How to make the big bucks?

[Bogdan.]

Hi, I have started quite a few discussions over the last 48 hours; mostly because the tutorials online are very lackluster and your advice is more in demand.

now, i have completed the tutorial and i have been to portobello and all that, i have a sloop and i want to make some money! but every attempt to do so ends in failure, every ship I attack ends up only yielding a couple of thousand pesos.

most of this money is spent on re-hiring crew because no matter what I do i seem to lose 40-60% of them in every engagement. then from nowhere i pay a upkeep cost of 80k in one lump sum, what is up with that? i had to sell 1000 dubloons to make it before a mutiny took place.

so help me please, how do i make the big buck in this game without grinding for 80h.

[Bogdan.]

oh and also, almost every "ship" i encounter is in fact like 3 ships; which i really can't handle with a sloop and what appears to be crooked cannons... seriously they fire a volley and i am lucky if they hit anything.

[ad5ian]

Without a navigator with a skill to match the ship class, you are doomed. That it is not explained and I also had trouble at the beginning understanding how come the ship maintenance is so high. Probably you let that navigator that you took from prison go, or you didn't appoint him.

Right click the navigation skill, in the character window, to see what are the skills required for every ship class. For example if you have a sloop that is a class 5 ship, then you (or you navigator) must have at least 25 navigation skill. If not, you will get a lot of penalties (you can see those red numbers with minus next to your skills) and a huge upkeep for the ship.

[Bogdan.]

nono i did appoint him and he is still there, this was a one time thing, since then it has been roughly 8k per month for the lads... just this one time it was 80k, maybe it was a yearly thing? i have no idea

[ad5ian]

Not a yearly thing. It is strange because even if you captured a lot of ships and had to pay shares, 80.000 for a sloop is too much.

For money in the beginning it is difficult, you need good officers, a good cannoneer so your cannons be more precise, and do more damage and a doctor, so your crew will not die as easy.

[Bogdan.]

yeah exactly! i spend the better part of 2 hours making that money, only to see it gone....

[cHe]

Collect bottles of rum and sell them for over 1000 at lighthouses, some lighthouses has to be accessed from sea. Sometimes the lighthouse-keeper offer you goods, no matter where your ship is it gets loaded, buy all and sell for big profit. If an indian offers to sell you gold, silver or pearls (tears from heaven), buy all and sell for big profit. Look for guys who sell treasure maps in taverns, treasures might contain worth over 200000 and special items. Some damsels in distrsss in the jungles acutally has a treasure map, ofc you gotta bring them with you and share the loot but big loot. Work alot for harbourmaster and they give you more special assignments, you might get assissinated, but big cash.

[Cpt Fracasse]

Trading Tip :
Buy Ebony and Mahogany in Beliz and Blueweld
Sell the goods in Capsterville or Willemstad
I started in St Pierre with a small boat and finished with 2 caravelles and a galleon

Gamers:
Play with governors (as soon as you've reached a certain level 4 or 5). He will play with you.
You can beat him once a day. Save before going in governors'mansion and play dices for 500 pesos at the beginning and after 2000 pesos per dice.

[ad5ian]

After the Dutch Gambit, I bought a trading license for a month, I had 2 fleuts with increased capacity and I visited Porto Belo, Cartagena, Maracaibo, Caracas, Cumana and San Jose. There was enough time to make 4 trips or so to Willemstad. I bought cocoa, coffee, vanilla, leather, chili, and copra. Some tobacco too. The profit for less than one month was over 500.000 peso. The trading skill increased with 15 points or so. I used the amulet merchant beads, but that didn't made so much of a difference in prices. Ebony and mahogany are very heavy so they are for a later stage when I'll have access to larger merchant ships.

Also during the Dutch Saga, I had two Hot Raids, one heavy galleon filled with 900 gold ingots, split in half with my partner and one trading convoy with vanilla, i got 2/3 of that since I had 2 ships, over 1500 vanilla if i remember right. Since in the later stage of Dutch gambit I could not store any ship, I carried the heavy galleon with gold in my convoy waiting for the price of commodities to rise again.

[Bogdan.]

what is the dutch gambit? and where is the best place to buy all the things you mentioned :) ? i am currently hostile to spain, it's weird one of their ships attacked me and i sunk it, and i am the hostile one ?

[ad5ian]

Dutch Gambit is a quest you can start three months after returning and talking to your brother from the trip to Fadey in Guadeloupe. Actually you don't need to go after 3 months, your brother told you to came back after 3 months if you got enough skills. So it good to do Caribbean in a Nutshell from Fadey, then maybe a Chief of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, some free play, and only when you are 11-12 level you visit your brother and he tells you what to do.

You should invest a point in the ship skill Raise Dutch Flag. Also,you can pay that priest in Martinique some doubloons to settle the things with Spain. Actually I don't know if he deals with hostile too, hostile is not that bad, but if you fight some more the Spaniards, they will put a ransom on you and that's bad, you will be chased by bounty hunters.

So, you need the Dutch flag, buy a trading license from the Dutch company in Curacao and you can trade with Spain. Spain and Holland are trading, they are not at war. Take care though, the Dutch and English are at war, so if you have the Dutch flag raised, Spain will leave you alone, but the English will attack.

PS you can ask in the store for news and most of the times, the seller will inform you of prices in a a certain city. Also you can send longboats to other ships, talk with the captain and ask him the prices in the city he is coming from. Then, pressing F2, you can get to the trading page and see the prices in those cities. The fact is the capitals like Willemstad, Capsterville and Port Royal buy colonial goods to export them to Europe, so you can buy from the cities that produce colonial goods and sell them in the capitals that have high demand of those goods.

[Bogdan.]

ah alright! one question, what is a trading licence for? i can already trade with the dutch, and how would i obtain it? and am i supposed to get points every level, I am level 6 i think and i have only gotten one point personal and one point in ships so far

[ad5ian]

The ship and personal points are not connected with the level. One of the fist ship points must be invested in the Dutch flag. Also, don't bother trading now, you need one or two large merchant vessels. If you have a sloop, you'll make little profit if any.

For now, all you can do is fight the small pirate vessels, explore the jungle in every city, transport goods for the merchant, escort merchants, etc. Sometimes there is a guy selling a treasure map in the tavern, so that is a good way to make money. Only once I encountered a fake map, but my character has a good luck skill. This will develop your character and you'll earn enough money till you get a better navigator and can move to a larger ship. A war schooner is the next step from the sloop, because you can capture a war schooner with a sloop without much effort. Once you are level 11 or 12, you can return to your brother and start the Dutch Gambit quest.

Other quests that you can do one you get a war schooner are Easy Prey and one of my favorites is to help a convict escape from prison. Usually they have huge treasures (similar to those that some damsel in the jungle have), much larger than the ones from bought treasure maps. But getting a convict out of prison onto your ship is tricky and can ruin your relationship with that nation, although there are ways to do this very easy without any bad consequences.