Game Play Sequence - Quest & Recruit All Main Characters or Ok With One?

[arcademan]

I've been playing with one main character from China and have been progressing with upgrading ports & the like. Some discussions I read through have noted that you can't recruit the other main characters until you play through their quest lines. So instead of spending time on the first character, you could hold to advancing the quest line until finish then repeat that for the other main characters to un-lock for recruiting. Then you play and enjoy the full game. Or is the game just as enjoyable with enough regular characters to recruit if you just proceed with your first character? And does anyone have an estimated play time to un-lock all the main characters with play throughs? (It's like 4 chapters of quests for each?)

[Antiga]

I still wonder what I would have done if I had known all this myself, beforehand.

I am now playing Yoshitaka for 100+ hours. I haven't finished any of the other characters, so I cannot recruit them.
For my feeling i'm really not missing much. But the main characters do come with some potentially really good specialties, such as Andrew allowing you to spend a lot less exp to level up other crew members. But none of this is essential in any way. Abdullah is the only main char with a specialty that actually unlocks a feature, (Ship Capture) but Blackbeard, which can be recruited by anyone, has the same specialty.

If you know the game well enough and rush, you should be able to finish each MC in like 5-10 hours.

I still sort of regret not having access to the other characters, as I do know I won't be playing through again, at least not anytime soon. I'm one of those people that tries to get the most out of a single play through. In this case that would've included the other MC's, but again, after 100 hours, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

[Timmy the Tooth]

You can absolutely enjoy the game without having all of the other captains (or even characters) unlocked. The unlocked captains do have some unique skills, but they aren't necessary to enjoy the game with any of the others. People do this as kind of a min/max thing, that's all.

[Timmy the Tooth]

Originally posted by Antiga:

Abdullah is the only main char with a specialty that actually unlocks a feature, (Ship Capture) but Blackbeard, which can be recruited by anyone, has the same specialty.
.

I had heard Abdullah can recruit any ship if crew is killed, BB can only do med and small. I feel it's a huge diff, but I have only finished Andrew and just finishing up Yoshi so can't confirm that yet.

[>HarkH<]

"Having more doesnt means it's better"

Dont bother, each Starting Captain have their own specialty but none are that important.
Just immerse yourself in the Role play.
Andrew just go wild and try to get all the discovery possible (there's a lot of them to discover in the world map there's an interactive map under construction if you miss a few)
Yun Mu, create the greatest trade compagny in the world
Yoshitaka, create all the different ship of the game ( and collect all the rare ones)
Abdullah, well you just the best privateer that ever exist try to collect all the treasure.

My first run was with Yoshitaka and i cleared the game 100% ( all archievement possible unlocked, beside main character ones) I did more in that run and enjoyed it a lot more than most people who fast runned all the Main character and didnt enjoyed the game that much doing it.
Did i miss any of the other main character ?
Abdullah, well i have Rare ship of Line in my fleet, i dont give a damn about stealing ship anymore ( in the end it's only usefull early game stage, it's totally useless end game )
Yun Mu,i have build a trade empire and traduced all book so who cares ( again only helpful early game)
Andrew ... all my character are maxed 99 so i dont care at all, have all the trade item available already, and any of my trade route can give me 100 to 400 contribution so i dont care.

So ya i dont miss them at all. In the end those added bonus characters are there to help you in the early and mid section of the game but if you rush their story what's the point ?
cleaning the side content and end game content ?
u dont need them for that.



you have a total of 30 recuitable characters and a few of them have their own quest
so you wont miss any of the starting characters:
So as Side character,
Yun Mu have nothing really noteworthy to offer,
Andrew... well probably the best captain to have early game
Yoshitaka ... his personnal equipment make him the best shipbuilder maxed a 19... but do you even need that much ? you can get rare with 12 shipbuilding in a 600 tech shipyard with no additionnal item (need some reroll but that's good enough )
Abdullah ... that's an other story, easily recrutable and have the most broken game skill
(get abdullah and go to Ceylon cature some armed privateer: variant brig and you can clear the whole game easilly) But that's the easy mode feels like cheating ... I rather enjoye the early stage hardship and the felling of growth when i reach the next step after some time and effort.

