Need Help [HELP] New player, having a hard time

[Cruzader]

I've been trying to get the hang of this game, but so far it seems absolutely impossible for me to win a ship battle. It is almost impossible to win a sword fight if I have more than 1 opponent, definitely impossible if I have 3 or more.

Is it really impossible to win a ship battle as a starting player, or am I doing something wrong? I've looked through this forum for any new player tips, but haven't found much. I have never been able to afford an officer or any upgrades, because all my money goes into repairing my ship after a storm or some other damage, and also paying the crew. I seem to be stuck with starting equipment. I also don't think I have ever leveled up so that I can increase my stats, unless somehow I leveled and didn't notice.

It has been recommended that I begin the game as a trader...completely avoid combat and just make some money, and then when I get rich I will be able to hire officers and get some upgrades so that I can finally start winning some battles. Is that really the only way to get past the early part of the game?

I've been playing as the Adventurer class, on Sailor (easiest) difficulty. So far, any sort of combat pretty much guarantees my failure and death, and it is getting frustrating to constantly reload saved games.

Help!!

 

[D1zzy]

I've only been playing a short time, and had to restart many times until I really got going so I'll try to impart what I've learned so far.

When you set up your character, set TALENT to 10, even if you have to lower other attributes to do so. This affects how quickly you gain a level (which will mean more life points and possibly a perk). Be careful though, as random encounters seem scaled to your level, so if you still have a tiny ship, you'll never be able to survive against something built for fighting with a captain with a few levels and perks. I also try to make sure at character creation that my Navigation skill and Trade skill end up at 10 as well. Each ship requires a minimum Navigation skill to use, and ships can't reach anywhere near their maximum sailing speed if your Navigation is low. Navigation seems to go up just by sailing around (even on the world map) so you can safely do this if you stay near a friendly port and just duck in if you see any pirates. This way, you can be your ship's navigator and you won't need to hire one. If you are adventurous, you can try to bait a pirate to follow you to a port. When the battle begins, you will have the friendly fort (and possibly some friendly ships) to blast the pirate. If you are careful, you can sail in when he gets damaged and loses enough crew that you can win a boarding fight. Boarding fights are scaled by the relative crew sizes and skill, so if the enemy has twice the crew then they will be twice as strong as your own. The melee fights shouldn't be a problem at Sailor level even if you are outnumbered three to one. Have at least 5 health potions (bought from the store in a port) and spam the X key if you seem to be taking damage. Remember to Parry, and don't forget your pistol. Shoot whenever an opportunity opens up. Win the boarding fight and you take your first prize.

Do the "find my lost ring/gemstone" quest for the Moneylender. It can net a few thousand gold and has no risk. Every Moneylender seems to offer it, so make sure to do it at each FRIENDLY port.

The delivery quests for the Store owners are easy money, but your ship may not be big enough in the beginning to even get offered them. Everyone says to do them, but I needed to get a slightly bigger ship than the starter before I got offered them with regularity.

The Port Master also gives an easy quest. He'll send you to find a ship whose captain forgot his logbook. It is easy to spot on the world map as it has green sails. It will be on a course from the port you are in to the port that Port Master indicates is his destination.

Keep your world map scrolled out to the max. If you see a storm (dark clouds) moving in your direction, forget whatever you are doing and avoid it. They can often be outrun or simply maneuvered around. My best advice is simply to know they are out there, and avoid them. You can also press TAB and move your mouse around to get an even more zoomed out view where it is easy to see storms and other ships. Avoid ships that belong to nations that your nation is at war with at first. They will attack you. You can identify them by their sails.

When you sell your starter ship, make sure to remove the cannons and sell them first, as you won't get paid for them otherwise. I usually remove them right at the start and sell them. They are tiny, do minuscule damage, have no range, and you don't even have a cannoneer to direct them with any accuracy. Sell all your cannonballs and powder as well. They just weigh your ship down and you need every ounce of speed you can get (and extra room for cargo). Your goal in the beginning is to run from everything (unless you see an opportunity to be a vulture) until you get enough money for your first real ship.

Stick with it. The game is fantastic once it opens up and you beat the initial learning curve. Make sure to report any tips you learn here as well.

 

[D1zzy]

After playing around, I need to make a correction. Talent seems to affect how fast your SKILLS go up and not how fast you level. This seems to be why my Navigation skill was going up so quickly as I always try to have Talent at 10.

