashing when you minimise it.

Open the engine.ini file and set full_screen = 0 and set screen_x and screen_y to your desktop resolution.
That will make your game run in windowed mode, but it'll still look fullscreen. And then you can nicely Alt+Tab out of the game.

Hope that helps.

If you have a printer you could alway's print yourself a copy of the map off but i like the way you can zoom in and out of that map hence the reason i haven't done that. To say i'm in the year 1667 i have not seen a single man of war yet or ships of the line, largest warship i have seen was the Soliel Royal and i ran from that, i bourght mine from the shipyard at 500,000+ piasters, i then captured a second and have kept that one so i can have a fleet of Soliel Royal's lol and run very profitable trade routes. The problem is i have only seen the enemey have one Soliel Royal and as i said i captured that one, i have never seen another since, most of the ships i see are Nightmare, Black Pearl, Constitution, Dutch Escort Ship and other similar ships. I had a 100,000 bounty on my head from Holland and the bounty hunters which i saw plenty of didn't come in ships to run from only the above named ships so maybe in the 1670's i will start to see man of war's not that i need one but its still nice to have one.

 

[Monolito]

I took the rat god quest. The lady was hard to convince-8x 4,5k in a Willemstad fun house. I didn't want to waste time looking for cheaper ladies because I can afford a 4,5k one. Anyways the destination was the Amatica Bay. I ran around and foud 2 chests and both were not usable. So I loaded the game and took an another try. I found it between some rock Now the damn rats won't bug me anymore While looking around I encountered 3 dudes chasing a girl. I started the fight and they couldn't even scratch me! Ovearhead brely wounded me! I've got the damage reducion perks and the Spanish Cuirass. Simply amazing!
I encountered a pirate named Dubios in a tavern. He offered me to raid a sunk spanish convoy which was carrying silver. Go for it? Is it really worth it? I declined 2 times but I think the guy might return. The quest was named A Pirate's Proposition.
I also met Ian Stance in a tavern somewhere. This time he agreed to join me. He seems like a noob. Talen 4 or 5. Take 'em or leave 'em?

 

[Luke159]

Nice, i haven't done the rat god quest yet, i've just started a new game just to see if i missed anything at the start and to see how long it takes to max all the skills of a character with skills slider set to lowest value, should be fun because that means the AI will max out quicker than me lol.

Talking about low ranked officers i took one on (added via a mod) James Bond (can't stand the movies) anyway he was ranked 4 when i took him on he's now ranked 5 but i only took him on because he had a ship i could sell lol, and i needed the money. I have set him as two roles Carpenter and Doctor in the hope that he will rank up faster and perhaps offer something more than what he's offering me at the moment. Personally had i not needed the money i wouldn't have taken him on so to answer your question no i don't think taking any officer on who's rank is low or at least lower than that of your own, but if you could alway's sack him after you sell his ship its up to you though. To sack an officer (just incase you don't know how, it took me a while to figure this one out) the officer you wish to sack give the role of a fighter, no talk with the officer in the same way you talk with other people and sack him, you should see the option. Don't worry about his/her threats you will be happy to know they are more of an angry person just getting there emotions off there chest than anything, example i sacked William Kid once, a year or two later i was doing a mission with him lol and he was fine didn't try to kill me or nothing.

Your second question, when a pirate approaches you in a tavern its because they have a mission which involves you going abourd there ship and speaking to them about some fleet thats had problems and you can make a lot of piasters from helping him retrive the goods, basically you can get there and have to fight ships and board them for the silver/gold, or you have to fight the troops on land and you will be automatically given your share of the loot but they are the same missions really and can be very profitable (not sure if it damages your reputation though with any of the nataions) I often have bounties out on my head so i don't take much notice of nations relations to my character as long as England and France don't turn hostile against me i'm happy which they have never have done (yet). If you waqnt to make a nice tidy profit go for these types of missions, they are part of the random missions which don't advance you through the game but they do add to your piasters, just don't forget to have a ship with a nice sized cargohold, if you already have one try to make as much space as possible for the silver/gold because you will want to be able to make maximim profit from the mission.

 

[Monolito]

Thnx for the info,Luke. I turned the pirate down twice. Right now I've got a fleut with almost 3400 cargo spaces. Below 20 cannons of 18th caliber. I'm not sure if my ship can handle any hostiles for now. The mission tiself involved whooping the remains of the spanish crew. I had 15 days to get from Willemstad to near Belize which could be a bit troublesome.
As for the officers-right now I've got 3 and all of them have at least 8 talent. Ian Stance seemed like a weakling so I didin't take him. I don't need his ship or anything because I make cash on my own so I left him in the tavern.

 

[Scrogdog]

As for the Rat Totem;

Go to the brothel ...

Arrr, Scrogdoggy!

Fred Bob found him de Rat God durin' de English Quest as mentioned in de follerin' link:

http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?/topic/13513-preparations-for-a-walkthrough/page__view__findpost__p__331711

Ye kin find dat thang on Trinidad whilst a doin' de "Celebrity Pirate Booty Hunt" part!

Doin' favors for a gubner now, are we? Ain't that... special.

What's become of ye, lad!!!

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