[Sabin Stargem]

Abdullah is pretty important if you want to upgrade to better ships or expanding the fleet without investing in guilds. The other captain of note is Yun Mu, increasing the value of sold goods as your knowledge expands.

The remaining protagonists are not too significant. They are just nice to have.

That said, I can see a 100% run being much faster with Andrew and Yun: They shave off swathes of time spent on developing your trade network. I am guessing Andrew alone removes at least 4,000ish reputation for ports, assuming you get him without making many stops.

[>HarkH<]

"Having more doesnt means it's better"

Originally posted by Sabin Stargem:

Abdullah is pretty important if you want to upgrade to better ships or expanding the fleet without investing in guilds. The other captain of note is Yun Mu, increasing the value of sold goods as your knowledge expands.

The remaining protagonists are not too significant. They are just nice to have.

That said, I can see a 100% run being much faster with Andrew and Yun: They shave off swathes of time spent on developing your trade network. I am guessing Andrew alone removes at least 4,000ish reputation for ports, assuming you get him without making many stops.

they do save some times, but not as much time as you invest to speed run them. So that's just wasted time you could enjoy your game instead.

And you have to research the game to speedrun in the first place, time you could spend to just improve what you currently have ingame and you will reach the same point. But i enjoye playing the game more than researching stuff to speedrun.

[Antiga]

Originally posted by Timmy the Tooth:

Originally posted by Antiga:

Abdullah is the only main char with a specialty that actually unlocks a feature, (Ship Capture) but Blackbeard, which can be recruited by anyone, has the same specialty.
.

I had heard Abdullah can recruit any ship if crew is killed, BB can only do med and small. I feel it's a huge diff, but I have only finished Andrew and just finishing up Yoshi so can't confirm that yet.

I don't know about that, but indeed would be a huge difference.

Edit:
"Abdullah, well i have Rare ship of Line in my fleet, i dont give a damn about stealing ship anymore ( in the end it's only usefull early game stage, it's totally useless end game )"
That's how I basically feel as well. At first I thought it'd be quite an issue for me, but the idea of being a shipbuilder and being able to build the ships I cannot capture made me not mind too much. And in the end, indeed, it just doesn't really matter that much.

[>HarkH<]

The core mechanic of the game is to build a sturdy trade route, with premium goods
it's give you lotta gold and lotta contribution.
(a good trade route give you around 500k to 1M, and arround 100 to 200 contribution for a 5 min trade run. Late game it can go up to 4M and 400 contrib per trade run with all the multiplier from character perk and the calculating bonus )

And it's faster to do that ingame than fast run any character. Even you speed run them they will only help you build that trade route faster so totally pointless. If you already have them unlocked use them obviously, but otherwise dont bother.

[Sabin Stargem]

My version of Yun Mu gives about +29% to each profitable trade. It is my guess that with all resources known at all ports, she can do +35%. Andrew already unlocked the governor goods.

[Sunny]

There are 34 Chars ingame.

No you don't need the other Captains.

count it:


Abdullah
Aji
Garaba
Hiyar O'Worley
Katelyn
Lu Liyuan
Nasser
Sassi Palmis
Shen Shi
Takigawa Amagai
Yoshitaka Shizuma
Yun Mu
Beluget
Kornelly
Anastasia
Andrea
Andreas Heinrich
Andrew
Beatrice
Carlos Cortez
Costello Hermann
Daniel Crete
Dietlind
Esmeralda
Henry
Joyce de Fritz
Loris Falaise
Maltim Almeida Blanca
Mustafa Amir
William Ansel
Yuskin
Blackbeard
Jaca
Marma Cora

[arcademan]

Originally posted by >HarkH<:

(a good trade route give you around 500k to 1M, and arround 100 to 200 contribution for a 5 min trade run. Late game it can go up to 4M and 400 contrib per trade run with all the multiplier from character perk and the calculating bonus )

Thanks for all the responses. As a follow-up, when people talk about trading runs giving Contribution towards the end game is that still a consideration? Each port has a 1,000 maximum and then nothing happens after that for contribution or does it? I could see XP being promoted at that point for leveling up crew.

