Random useful tips

[Young Erusean Officer]

Until we get guides let's drop tips for cool stuff that is easy to miss:

(light spoilers ahead)

You can hire a french chef if you bring a x amount of black pepper to Calais (perhaps other french ports too)

[Fateburn]

I'm sure many are aware that in the month of February, the Venice Carnival buys Hobby, Liquor and Artware goods at increased prices

However, it's worth keeping in mind that Jewelry, Glass Artware and Oil Paintings will not sell for much even during the festival as Venice already produces those

So best nearby places to stock up from is Athens, Thessalonica, Naples and Genoa

[dollars202]

West Africa has gold, ivory and diamonds as it's designated trades. So load up on those expensive things and go up to northern europe if you see a west africa thing up there. they sell for lots and lots of coin. Also, if you want to open a guild in east africa bring coral from the carribean, you'll need 5 per port.

[Fateburn]

Originally posted by dollars202:

West Africa has gold, ivory and diamonds as it's designated trades. So load up on those expensive things and go up to northern europe if you see a west africa thing up there. they sell for lots and lots of coin. Also, if you want to open a guild in east africa bring coral from the carribean, you'll need 5 per port.

Was about to write about this, the amount I've earned just from West Africa trades blows Venice Carnival out of the waters. I've had profit margins as high as 2100% due to stockpiling and selling only premium goods.

I recommend starting guilds specifically in Sierra Leone, Abidjan and St. George specifically as they have a solid selection of Gold/Diamonds. Gold and Diamonds are worth much more than Ivory apparently despite being about the same price when buying. For the Guilds, you only need to invest mainly in Trade and a little bit in the Population, Tech is optional.

The Culture Prominent surge for West Africa can happen in other places other than North Europe as well, not sure if it is but it does seem to be a random status that the game checks for at the start of each month.

[Winter]

Build an accounting room on your flagship as soon as possible (unlocked after having 100k gold for the first time).
You get 2% extra profits per calculating level that your assigned character has, which might not seem much at first, but it adds up fast, if you get 10% or more extra gold per sale.

You also only need to have the character in the accounting room, when you actually sell goods, so they can be in a different room during voyages.
I'm using Lu Liyuan (joins if you start with Yun Mu, idk if other starters can get him as well) as accountant and surveyor, for example.


Another room you want built as soon as possible is the studio (unlocked by having knowledge of 50 types of goods), which has a 3% x your characters selection skill lvl each day to turn one of the goods on board of your ship into premium goods.
This not only makes them more expensive to sell, but they are also needed for several trade quests, so it's good to get that room as soon as possible.

You do need to have one character in the room for the entire time, while you are at see though, so they can only have that job and possibly a combat related one, if you're willing to switch them around for combat.

[Tomn]

One useful general tip: It is very possible, even easy, to find routes early on that allow you to grind up money reliably over time. It is tempting, then, to do exactly that, only exploring once you have plenty of cash under your belt.

Resist this urge. Exploration offers rich rewards, both monetary and otherwise. In particular, the more you explore the faster you can find new crew members, who'll serve vital roles to empower your ship. As well, the further you explore the more likely you are to find even more lucrative trade opportunities than that available in your immediate area. That's not to say that a little grinding now and then isn't out of place if there's some specific thing you want to save up for and it's within relatively easy reach, but try not to burn yourself out running back and forth endlessly between two ports when there's so much more to do that gives you so much more.

Also, on that note, when you get new crew members try to level them up somewhat when you get a chance. Not only does this unlock various bonuses, it frequently unlocks various sidequests.

[Med [Redacted 2x]]

Superb quality shipbuilding materials can be farmed from pirates via bounties (Hard or V. Hard Diff).

Tips for combat:
- Use triple forward shrapnel cannons + 2 heavy metal armor + large ship of your choice
- Given the setup above, you can solo every single bounty. Leave the rest of your ships at a nearby dock to minimize losses.
- Avoid bounties in narrow areas (Persian Gulf, Florida Straits) since pirates always have high positional advantage on contact.

[Tomn]

So here's a useful and easily ignored tip: You know the "Edit cargo" option in the sail preparation screen? If you click on that, you'll also notice an "Allocate cabin" button. This is critically important: It allows you to determine how much of your cargo space is reserved for supplies, and how much is reserved for cargo. Want to do profitable short hops? Cut down on supply space and max out on cargo. Want to sail across the Pacific? Cut cargo to nothing and fill 'er up with supplies. This is how you get REALLY long-range exploration going on.

