Thanks for the confirmation :]
A few things I noticed while playing (some already stated).
- Don't waste any money or war points buying ships on that branch off to your left. Buy ships in the column on your right and your right only (This is the column that has
Ship of the Line
at the top).
Ship of the Line is the best ship in the game, in my opinion.
- Don't use any attack other than
quick shot. It cost less AP and does almost the same amount of damage as the others. You can defeat a ship but destroying it's sails but it seems to take just as many shots. Same for aiming at the crew. Aiming for the haul may do a little more damage, but it's not noticeable. Use quick shot only and possibly haul shot for the final boss.
- Board ships only to get the achievements for boarding ships. So don't bother to board more than 30 ships.
- When you fight always try to knock out one ship at a time. It's better to face 2 fully healed enemy ships on the enemies turn instead of 3 half damaged enemy ships on the enemies turn. If you attack first and knock out one enemy ship, it means one less enemy firing at you and do damage to you on the next turn.
- Don't overkill an enemy. If you shoot too quickly and don't wait to see how much damage your shot does, you may send 3 shots to an enemy that could have be destroyed in two. That's a wasted shot that could have done damage to another enemy.
- Once you've upgraded your fleet a bit and have some decent money, you may want to begin using
Powder (costs $500 and does 1.5x Damage) or
Dynamite (costs $5000 and does 3x Damage) in your battles. it can be really helpful, just make sure to use it correctly. If an enemy ship only has 20 health left don't wast your money using dynamite or powder, instead switch to Cannon, your regular shot to finish them off. Powder and Dynamite are extra helpful when you go first in battle. If you can defeat the entire enemy fleet before they can attack you, you can avoid being damaged and having to repair your ships. Just make sure that you don't spend more money on
Powder and
Dynamite than you will make for winning the battle.
- Buying a ship will reduce the cost of all the ships that are above it (for that particular ship). So if you buy the
Carrack for you middle ship, all the ships above
Carrack will be slightly cheaper for the middle ship. Don't bother saving money up to buy an expensive ship. As soon as you have enough money, go to your lowest ship you own and buy the next best one. (You may want to wait until you have a little extra cash for repairs, before buying the next better ship).
- Fully upgrade all of your lower level ships when you have them. Do this until you obtain "make 25 upgrades" (if you want you can do this until you have "make 50 upgrades", but there's no point in getting "make 100 upgrades"
. Doing this with the lower end ships will cost less war points and gold and will give you stars for upgrades. Once you get 25 (or 50) upgrades don't bother to upgrade any new ships until you have the best ship,
Ship of the Line.
- Don't bother to upgrade cargo, whether it be the cargo upgrade that uses stars or a cargo upgrade on a ship itself. (Do upgrade cargo on individual ships if you are going for the "make 25 upgrades" it should be cheap enough not to be a big deal.)
- The easier ports to unlock are: San Pedro, Pinar, and Montego.
- The medium ports to unlock are: Panama and Port-au-Prince (I think)
- The hard ports to unlock are: Fijo, Caracas, Dominica, and San Ivan (I think)
- Don't bother to trade items aside from doing it to get some of the achievements. I've found that the game can make it look like you are going to make money, but you end up losing money. It's unreliable and it seems easier to make you money from battles and conquering ports.
- To beat the final boss you basically need to do this:
Have 3
Ship of the Line ships each one fully upgraded. With stars, have damage, action points, accuracy, and hull fully upgraded. Make sure to have plenty of money before entering the final boss battle. Around $300,000 should be enough. During the boss fight make sure every attack you do is Dynamite (3x damage and costs $5000). Use only
quick shotor
aim for haul. I used
aim for haul when I beat the final boss.
- If you follow the above you should also be able to beat the game in less than 300 days.
Most of this has been pointed out already and the game kind of guides you into doing some of this stuff, but I usually end up getting carried away and posting this kind of stuff anyway, even when the games are rather simple. (Or I post something and then some one points out a big flaw or has an easier technique and I feel stupid lol, but this one should be pretty solid.)