Also, you'll eventually come to know whether a fight is possible to win. When you identify the opposing ship you'll remember "that is a Lugger with twelve eight-pound guns, a crew of 80 or so, and it runs well even into the wind" and you can make the decision to cut and run. Keep in mind that without a Cannoneer, you won't hit a thing you shoot at, so if you are going to fight without one you should close as fast as possible and try to force a boarding (but make sure you have enough crew to make that fight even). In the beginning, if you focus on Navigation or get an officer with the skill (and the speed bonus perks) you can easily sail away from fights you can't win.

 

[Cruzader]

Thanks, you've given me some stuff to work with. I've done the "find my lost gemstone" quest a few times (it was infuriating the first time, but now I know what I'm looking for), but I always had to spend the money immediately to repair my ship and pay the crew to avoid mutiny. I haven't been customizing my stats at the start of the game, I just take the defaults. But I'll look at it more closely in starting the next campaign.

I've never used a health potion...that probably at least partially accounts for my swordfighting problems.

You said that you can act as your own navigator...can you actually assign yourself to an officer slot? Or do you mean that it just uses your skill as the default when you have no officer assigned to that position?

 

[buho]

After playing around, I need to make a correction. Talent seems to affect how fast your SKILLS go up and not how fast you level.
[...]

Both IMO.

Lets say every 1% in whatever skill (leadership, navigation, luck, accuracy...) is a "skill point".

You gain a personal perk every (40 - Talent) personal skill points, a ship perk every (40 - Talent) ship skill points and one rank every (35 - Talent) of any skill points.

Cheers.
buho (A).

 

[buho]

[...]
You said that you can act as your own navigator...can you actually assign yourself to an officer slot? Or do you mean that it just uses your skill as the default when you have no officer assigned to that position?

You can't assign yourself to any position but you are in all of them.

Say you have only a gunner mate:

Mate: Cannons = 20, Accuracy = 30, Navigation = 60
You : Cannons = 30, Accuracy = 10, Navigation = 20

The game will use:

1) Cannons = 30 (yours). Best of you and your gunner mate.
2) Accuracy = 30 (officer). Best of you and your gunner mate.
3) Navigation = 20. You. Your officer is a gunner mate, his navigational skill is not taken into account.
4) Trade, Repair, Defence, Grappling: all yours if you have not officers assigned.

- o -

For ship perks, the game will use your perks and your officer perks. In your character ship perks list you'll see the perks "borrowed" from officers in green, yours in white and absent perks in gray.

D'ont rush for ship perks in your character. Till the late game it is the work of your mates to provide the ship perks. Do not assign to your char perks your officers can develop. Your char have some unique perks (not accesible to officers) you need to get (namely, the flags). Use wisely your first ship perks.

Remember that you can have only (2 * Authority) officers.

If you are low on Authority:

a) try to give your officers the personal perk Multitasking ASAP to assign them in most than one position and/or

b) develop an easy especialization yourself to save some officers: medic and purser (treasurer) are the quickest ones: only two perks each; gunner, navigator and carpenter will take a long while due to the high number of perks involved; incidentally, your trade skill will get up very fast at start, so purser is a good especialization for your char, and not having both trade perks from the go will not hurt you so much (gold will flow easily after the bitter start).

- o -

Personal perks are another beast.

No one can supply the personal perks you have not (Iron Will being the exception), so choose wisely. If you are a scoundrel, shame of mankind, nightmare of mothers, damsels and honest merchants, you need Honest Face. Not from the start, may be, but you'll need it, I believe.

Experience Exchange is a must.

Other than that, it is about your playstyle. Being horrible bad at sword combat, I go first for the pistols skills (four bullets will end most arguments), then the defensives and cuirass. Don't rush too much for the second pistol skill, anyway: four bullets pistols take a little to appear. My best advice: keep one point saved for the 2nd pistol skill and go assigning the defensive ones in the while.

If you want to get ranks and personal perks fast, rotate your swords. Work one type for some time (say: five skill points), switch to other type, switch again, repeat. Every new skill point costs more time to get, so keeping the rotation will keep you working up the cheapest skills, perking/ranking faster... and being a wimp with any sword, but you have the pistol if things come weird, you have not?

And, being a beginner, don't bother to fight alone in the start. You'll be chopped and served cold. If you have no fighters, put your officers as fighters when you are not in the ship (and have them well armed and with pots). If you are too much pressed, even put your officers as fighters before boarding, they may make a big difference (or die, take care).

Pots (and grapes and rum) are your friends. And your figthers friends. Stock on them. Stock specially on antidotes if you are planing to fight the skeletons in the caves.

- o -

Use the friendly forts to get some nice ships at start. Lure your foes to the fort, let the fort work them. Board when they are weakened (you need to have one officer for any ship you take as a prize).