[Winter]

I feel like a fool for finding this out so late, but you can actually repair the permanent durability loss on ships that is caused by aging, by appointing someone with a decent lvl of repair to a maintenance room (unlocked by building/ordering 2 ships) on your flagship.

The sailor needs to be in the room, when you go to a shipyard to repair your ships, and then they will not only repair damage, but also the aging related durability loss.

I'm not sure what level you need to be to get 100% durability back, but my shipwright has lvl 7 repair and that's definitely enough to repair up to 100%.

I already sailed half the world and to the Americas before I found that out.
Would've made a lot of battles easier, if I knew sooner :')

[RobOda]

Originally posted by Tomn:

One useful general tip: It is very possible, even easy, to find routes early on that allow you to grind up money reliably over time. It is tempting, then, to do exactly that, only exploring once you have plenty of cash under your belt.

Resist this urge. Exploration offers rich rewards, both monetary and otherwise. .

Surely it is worth doing these mini trades in a small area, to boost up for guilds etc? Or are guilds not worth it?

[Tomn]

Originally posted by RobOda:

Originally posted by Tomn:

One useful general tip: It is very possible, even easy, to find routes early on that allow you to grind up money reliably over time. It is tempting, then, to do exactly that, only exploring once you have plenty of cash under your belt.

Resist this urge. Exploration offers rich rewards, both monetary and otherwise. .

Surely it is worth doing these mini trades in a small area, to boost up for guilds etc? Or are guilds not worth it?

Guilds are 100% worth it - the thing is, it's worth shopping around to see if you can find even MORE profitable trade routes to build up your warchest, or better ports to turn into guilds than just the things around your starting area. If you don't explore much you can find reliable local trade routes that turn an OK profit, but it's important to range further afield to find equally reliable long-range trade routes that turn huge profits. Like for instance, it's POSSIBLE to make decent cash trading goods in the North Sea between Britain, Scandinavia, and the Dutch, and it can be tempting to think "Oh, so I should grind up here until I'm rich!" But you can make much more money trading between Northern and Southern Europe, and even more if you get Africa into the mix with some investment. By all means you should settle down and invest in guilds, but shop around before you decide where to sit and settle.

Edit: Also as far as grinding up contribution to qualify for guilds go, commerce guild missions and bounties are much better for that than trading local goods by a country mile.

[Mack]

Guilds are a gigantic time & in-game cash sink, that I'm not entire sure is really worth it for more than one of them, centrally located in Europe.

I'd say build one in Seville (for advanced galleons) or Plymouth (ship of the line) and max it out.

You can then buy those top ships rather than have to deal with grinding out the money, permits & time it takes to get access to the high level materials to custom make those ships yourself just to get the bonuses being custom made. It will also give you a huge amount of trade goods that are premium and you can make massive amounts of cash selling them to boomtowns.

[Tomn]

Originally posted by Mack:

Guilds are a gigantic time & in-game cash sink, that I'm not entire sure is really worth it for more than one of them, centrally located in Europe.

I'd say build one in Seville (for advanced galleons) or Plymouth (ship of the line) and max it out.

You can then buy those top ships rather than have to deal with grinding out the money, permits & time it takes to get access to the high level materials to custom make those ships yourself just to get the bonuses being custom made. It will also give you a huge amount of trade goods that are premium and you can make massive amounts of cash selling them to boomtowns.

Guilds are absolutely worth it, but you shouldn't be trying too hard to start or cultivate one until the money to invest in them is easily affordable. They're primarily a mid-late game thing - early-to-mid you might start up guilds in key cities, but it's not really that worth investing in them at that point, just benefiting as you can from simply setting up the guild.

The key thing is that guilds means that the city produces more, and as you start filling up your fleets with big ships and configuring your cargo holds to be mostly cargo with only just enough provisions to do regular trade runs, filling up your cargo holds starts honestly becoming difficult and you NEED the enhanced production of guilds to be able to keep up, and multiple guilds at that. And of course empty cargo holds are wasted money so you want guilds at both ends of your trade routes to ensure you have holds full of rich goods. It takes a bit to set up but the payoff is dramatic - as in emptying 80 holds worth of goods to make a million bucks in profit dramatic if you have things set up right. That can't be accomplished with only a single guild.