it took several runs in and out of the tavern before a town drunk errr guard showed up.
There are other ways to get the time, though.
I think there should always be a soldier in the taverns at night, so you don't need to try multiple times.
And you can send one of your officers, so you don't have to wait.
Both tricks should help.
Then more time was spent watching my ship bob in the waves at 20x speed until it was time to go ashore.
You can go to your ship deck, talk to a sailor and skip time immediately.
Saves you having to wait.
Then it took 3 tries before I got past the soldiers. There was no way to just run away so I had to just keep redoing it until they did not show up.
If soldiers showed up, either you did not time your arrival well or you got bad information.
Change the setting I suggested earlier this week to avoid bad information.
Being caught is not the end of the world, though.
Let yourself be caught, fight yourself out and you'll loot a book with the soldiers' time schedule.
Then next time, you don't need to figure out the time again, because you'll already know.
Until the schedule changes, but that only happens occasionally.
And I think that is somewhat tied in with the Tavern News, so you can be aware of it.
Then it took 3 more tries before I could get out of the harbor before the battle fleet sank my ship.
What player level are you?
The Coast Guard ships are generated the same as Governor Ship Hunting, Treasure Quest Pirates and Escort Quest Enemies.
Those are all deliberately coded to be in line with the player, so it is not an impossible battle.
At the start of the game, the Coast Guard only shows up with a single ship as well, so it's not so hard.
So nothing has changed in 2 years and smuggling is not worth the bother
Do you want it to be possible to be caught at all? Or do you not enjoy having any risk to it?
The risk isn't very different now from before. What is different is that now you have ways to reduce that risk yourself.
If you really don't ever want to be caught, we can figure out a quick fix for you to just disable the soldiers and coast guard altogether.
That's easily done.