Look for Sophies at start and Pinacces a little later. Awesome ships, well fitted for cargo and fight.

HTH.
buho (A).

 

[Cruzader]

Thanks for all the tips! I've figured some of it out by now, I have a class 5 Heavy Pinnace now so I'm making progress.

I completely misunderstood that green skills were ones I was actually getting to use, even though I didn't have them myself...so I've wasted some of my early skill picks by selecting things that were already green. Oh well, now I now.

 

[buho]

Enjoy! That lass will make your trade runs profitable while packing a respectable punch.

Cheers.
buho (A).

 

[Marki]

You don't have to be a trader never ever in this game if you don't want to. steal. sell. always full crew and climb the ships ladder: with the ship you have at the beginning you will be able to take over tartanes, schooners, small ships like that. try to hire at least one officer, then you can keep the ships and sell them. selling ships is the best income source I think. already at the beginning. with a schooner you'll soon fight down a Light Brig or something. and when you got your first brigantine for example and about 150 men and probably 3 officers you can already think of a ... USS Independence, in my actual case. with such a ship you can already almost take everything. if tuned up in bermuda to about 17 knots, sailing her it similar to sailing the flying dutchman. the only "trade business" I normally do is: where do I get the best prize (or an acceptable prize) for my booty?

 

[Spectre]

@buho
Ist it true, that the ship defense perks are part of the carpenter's job?
I know, it's written in the description, but the good doctor ist the guy for defense, with a shield in hes station sign..
The perks would be equally distributed that way, but It's kinda hard to verify...

 

[buho]

I believe the naval defence perks (carpenter mate) are about damage to the ship and the defence skill (doctor mate) is about protecting the crew. Doctor perks are about protecting the crew, too.

I don't know for sure if the naval defence perks lessens crew damage, but I feel not. On the other hand, grappe-shoting a ship with 85 defence skill is very different than grappe-shoting a ship with 50 defence skill, so yes: the defence skill protects the crew.

Cheers.
buho (A).

 

[Spectre]

Yea, indeed it is different... or maby it's because of the massive hull(points) of the ships you have, once you reach 85 def.
And the elite naval defens(c)e reads: "general damage down by 25%", so it's inconclusive.

Can anyone confirm that the 3 "naval defense" perks are really part of the carpenter's job?
If it is like that, then the carpenter has 7 perks and the doctor 2.... seems a bit off balance.

 

[buho]

Can anyone confirm that the 3 "naval defense" perks are really part of the carpenter's job?
If it is like that, then the carpenter has 7 perks and the doctor 2.... seems a bit off balance.

They are. If you put a carpenter with the perks they turns green in the main character perk list.

I have no doubt the naval defense are carpenter perks, my doubt is about them protecting the crew or not.

Perks are unbalanced: navigator, carpenter, gunner and bosun have a lot while purser and doctor have only a couple.

Cheers.
buho (A).

 

[CrankyPirate]

Both IMO.

Lets say every 1% in whatever skill (leadership, navigation, luck, accuracy...) is a "skill point".

You gain a personal perk every (40 - Talent) personal skill points, a ship perk every (40 - Talent) ship skill points and one rank every (35 - Talent) of any skill points.

Cheers.
buho (A).

This does not make sense.. if every 1% of a skill was a "skill point" and you gained one perk every (40 minus 10 Talent =30) skill points you would be gaining 3 perks per actual skill point increase i.e 10 to 11 in Luck..

 

[buho]

This does not make sense.. if every 1% of a skill was a "skill point" and you gained one perk every (40 minus 10 Talent =30) skill points you would be gaining 3 perks per actual skill point increase i.e 10 to 11 in Luck..

It is about wording, I think.

The 1% I'm talking about are the big numbers you have in the right column. The skills range from 1 to 100: 10 to 11 Luck is the 1% (aka "skill point") I'm saying.

Cheers.
buho (A).

BTW: Cheers to all, mates. Nice forum revamp!

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy buho! Good to see you mate!

xenForo took a bit of getting used to for sure, but it has some really fantastic features that make things so much easier. There are still a few things that need some tweaking, but in my opinion it is the best piece of forum software on the market at the moment.

 

[Officerpuppy]

Buho, you're back! Welcome!

 

[CrankyPirate]

It is about wording, I think.

The 1% I'm talking about are the big numbers you have in the right column. The skills range from 1 to 100: 10 to 11 Luck is the 1% (aka "skill point") I'm saying.

Cheers.
buho (A).

BTW: Cheers to all, mates. Nice forum revamp!

Yes, sorry, I get what you mean now.