[dollars202]

I'd play all the main characters and do their main questline, then go and pick which one you want to do a 100% on, each one teaches and focuses in on different parts of the game so you could find what interests you more. Also, ports max at 50k population, and 1000 of tech,trade and contribution. However everything is unlocked when you hit 40k population and 800 of the others.

[Kel Athos]

Originally posted by arcademan:

Originally posted by >HarkH<:

(a good trade route give you around 500k to 1M, and arround 100 to 200 contribution for a 5 min trade run. Late game it can go up to 4M and 400 contrib per trade run with all the multiplier from character perk and the calculating bonus )

Thanks for all the responses. As a follow-up, when people talk about trading runs giving Contribution towards the end game is that still a consideration? Each port has a 1,000 maximum and then nothing happens after that for contribution or does it? I could see XP being promoted at that point for leveling up crew.

Contribution just becomes a number after 800. Maybe there is something they will be adding in for 1000 contribution later on.

Yun is the character I wish I did first. Due to the fact that she doubles your discovery fleet exp. Abdu is definitely the MVP due to his ability to capture any type of ship. Yoshi is good because of the cabin expansion feature but you can get it through upgrading a port with a item store. So Yoshi is probably the weakest MC to me. Andrew getting 100 contribution when discovering ports is pretty wild too.

[arcademan]

Follow-up question two... When you trade with other ships / fleets it says you gain Maritime Trading Favorability or something like that. Is that number & description somewhere on the Character page or elsewhere to track? Or does that affect a crew members skill?

[yugimutoshung]

Originally posted by >HarkH<:

"Having more doesnt means it's better"

Dont bother, each Starting Captain have their own specialty but none are that important.
Just immerse yourself in the Role play.
Andrew just go wild and try to get all the discovery possible (there's a lot of them to discover in the world map there's an interactive map under construction if you miss a few)
Yun Mu, create the greatest trade compagny in the world
Yoshitaka, create all the different ship of the game ( and collect all the rare ones)
Abdullah, well you just the best privateer that ever exist try to collect all the treasure.

My first run was with Yoshitaka and i cleared the game 100% ( all archievement possible unlocked, beside main character ones) I did more in that run and enjoyed it a lot more than most people who fast runned all the Main character and didnt enjoyed the game that much doing it.
Did i miss any of the other main character ?
Abdullah, well i have Rare ship of Line in my fleet, i dont give a damn about stealing ship anymore ( in the end it's only usefull early game stage, it's totally useless end game )
Yun Mu,i have build a trade empire and traduced all book so who cares ( again only helpful early game)
Andrew ... all my character are maxed 99 so i dont care at all, have all the trade item available already, and any of my trade route can give me 100 to 400 contribution so i dont care.

So ya i dont miss them at all. In the end those added bonus characters are there to help you in the early and mid section of the game but if you rush their story what's the point ?
cleaning the side content and end game content ?
u dont need them for that.



you have a total of 30 recuitable characters and a few of them have their own quest
so you wont miss any of the starting characters:
So as Side character,
Yun Mu have nothing really noteworthy to offer,
Andrew... well probably the best captain to have early game
Yoshitaka ... his personnal equipment make him the best shipbuilder maxed a 19... but do you even need that much ? you can get rare with 12 shipbuilding in a 600 tech shipyard with no additionnal item (need some reroll but that's good enough )
Abdullah ... that's an other story, easily recrutable and have the most broken game skill
(get abdullah and go to Ceylon cature some armed privateer: variant brig and you can clear the whole game easilly) But that's the easy mode feels like cheating ... I rather enjoye the early stage hardship and the felling of growth when i reach the next step after some time and effort.

You mentioned getting 100% achievements so pls shed some light.. I've found all the ports but apparently I haven't found all the seas/waters so do you remember which seas you have to go the extra mile for? I'm also missing one or two legendary equipment but I've bought all rare equipments from all shops and got holy grail and saint staff